Introduction

A leading office supply company recognized a significant opportunity to strengthen relationships with key accounts and win new business by supporting the digital purchasing needs of enterprise customers. As organizations increasingly adopted eProcurement systems, the company saw integration capabilities, such as PunchOut, not just as a requirement, but as a strategic advantage to differentiate itself in a competitive market. To meet evolving customer expectations, retain key relationships, and remain competitive, the company partnered with an integration provider to implement a scalable B2B integration strategy that has since transformed the business.

“We’ve been able to not only save customers, but also attract major opportunities because we have this capability. We’ve been able to differentiate ourselves in the market.”

Sales Operations Manager

The Challenge

The company’s customers were transforming how they buy, prioritizing solutions that offer efficiency, compliance, and ease of use through eProcurement solutions. For the company, this represented an opportunity to deepen partnerships and unlock growth by aligning with customers’ and prospects’ purchasing strategies (and a serious risk of falling behind if they didn’t).

“I had to say goodbye to several customers because we didn’t have this.”

Sales Operations Manager

Their primary challenge wasn’t necessarily driving awareness, but securing buy-in from leadership and implementing tools to execute integration capabilities at scale. After a large enterprise customer approached them and issued an ultimatum to either integrate or lose the account, the company began tracking all the lost opportunities resulting from not offering integration. Once they were able to quantify the business impact to leadership, the decision was a no-brainer.

“[Integration] is where the market is going and our competitors are doing it. And this is another way that we can stand out.”

Sales Operations Manager

The Solution

The company took a strategic approach to solving this challenge by partnering with TradeCentric to implement PunchOut and B2B eCommerce integration solutions that could scale quickly and support enterprise-level requirements. The approach combined technical expertise with strategic enablement.

Sales enablement was a heavy focus, ensuring sellers understood the value of PunchOut and felt confident introducing the solution during customer conversations. This education initiative was crucial in establishing a streamlined intake process that was simple, consistent, and widely adopted across the sales organization. Now, most integration opportunities arise from the Sales team collaborating closely with customers to understand upcoming projects and priorities, which further positions the company as a trusted partner rather than simply a vendor.

“Making the team confident and informed was critical. Most opportunities now come directly from sellers digging in with customers.”

Sales Operations Manager

The Results

The integration program has transformed the company’s ability to drive revenue growth. Today, integration capabilities are a competitive differentiator, allowing the company to strengthen existing relationships and secure high-value new business. One of their in-pipeline opportunities represented $7 million in annual revenue, and that’s just one potential trading partner relationship. The company continues to build a strong pipeline of enterprise accounts.

“This has been extremely successful for our key accounts team that handles our large volume customers that are over $100,000 in annual sales.”

Sales Operations Manager

Beyond revenue growth, the program has positioned the company as a more strategic partner to its customers and strengthened its ability to compete in a rapidly evolving market.

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