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It’s been six months since I joined the TradeCentric team, and time certainly has flown by quickly. I’ve learned a significant amount in my tenure that has helped me develop the vision for our products, and how we can innovate to best serve our customers.
I have witnessed on many occasions and in a myriad of ways how TradeCentric’s B2B Connected Commerce solutions support our customers, as well as the significant impact they have in driving more efficient, seamless B2B eCommerce.
My top priorities as CPTO are understanding how we can enhance and improve our technology to better support customers, along with exploring opportunities to expand into adjacent solutions that meet our customers’ short and long-term needs.
Delivering this technology is critical in a world where eCommerce is becoming ever-more critical to B2B sales. Digital Commerce 360 reports that US B2B eCommerce sales alone topped $2 trillion in 2023, while a recent Forrester blog covers market opportunities and expectations around B2B eCommerce heading into 2025 and beyond.
Here are some of my key observations from the last six months.
1. Do it Yourself (DIY) Integration is Complex
Buyers and suppliers increasingly demand a B2C-like experience from B2B interactions. That means seamless, transparent integration of the buyer’s eProcurement systems with the supplier’s eCommerce platform.
Companies may start with the expectation that they can deliver these integrations themselves, but they often underestimate the IT resources and expertise required. Building and maintaining integrations can become expensive, overwhelming, and challenging to scale – especially with a large variety of eProcurement systems in the market. These complexities can quickly overshadow the value delivered.
Partnering with a specialized software provider enables your company to reap the full benefits of eProcurement integration without overwhelming or exhausting your internal resources. Instead of trying to configure and scale integrations, they can focus on other valuable tasks that drive growth and revenue for the business.
It also allows you to leverage specialist partner expertise and toolkits they have developed over many integrations. More often than not, partners have experience and tools that are not available in-house, such as pre-built connectors, strategy sessions, trading partner analyses, best practices for buyer adoption, and tips to secure buy-in from sales to name a few.
Finally, partnering gives you access to the analytics and reporting you need to make better, data driven decisions.
2. PunchOut Continues to Grow
Suppliers invest a lot of time and money into their eCommerce presence, so they want to ensure its full value is realized. They seek ways to attract more buyers to their online storefronts, where they can deliver the best customer experience and ensure that customers are getting correct pricing as well as current promotions, and to increase revenue from digital channels.
PunchOut has been steadily gaining traction for many years, and it continues to be a top request from buyers looking for a seamless shopping experience.
It is a strategic tool that can increase short-term and long-term adoption, and increase eCommerce revenue. Offering PunchOut gives a competitive advantage over others in your space who aren’t offering these capabilities.
In a recent TradeCentric and Digital Commerce 360 study, 61% of suppliers reported at least a fifth of their customers actively requesting connections between their eCommerce storefronts and the supplier’s eProcurement solutions.
While there’s clearly strong customer demand, only 35% of supplier respondents stated that they are actively investing in supporting the eProcurement purchasing channel. This points to a significant gap in changing buyer behavior which is not currently being met by suppliers.
3. Partnership is Key to Support Diverse Buyer Purchasing Preferences
There are numerous eProcurement platforms and solutions, each with their own unique processes and approaches, making it increasingly difficult for suppliers to meet all demands effectively.
To navigate this complexity, suppliers should seek a provider capable of supporting all eProcurement integration methods, such as:
- B2B Connected Commerce Solutions like PunchOut, Purchase Order Automation, and Invoice Automation
- Marketplace enablement
- Automation for hosted catalogs
Partnering with an expert in eProcurement integrations enables suppliers to streamline operations, reduce manual efforts, and enhance their ability to meet various buyer needs. This approach not only improves efficiency, but it also strengthens supplier-buyer relationships by providing a consistent and high-quality purchasing experience across all platforms.
4. Reliability, Security and Functionality are Crucial
In my time at TradeCentric, I’ve heard frequently that customers seeking an integration partner look for 3 key considerations: reliability, security & data privacy, and functionality. Here’s how TradeCentric stacks up in those categories:
- Reliability: An uptime of 99.99% for all solutions means customers can be confident in TradeCentric’s reliability and responsiveness.
- Security & data privacy: TradeCentric is fiercely committed to security, as evidenced by our ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications.
- Depth of Functionality: The TradeCentric Platform provides real-time visibility into transaction and spend data, along with testing and troubleshooting capabilities that help customers get up and running with integrations faster.
What next?
We’re making substantial investments in our platform in 2024, including exciting upgrades to our analytics capabilities, to help customers quickly understand their growth and performance. Stay tuned for more news on those developments by subscribing to our newsletter.
I’m looking forward to the next six months and beyond, and ensuring TradeCentric continues to deliver products and solutions that enable our customers to harness the power of Connected Commerce.
To find out more about how TradeCentric can help you, and to continue the conversation, visit us or reach out to me on LinkedIn.
