Digitize B2B CommerceWith Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Contents

Introduction

Why go digital?

Creating better experiences

How to digitize with AI & ML

Conclusion

4

6

17

19

2

17

Gone are the days where making a business-to-business (B2B) sale require exchanging many emails and phone calls, with transactions being entered into Excel sheets.

B2B sales are being done more digitally by the day where data entry and similar manual tasks are reducing. This means two critical improvements in B2B commerce: increased operational efficiency and better buyer experiences.

The B2B eCommerce market is predicted to grow to over $1 trillion by 20231, which makes supplier and customer experience more critical than ever. In return for optimizing the digital buying experience from an operational and end user perspective, companies will experience increased brand loyalty, higher revenue growth, as well as reduced costs.

Many B2B companies are launching digital commerce sites to both improve the customer experience and transactional efficiency. Amazon and Netflix are two examples of brands praised for their digital experiences, for reasons such as speed and ease of use.

Though most B2B eCommerce sites will differ in functionality from their B2C counterparts, it’s still possible to deliver a powerful experience with features including search, catalog navigation, and self-service experiences.

When strategically implemented, digital commerce not only improves the customer experience, but boosts operational efficiency, productivity and revenue. Creating a B2B organization that is easy to do business with has become a must for many verticals.

As the variety of digital tools in the business world grow, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the latest buzzwords. They’re buzzwords for a reason – they are transformational. But to date, there are few real-world examples of AI and ML implementations for eCommerce in a B2B context.

4

1 Forrester, Landscape: The B2B Ecommerce Playbook (2019)

Introduction

There are many benefits gained from digitizing B2B sales operations regardless of the industry, such as:

Improved Customer Experience: The manufacturer, supplier, and buyer will better work seamlessly across all channels, making the sales process simple. By unifying all sales channels under one platform, users have an intuitive experience with more visibility of their purchase.

Productivity and Cost Efficiency: Automation technology reduces the need to staff administrative and clerical roles, which reduces company overhead costs.

By streamlining manual processes such as data entry and other “mundane” tasks, employees can dedicate more time to customer relationships and experiences, product management, HR and other value adding activities.

Revenue Increase: Technology may require some upfront investment, but the short and long-term rewards are worthwhile if strategically implemented.

A McKinsey study found that the top B2B “digital leaders” earn 3.5% more revenue than their counterparts with lesser digitization.4

Moving away from manual and human-led process makes B2B organizations easier to do business with and ultimately increases revenues. Regardless of how complex an organization’s supply chain is, digital strategies can be implemented for impressive benefits to the organization, supplier and customer.

5

4 McKinsey, How Digital Leaders Drive Five Times More Growth Than Their Peers (2016)

Why go digital?

Top B2B “digital leaders” earn 3.5% more revenue than their counterparts with lesser digitization.

6McKinsey, How Digital Leaders Drive Five Times MoreGrowth Than Their Peers

A typical B2B shopping experience isn’t about simply adding products to a cart, clicking “buy” and paying. In a Gartner survey 57% of respondents reported that delivering the desired customer experience is a top challenge in their digital sale endeavors.5There are many elements involved in delivering great experiences:

User Experience: Today’s standards for eCommerce websites is more than just a list of products. To engage current and future buyers, a website must be visually appealing and intuitive, from navigation and search to the checkout process.

In terms of content, business buyers feel confident in their purchase decisions when they receive regular technical guides, white papers, e-books, blog posts and other educational content.

Though desktop websites are important, it’s critical not to overlook the mobile platform.

In 2017, Google found that 90% of B2B buyers would return to a vendor that provided a positive mobile shopping experience. Additionally, 50% of B2B search queries are made via mobile devices.6 Furthermore, mobile conversion rates are lower than that of desktop platforms despite the fact that mobile device use for shopping is increasing.7

Voice and image search are two AI technologies that can improve mobile eCommerce. Voice search can integrate with Configure/Price/Quote (CPG) technology to centralize data across eCommerce partner sites, making it easier to use voice search to make bulk orders. Image search allows users to upload product photos to search rather than typing names, which is both fast and convenient when users don’t remember the product name. Both voice and image search reduce the need to type, which quickens the buying process.

5

5 Source: Gartner, "2019 Strategic Roadmap for Digital Commerce," Jason Daigler, 30 April 2019 6 Google and Boston Consulting Group, How Mobile is Reshaping the B2B Landscape for Growth (2017)7 Google Data, aggregated, anonymized data from Google Analytics for U.S. retailers (2016)

Creating better experiences

57% of respondents identified delivering the desired

customer experience as one of their most critical

challenges faced by their organization in its digital commerce endeavors.

According to data from the Gartner 2018 Digital Commerce State of the Union Survey

3Source: Gartner, "2019 Strategic Roadmap for Digital Commerce," Jason Daigler, 30 April 2019

Site Performance: Having a high-performing site with fast load times regardless of user load makes a difference in reputation, loyalty and the ability to convert visits to sales.

A study found that 53% of shoppers exited an eCommerce site that was “too slow.”8 To optimize performance, a website must be available and scalable.

Capabilities such as auto-scaling and predictive scaling can improve the customer experience by ensuring you have consistent site performance regardless of volume, even on Black Friday or similar peak periods.

When implemented correctly, auto-scaling and predictive scaling helps add and subtract computational resources as needed, optimizing the company’s budget and improving the performance of the site.

Personalization: 73% of B2B executives recently reported to Accenture that expectations for a more “personalized” shopping experience are higher than ever.9

Over time, B2B buyers will expect customized navigation, search, recommendations, delivery methods, and websites. AI is the key to delivering these experiences. Through a centralized data repository, AI find patterns on things like abandoned carts, browsing behavior, buying history, and other key factors to deliver a contextual experience that makes customers more inclined to engage and purchase.

5

8 RSR Research, Retailer Website Performance Evaluation: Are Retail Websites Meeting Shopper Expectations (2019) 9 Accenture, Make Music, Not Noise (2017)

Creating better experiences

The implementation of digital strategies in B2B differs from that in B2C. Making a sale in a B2B context is lengthier and more complex, from generating proposals to contracting to completing transactions. The journey to effective digitization starts with integrating online and offline sales channels to gain a single view for the user.

Organizations should then integrate their digital commerce platform with other business systems. This helps form the end to end process being digitized, or the systems that are needed to deliver critical data to a central data repository. Creating an aggregate data repository is a fundamental building block to achieving the desired outcomes.

With the foundation in place, businesses can begin to take advantage of AI and ML capabilities to automate and streamline processes while forecasting more accurately and predicting clear buyer behavior.

According to Gartner, "by 2023, 80% of organizations using artificial intelligence for digital commerce will achieve at least a 25% improvement in customer satisfaction, revenue or cost reduction."11

5

How to digitize with AI & ML

OfflineChannels

Integrations

Data Automation

Data

11 Gartner "Hype Cycle for Digital Commerce, 2019," Dayna Ford, 5 August 2019

JOURNEY TO AUTOMATION

“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil,

but data.”

6The Economist, May 6th 2017 edition

Stock and Inventory Management: Anticipating and forecasting future demand is becoming increasingly complex with the proliferation of sales channels and fulfilment methods. A lot is at stake if mistakes are made. Over forecasting leads to wasted resources and time, but under forecasting causes missed sales opportunities and revenue. 62% of B2B companies find their forecasting efforts to be ineffective.12 Most traditional forecasting systems and tools are based on traditional statistical techniques that are not fit-for-purpose in the current complex business environment.

While most organizations have good intuition on what drives demand, they do not have the techniques and tools to apply this to an accurate and granular forecast at SKU, channel and location level. This is where AI can make the difference.

By using AI to better forecast demand and integrating it with product and order management capabilities, businesses can optimize inventory purchases, maintaining the right stock in the right locations at the right time.

Automating Order Processing: For many businesses it is time consuming and tedious to manually enter customer order information, especially in high volume sales. Manual processing of orders also lead to inaccuracies and human error, which in turn result in delivery delays and related issues. Ultimately this results in lost business and profit.

Imagine being able to simply “scan” and extract the necessary information from all types of forms to fulfill orders. By using AI to instantly “read” any type of document, this technology can accurately extract text and data without the need for any manual effort or custom code. The solution identifies and extracts the key information from the document or form and posts the extracted file for processing.

By implementing these AI capabilities, organizations free up time to complete more value adding activities, and the reduction in order errors will also boost the customer experience and overall buyer loyalty.

5

12 Forbes, Predicting Sales Success with AI (2018)

How to digitize with AI & ML

There is no doubt that digitization is revolutionizing B2B business as we know it. From streamlining processes to cutting overhead costs to boosting revenue, technology is no longer a luxury, but a must for company success. Digital commerce platforms, in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence can provide a better user experience, increase order accuracy, and better forecast long and short-term demand. When AI and ML are combined with digital commerce for B2B organizations, it can be a goldmine for achieving optimized supply chains, revenues and customer experiences.

5

Conclusion

ABOUT ULTRA COMMERCE

Ultra Commerce helps organizations deliver new online

experiences to their customers first with our Ultra Commerce

platform. Bridging the gap between out-of-the-box simplicity

and customizable frameworks that scale, Ultra Commerce offers

both. With no upfront contracts and a pay as you go model,

we’re dedicated to your future online success. Ultra Commerce

offers a wide range of solutions from a full end to end

eCommerce platform to managed services. Grow your online

business with an agile commerce solution and partner.

www.ultracommerce.co

Speak With Us