Integrated commerce technology is meant to help B2B companies run smarter and bring more value to customers. That value proposition is top of mind for Elizabeth Segovia, CEO at the digital commerce technology vendor TradeCentric.
Segovia is a former executive at information technology companies Lenovo and IBM. She also served at eCommerce services provider ChannelAdvisor (now owned by CommerceHub). Her path eventually led to TradeCentric in 2023 when she joined as its senior-most executive.
TradeCentric specializes in providing connected commerce technology. It seeks to enable buyers to access their suppliers’ eCommerce sites from within their eProcurement software. That’s done by letting customers shop for products with real-time inventory and pricing information. However, it can simultaneously be necessary to abide by companies’ individual spend management policies.
To operate, connected commerce involves such related systems as purchase order automation and invoice automation. In doing so, the technology provides companies with visibility into the entire “procure-to-pay” process.
Speaking with Digital Commerce 360, Segovia shared her insights on trends in connected commerce. She also addressed TradeCentric’s future course in supporting it. In her eyes, businesses should benefit from accessing and using real-time data on commerce transactions and customer behavior. Her comments were lightly edited and condensed from the recent interview.
Interview with Elizabeth Segovia
Digital Commerce 360: Beth, with your executive background in technology, manufacturing and ecommerce from your prior roles at Lenovo, IBM and ecommerce marketplace facilitator ChannelAdvisor, what excited you about joining TradeCentric as CEO?
Elizabeth Segovia: It’s interesting that you asked that question because TradeCentric is honestly like the perfect pull-together of my background. I grew my career in manufacturing hardware and engineering roles, so I did a lot of work around manufacturing procurement and the procure-to-pay process. And I spent a good chunk of my career really building buyer experiences for large customers, so I have a lot of understanding of what it means to serve buyers, and how they buy from you, and making that efficient and better.
At ChannelAdvisor, I learned all the things about how ecommerce businesses grow, how they transact, digitizing and transforming their commerce programs. We spent most of our time on B2C — but there were emerging B2B marketplaces — and really started to think about B2B.
This TradeCentric role really pulls all of that together and is exciting because it pulls together all of that manufacturing and procurement background and gives me an opportunity to focus on B2B. That’s super exciting.
DC360: How well are companies in general grasping the value of B2B connected commerce, with integrated ecommerce and procurement systems backed by in-depth operational data and performance analytics?
Segovia: It’s a really interesting time. It’s a nascent space. We see some real trailblazers making a lot of headway, and then we see a lot of other companies that need help and guidance and expertise to get them started or get them moving faster in the right direction.
We’re certainly seeing some faster adoption right now, and more prospects are engaging us to ask questions. And we’re seeing people with really large commerce programs who want to turn those programs over to an integrated, dedicated connected commerce program. Those are great companies to work with because their programs are already significant and they’re expanding.
But we probably see more companies on the other side, where they have been reacting to buyers’ requests. They may have 10 or 15 buyers they’re working with in a connected commerce way, and they’re starting to see results.
They’re starting to say, “Hey, these buyers are stickier. We’re seeing revenue growth. We’re seeing efficiencies on our side, and our buyers are happy we’re offering the connected service.” So they’re starting to understand there’s an opportunity here to differentiate.
DC360: There are companies seeing good results from connected commerce. Do they tend to be particular types of businesses or in particular industries?
Segovia: That was one of the questions I asked early on here. There’s not really a concentration. But there are some areas of industry where we see higher adoption rates. The life sciences industry has a pretty interesting adoption rate, and a lot of university systems procure in this way, doing more connected commerce.
In a recent survey of B2B companies, however, 61% of respondents said that more of their buyers were asking for connected commerce integration to be connected directly into their procurement system. But only about 35% of companies are doing something to meet that demand.
Yet I think everybody really wants an improved purchase experience and everybody is facing macroeconomic pressure and looking for ways to cut costs and get more efficient, so I think these solutions are industry-agnostic.
DC360: How does TradeCentric’s Business Intelligence Portal help buyers and sellers better manage procurement operations and operate more efficiently?
Segovia: The Business Intelligence Portal enables companies to see their real-time transactions and troubleshoot the transactions to make sure document transfers don’t fail. The portal also allows them to see insights they need to manage trading partner relationships, such as that a buyer tends to buy on Tuesdays or that a buyer’s purchasing volume has changed significantly.
Companies are using this data on a daily basis to manage their business. They want actionable insights and proactive alerts and monitoring.
They say, “Don’t just tell me there’s an issue; tell me what I can do about it.”
We’ll be delivering more capability through our intelligence portal as we go through 2024.
DC360: What are some of the performance metrics companies are realizing from connected commerce?
Segovia: We did a study last year with research firm Hobson & Co. and found an 80% reduction in time spent on purchase order management and a 75% reduction in time on automating invoices and doing invoice error resolution, and a 20% increase in revenue. There was also a 30% improvement in accounts receivable outstanding, collecting faster because purchase orders and invoices are matching.
DC360: How does AI fit into connected commerce trends?
Segovia: We can’t really talk about technology transformation now without talking about AI. We’ve got a lot of projects underway in our 2024 roadmap. Regarding some of the insights we talked about regarding detecting trends and behaviors in your customer data — we want to give access to more of those insights and help customers analyze their data quicker, leveraging things like natural language queries. And using ChatGPT and other ways to interact with customers, we can get to and resolve their issues faster.
Those are the sort of low-hanging fruit opportunities that we’ll be pursuing this year. But there’s more to come.
