I’ve been helping B2B companies build digital commerce systems for close to 20 years now. During this time, one thing became clear through dozens of implementations, hundreds of discovery sessions, and thousands of user interactions: most B2B commerce projects fail because vendors solve the wrong problem.
The shiny new commerce platform looks great in demos. Leadership approves the budget. Marketing starts planning the launch. Then the buyer walks in the room and says five words that should terrify every project sponsor: “We’re not using another tool.”
That moment captures the disconnect at the heart of most digital commerce failures. The people responsible for day-to-day purchasing and order management are not looking for a new interface or workflow. When technology requires users to leave their ERP or procurement platform, adoption slows, efficiency declines, and the entire business case starts to fall apart.
This happens more often than anyone wants to admit. The core issue? B2B commerce vendors keep building storefronts when their clients desperately need plumbing (integrations).
The Front Desk Renovation Nobody Asked For
Think about renovating a hotel. You install beautiful new counters at the front desk. Better lighting everywhere. Touch screens that photograph beautifully for your website and marketing materials. The lobby looks amazing in pictures.
Meanwhile, housekeeping still uses paper logs to track room status. The kitchen runs on a completely different system that doesn’t talk to the front desk. Maintenance tracks work orders in spreadsheets.
The front desk looks amazing, but the hotel doesn’t work any better than it did before. Guests still experience the same delays. The renovation addressed aesthetics while ignoring operations. This exact scenario plays out in B2B commerce every single day.
The Workflow Problem That Everyone Ignores
B2B companies operate on workflows built over decades across multiple systems. These workflows involve real people doing real work that keeps businesses running.
Purchase requisitions flow through multi-level approval chains. Quote processes involve multiple stakeholders across different departments. Procurement systems connect to vendor networks that took years to establish. Payment terms tie into financial systems with complex rules governing credit limits and approval thresholds.
All of this lives in the eProcurment/ERP and its surrounding ecosystem. Your commerce platform sits outside this ecosystem and that’s why your buyers don’t want to use it for purchasing.
According to recent industry research, 87% of companies now use eProcurement tools to enhance supplier sourcing. These tools have become the central nervous system for how businesses buy things.
Yet only 35% of suppliers actively invest in integration with these systems, despite 61% reporting that a quarter or more of their customers are requesting it. This gap between buyer expectations and supplier capabilities creates friction that costs real money and damages relationships.
When buyers engage across multiple interaction channels, the quality and seamlessness of the experience matters more than ever. Research from McKinsey confirms this shift in buyer behavior and expectations.
The consequences of ignoring this gap? A recent B2B Pulse Survey reports that 65% of buyers are likely to switch suppliers if they don’t get a seamless purchasing experience across channels. This willingness to switch vendors continues to grow as digital expectations rise and more B2B buyers refuse to settle for clunky buying processes.
In Part 2, we’ll explore how leading suppliers are scaling faster by combining great digital experiences with robust integration frameworks.
