Idea Transcript
Taking the Wheel Driving Toward B2B E-Commerce Industry Best Practices
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B2B Sales is Being Transformed Business models are less durable than they used to be… [they] are subject to rapid displacement, disruption, and, in extreme cases, outright destruction. The basic rules of creating and capturing economic value were once very rigid. Companies tried to execute the same business models better than their competitors did. That doesn’t have to be the case anymore. Unlike product and service innovations, business-model innovations travel well from industry to industry.
July 2015
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The Time for Innovation is Now The climate for innovation is ripe because the experiences and expectations your customers have at home are being brought to work. The average age of a B2B buyer is now under 35 years old and that market is beginning to demand a very differentiated experience. The business that can do this best is going to be in the position to excel financially.
$6.7T Anticipated size of the global online B2B marketplace by 2020
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Top Line Growth is the Bottom Line Most organizations have or are in the process of optimizing the costs of their existing operations. For B2B sellers top line growth is the most significant measure of success because it is representative of expanding market share. With online marketplaces chomping at the bit, the industry generally abides by the principle “start growing or die slowly.”
Growth drives more value than cash or margin short term and three-quarters of value long term…but more than half of companies fail to grow or destroy value in the attempt.
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Experience is the Key to Success The end customer doesn’t care about channels. Too many B2B organizations take an offline first approach when in reality customers switch seamlessly between channels. Buyers personal shopping experiences effect their business purchasing preferences. Personalizing their business buying experience is a great way to differentiate yourself. Great retail sites works because they personalize to how a buyer shops. A great B2B site should personalize to how a buyer works.
50%
of B2B buyers say improved personalization is a key reason they want to work with a supplier
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Being Easy to Work With is Hard It’s long been said that people buy from people they like. This has always been true, but the manifestation of this principle takes a very particular form amongst B2B buyers. B2B buyers buy from companies that make it easy for them to do their job. This is what it means to personalize in a B2B context. • Automating the ordering process with pre-saved information for order entry, shipping and billing forms • Automated recommendations based on order history and account status • Give visibility into order status, transactions, billing, approvals, etc
• Personalized home page based on role, location, contract and buying patterns • Customized catalogs based on entitlements and contracts • Personalized alerts, reminders, and email messages about new products, maintenance offers, specials, quotes, orders, invoices, etc
76%
of B2B buyers say finding what they are looking for is the most important factor in a site’s design
74%
want product information available online and across all channels
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Complexity is Everywhere It’s not always easy to provide the level of personalization, transparency and self service customers want. 85% of B2B sellers say their ERP system is an important piece of the customer experience puzzle. This, however, creates a real problem since most B2B organizations are supporting multiple ERPs across multiple locations. Creating contracts, new pricing, onboarding and other core e-commerce activities takes too long. The gap between B2B organizations’ ability to deliver services and the expected speed of those services is widening as B2C experiences continue to get better and faster.
44%
say onboarding, product and price management are too complex
85%
say e-commerce access to the ERP is a vital component in the pursuit of customer satisfaction
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Understanding the Problems
Revenue Growth Customer Experience Management
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To visualize this we have created the wheel you see on the right. The wheel shows the three main challenges facing online B2B sellers and the three levers that can be pulled to address each issue.
• Buying Complexity • Selling Complexity • Growth Complexity
• Site Traffic • Conversion Rate • Average Order Value
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As we evaluate the key challenges that B2B organizations will continue to face, the issues can generally be categorized as follows: • Revenue Growth • Customer Experience Management • Complexity Management
Main Rev
Now more than ever B2B sellers capabilities are misaligned with B2B buyer’s expectations. The financial impact of this misalignment could be massive given the increasingly competitive landscapes of the various B2B verticals. As the B2B market continues to grow to $6.7 trillion in transactions by 2020, B2B sellers can expect both more opportunity to differentiate themselves and more competition.
Complexity Management
Customer Experience Management • Simplicity • Visibility • Personalization
E-Commerce Evaluation Guide
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Revenue Growth Site Traffic
Conversion Rate
Average Order Value
Capabilities Required
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71% of search result clicks are organic search results. The bottom line here is that you can’t effectively buy traffic. The single biggest step a company can take to pull the site traffic lever is to improve their search engine ranking by focusing on the exposure of relevant product details in context.
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Since virtually all B2B research is dependent upon search engine results, the key to growing site traffic is to rise in the organic search results. To say it a different way, businesses want to get found in the natural course of buyer research.
This can involve many different activities, but the trick is to think about your products the way a customer would think about them.
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The first of several challenges to growing online B2B revenue is simply being found by your target customer base. Some measures indicate that 84% of revenue growth on consumer sites is due to increasing site traffic. There are very few reasons to believe this number is different for B2B.
Rev
Pulling the Lever: Site Traffic
Customer Experience Management
Are you customers more likely to search for “galvanized lag bolt” or “3/4 in by 6 in galvanized lag bolt”? There may not be a clear answer to this question, but, generally speaking–the more specific you can be with product data the better off you will be. Here are six other tips to help you grow site traffic: 1. Expose “long tail” product details 2. Index every possible dynamic page 3. Simplify “crawling” with automatic site maps 4. Beautify URLs by making them human-readable 5. Keep content up to date with fast indexing 6. Push new content to search engines automatically
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Revenue Growth Site Traffic
Conversion Rate
Average Order Value
Capabilities Required
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Since 30% of visitors use the site search box, B2B sellers have a great opportunity to influence the research and buying cycle by focusing on providing the most relevant search recommendations and create pain free paths to the right products.
Customer Experience Management
There are several capabilities that are essential to enabling this: 1. Propose valid next step with search type ahead 2. Present possible matches with spell correction 3. Control relevance with product sorting 4. Refine product selection with faceted navigation 5. Preselect most valid attributes for customers 6. Boost customer confidence with product data 7. Support research with dynamic rich media
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There is a very strong relationship between on-site search and intent to buy. Some studies have determined the impact of site search on conversion rate can be as much as a 50% increase.
eG
The ultimate question in this regard is “can my customers get to the right product quickly?” In order to succeed the answer must be an emphatic yes!
Helping B2B buyers take the right path to the right product as fast as possible is fundamental to delighting B2B buyers.
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The second lever that B2B sellers can pull as it relates to growing revenue is to create a great experience for clients once they get to your site.
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Pulling the Lever: Conversion Rate
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Revenue Growth Site Traffic
Conversion Rate
Average Order Value
Capabilities Required
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1. Present relevant products and content 2. Allow rules and context to personalize 3. Balance automated and manual content delivery 4. Segment customers by any relevant criteria 5. Reach buyers according to their preferences 6. Leverage history and entitlements in promotions
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Today, half of B2B buyers expect improved product recommendations. They expect their vendors to understand them and their needs at a deep enough level to make product recommendations.
Here are six ways to hone your customer’s buying experience:
eG
Selling organizations should consider whether they are maximizing the revenue that each of their customers are generating. Two questions to consider are: • Do my customers currently have spend that is going to a competitor and are we maximizing category spend within my existing customer base? • In other words, are their products my clients are buying somewhere else and are there opportunities to cross-sell or up-sell products they already buy?
The most successful companies will pull the average order value lever by utilizing customer entitlements, history and site behavior data to make product recommendations more relevant and compelling.
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The third lever B2B sellers have at their disposal to help grow revenue is to increase their average order value.
Rev
Pulling the Lever: Average Order Value
Customer Experience Management
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Revenue Growth Site Traffic
Conversion Rate
Average Order Value
Capabilities Required
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Capabilities Required for Revenue Growth • Site Traffic • Conversion Rate • Average Order Value
Customer Experience Management
Site Traffic
Conversion Rate
Advanced Indexing Automated Site Maps URL Beautification Dynamic Pages
Faceted Navigation Guided Search Search Based Merchandising
Average Order Value Preference Based Recommendations Segment Based Recommendations Transaction Based Recommendations
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Customer Experience Management Simplicity
Visibility
Personalization
Customer Experience Management
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• 73% of your customers want automated workflow for approvals because most routine approvals distract from strategically important work
eG
The driving force behind simplifying the buying process is to make a B2B buyer’s job easier and in turn make you their vendor of choice. It’s a truism that people like to buy from people they like. That truism applies in B2B e-commerce and when you are easy to work with, people will want to work with you.
• 74% of buyers research at least half of their work purchases online because they don’t want to talk to a sales rep. Complete and concise product data is essential
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The area of customer experience management is increasingly central to online sellers’ strategy but what does that practically look like? The answer is threefold: simplicity, visibility and personalization.
Rev
Pulling the Lever: Simplicity
Customer Experience Management
Below are a few ways to make it easy for buyers to buy and approvers to approve: 1. Delegate user administration of catalog filters 2. Simplify complex price management 3. Provide appropriate order capture methods like bulk order entry and share purchase lists 4. Automate approval and rejection workflows 5. Streamline most common tasks 6. Speed up the onboarding process with self-service
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Customer Experience Management Simplicity
Visibility
Personalization
Customer Experience Management
Why do buyers care about cross channel availability of account activity? Because visibility builds awareness and makes buying easier.
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• 62% of buyers say unified order history availability is important or very important
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• 64% of buyers say visibility of all account activity across channels is important or very important
eG
Visibility” in this context means a single view of product and account data across channels and in a single location.
Visibility into account activity speeds up the buying process because it gives the buyer confidence they have all the relevant information to make the purchase.
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The second lever B2B sellers can pull to create an exceptional customer experience is to increase the visibility buyers have into both their organization’s entitlements and buying habits.
Rev
Pulling the Lever: Visibility
Customer Experience Management
Here are five ways to empower your customers with a unified view of their business: 1. Give them a convenient single dashboard for saved, shared and scheduled orders 2. Make it easy to find order and quote status 3. Allow them to maintain ongoing purchase lists 4. Make purchase limits and cost centers clearly visible 5. Give them a view of frequent and recently purchased items
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Customer Experience Management Simplicity
Visibility
Personalization
Customer Experience Management
• 73% of buyers want personalized approval workflow, unique to their needs
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• 68% of buyers want flexible price lists and catalogs for different users
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• 64% of buyers want personalized cross-sells and substitutions
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The best B2B sellers can rise to the top of the market pulling this lever because it fulfills requests that buyers have already said are important to them:
The key message here is to tailor the buying and research process to your buyers’ preferences.
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Personalization is perhaps the biggest lever B2B sellers have to create a differentiated customer experience. Personalizing to the way a buyer works touches on many of the other levers we have already discussed.
Rev
Pulling the Lever: Personalization
Customer Experience Management
If you can do these things you will create a relevant and engaging buying experience: 1. Personalize home page based on role, location, contract and buying patterns 2. Give suggestions by keyword, part number, manufacturer 3. Filter search results based on purchase history 4. Provide negotiated pricing on select products, by organizations 5. Deliver relevant, helpful content to inform your customers buying decision
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Customer Experience Management Simplicity
Visibility
Personalization
Customer Experience Management
Capabilities Required for Customer Experience Management Visibility
Order Scheduling Approval Workflows Delegated User inistration
Single Dashboard Pending Approvals Buying Power Order History
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Simplicity
Customer Experience Management
Personalization • Simplicity • Visibility • Personalization
Entitlement Driven User Experience Automated Billing Forms Customer Alerts
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Complexity Management Issues Buying Complexity
Selling Complexity
Growth Complexity
Complexity Management
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Customer Experience Management
Below are six ways to reduce costs while making your customers happier and helping them do their jobs faster. 1. Customer-generated quotes 2. User controlled configurations 3. Customer self-selecting catalog filters for buyers 4. Approver workflow automation 5. Organization wide shared order lists 6. Onboarding at your customers’ pace
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A large portion of B2B buyers think common tasks are far too complicated. 93% of buyers want to transact online once they have made their buying decision. Empowering customers to do their job without having to interact with the selling brand is a recurring theme today. Buyers expect routine, (and some not so routine) processes to be easily accomplished online.
eG
Of all the complexities that can hurt your long term business, buying complexity is the worst. Customers don’t care how many ERP systems you have to send information to and they certainly won’t care about your difficulties managing multiple channels.
Meeting this expectation not only delights your customers but can save money. Some organizations are seeing a 90% reduction in cost to serve by moving clients to an online self-service environment.
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Complexity can kill your business. Its not always easy to provide the level of personalization, transparency and self-service customers want. For most of you it’s going to require granting more visibility to your ERP, system reevaluating your e-commerce platform capabilities, or at the very least, the UI components of your site.
Rev
Pulling the Lever: Buying Complexity
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Complexity Management Issues Buying Complexity
Selling Complexity
Growth Complexity
Complexity Management
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eG
One of the biggest hurdles for B2B selling organizations to get over is their own complexity. If you can get your technology to act as a business enabler rather than a hindrance there is money to made.
The market continue to become more competitive. You should never miss an opportunity because your tools or technology slowed you down.
85% of B2B sellers say that their ERP is a vital component in their pursuit of customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, 44% of that group says the common tasks a B2B seller has to execute, like onboarding, catalog and price management, are far too complex.
Industry leaders are capable of executing these routine practices with ease, are you?
Many B2B sellers don’t bother to adjust pricing or promotions over time because the net increase may not be worth the effort. In reality a 1% increase realized price can lead to an 8% increase in operating profit.
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Pulling the Lever: Selling Complexity
Customer Experience Management
1. Manage personalized price lists 2. Keep catalog data up to date 3. Add, remove and modify catalog items on the fly 4. Create and deploy targeted content 5. Allow business users to create the right experience for each customer
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Complexity Management Issues Buying Complexity
Selling Complexity
Growth Complexity
Complexity Management
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Can your current platform provide you the tools you need to grow?
Their pain is your opportunity. Remember, the new rule is grow fast or die slow. To expand your business you have to be able to reach new markets quickly.
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A lot of B2B sellers struggle with the complexities of growing. Creating new micro-sites for high value customers is slow. New geography or brand sites are painful to set up. For many sellers managing organization, pricing, and catalog structures across multiple sites isn’t worth the growth opportunity.
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If you want to capitalize on these opportunities you need an e-commerce platform that is built to scale.
eG
How much growth can you accommodate? If you had the opportunity to enter a new market, could you do it in a cost effective and timely manner?
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Rev
Pulling the Lever: Growth Complexity
Customer Experience Management
1. Multi-site framework for quickly sharing assets across brands 2. Multi-geo sites to create a unique and regionally relevant experience 3. Omni-channel responsive design to create a consistent experience everywhere 4. A single tool to manage sites, channel and brand experience
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Complexity Management Issues Buying Complexity
Selling Complexity
Growth Complexity
Complexity Management
Capabilities Required for Complexity Management Selling Complexity
Buyer Generated Quotes Intuitive User Experience Online Account Self Service
Content Management Catalog Entitlement Contract Management
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• Buying Complexity • Selling Complexity • Growth Complexity
Buying Complexity
Customer Experience Management
Growth Complexity Rapidly Deployable Micro Sites Multiple Language Support Multiple Currency Support Application Integration Framework
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E-Commerce Evaluation Guide Revenue Growth
Customer Experience Management
Complexity Management
Revenue Growth
Site Traffic
Conversion Rate
Average Order Value
• How are pages indexed? • What content is included in the index? • How are site maps created? • Are URLs human readable out of the box? • How do catalog changes effect my site map and index? • How do search engines know my pages have been updated?
• How easy is it to find what I am looking for? • Is navigation intuitive? • Is all product data included in my index? • Can we recommend search results? • How easily can merchandisers create facets? • Are product pages easily configured?
• What tools are available to present products and content in context? • Can I create rules driven recommendations? • How robust is the segmenting capabilities? • Can I manually select cross-sells and up-sells? • How do I balance automated and manual content delivery?
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E-Commerce Evaluation Guide Revenue Growth
Customer Experience Management
Complexity Management
Customer Experience Management
Simplicity
Visibility
Personalization
• Can my customers manage their own users? • Can customers manager their own buyer’s catalog filters? • How do I present complex pricing? • Can I support my customers preferred order entry methods? • Can I automate approval workflows? • How complex is onboarding?
• Will buyers have access to shared and scheduled orders? • Will buyers be able to see order status in a single place? • Can buyers quickly find past quotes and order history? • Can groups maintain ongoing purchase lists? • Will buyers clearly see recurring or frequently purchased items?
• Is homepage relevant to customers industry and catalog entitlements? • Are search results relevant to purchase history and catalog entitlements? • Will forms be prepopulated based on known information? • Can we provide personalized alerts to buyers? • Are recommendations relevant to order history?
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E-Commerce Evaluation Guide Revenue Growth
Customer Experience Management
Complexity Management
Complexity Management
Buying Complexity
Selling Complexity
Growth Complexity
• Can users create their own quotes online? • Can buyers configure their own products accurately without a sales representative? • Can customers manage their own buying entitlements? • Are purchase lists shared and visible across the business? • Can new customers onboard quickly?
• How difficult is it to maintain up-to-date catalogs and price lists? • Can I add / modify / remove catalog items on the fly? • Can I preview site changes as they will be? • What tools do business users have to create the right customer experience?
• Does the platform support multiple languages OOB? • Does the platform support multiple currencies OOB? • How quickly can I create new branded or regional sites? • How many tools do I need to manage all my sites? • How will the platform scale to meet my growth goals?
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Oracle Commerce is purpose-built to handle the complexities and scale of B2B e-commerce while delivering consumer-like experiences that help business buyers do their job with ease, and make the buying process more personalized, and profitable. Oracle has helped B2B manufacturers and distributors of all sizes and we would be pleased to have the opportunity to discuss your goals and how we might help. If you would like more information please visit our website at: https://www.oracle.com/applications/customer-experience/commerce/solutions/b2b-commerce.html
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