Three elements of B2B online transformation

The 2009 Global CRM Leaders Study reveals that 46% of executives view delivering effective online customer experience as a biggest challenge. For many Business-to-Business (B2B) companies this mean shifting from the traditional phone/fax/e-mail channel to the Internet/web channel that delivers rich, contextual, and buyer-centric experience. This is a significant transformation as the familiar human aspect of business transactions will now be replaced by an online experience.

This post offers three elements that B2B companies should focus on for a successful online transformation.

Operational Automation

The goal of this first element is to automate all sales administration tasks by using the online channel to approve buyer registration, deliver buyer-specific online catalog, display contract-based price, and automatically enforce other contractual terms and conditions. The automation helps to reduce operational costs and relieve sales personnel from manual low value processes to focus on value selling.

Buyer-centric Marketing

A recent article “Three B2B Value-Proposition Rules That Create Preference, Not Just Parity” at MarketingProfs mentions that,

In fact, you need to inject emotion into your messaging. Even in B2B, you have to get decision makers emotionally invested in the decision. They will justify with facts, but they will buy based on how your solution will influence their success or failure in their jobs.

Buyer-centric marketing helps to influence B2B buyers by applying proven B2C online marketing techniques to B2B marketing. The first step includes using advertisement banners, product recommendations, and marketing promotions. Then B2B companies should develop an “ongoing dialog” with buyers by capturing triggers (e.g. page views/clicks, abandoned shop cart, or any time-based events) and respond with actions (e.g. promotional offer, customer landing page, or a mobile SMS message). This idea of nurturing an “ongoing dialog” helps to deliver a virtual salesperson experience, keep the buyers engaged with the brand, and improve sales.

Rich Online Experience

The final element is about simplifying processes, increasing customer satisfaction, and building brand loyalty by delivering personalized experiences based on buyer persona and buyer organization (e.g. tier 1, tier 2 partners). B2B e-commerce sites are leveraging Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies to deliver an intuitive shopping experience and offers tools like a mini-shopping cart and quick info pop-up to streamline the checkout process. Buyers should be able to easily compare products, add items to shopping cart, and checkout, without leaving the current page. To enable community interaction, the sites should support product ratings & reviews, forums, and blogs.

These three elements will guide B2B companies through a successful online transformation journey, and help create streamlined business processes, improve online sales, and build brand differentiation.

Note: The above posting is my own and don’t necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or other companies

How everyday moments inspire business model innovation?

When thinking about business model innovation, I see interesting examples in my day-to-day life. Last month when we picked up our daughter from day care, we were reminded about her upcoming photo session. So we dressed her up in her favorite pink dress the next day and went on the day as usual. But after a week, to our surprise, our daughter came home with 10 different professional photos in various sizes. Along with the options, the package had several pricing options from $25 to $200.

When I reflected on this experience, I realized even in this everyday moment, there was a smart b2B2C business model behind it; the photo studio (a small business) is partnering with a number of day cares (a big Business) in the local area to reach new customers and offering various options to meet different price points for consumers.

Though this appears obvious, there are three simple, but important takeaways:

1. Don’t wait for customers to come to you
   Go where the customers gather! The studio did this by going to the day care where they can find the perfect audience – parents and children.
2. Build emotional connection
   The studio found a way to build on the emotional connection between parents and children and deliver a product offering for this target audience. Similarly, every business must find a way to build emotional connection with the brand because emotions and relationships are equally important as the intrinsic value of the product.
3. Make it easy to transact
   This entire experience with day care and studio was seamless to us. We didn’t have to arrange a photo shoot with the studio, transport the child or deal with a separate bill. In fact, we did not have to interact with the studio and the day care included the charges in our monthly bill. As a parent, there a few moments that is as seamless as this photo session.

For B2B companies, these takeaways would translate to 1) automating sales operation processes for seamless interaction with other businesses 2) buyer-centric marketing to build emotional connection and 3) delivering a rich experience to become easy to do business with – the three elements of Next-generation B2B e-commerce.

A relatable example from the retail industry is JCWhitney.com selling automotive parts through marketplace at Sears.com. According to the Internet Retailer,

“Last September Whitney began supplying Sears.com with more than 130,000 items for its parts and accessories inventory for cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles. Sears will process all transactions, but order fulfillment and customer service will be the responsibility of individual retailers.”

So now, for example, you can buy a Rotor for 1985 Ford Ranger from Sears.com which is typically sold in auto parts stores like JC Whitney and others.

Enabling your business model innovation
In today’s increasingly complex environment, business model innovation can be critical to organizational success. For strategies and practical guidance on business model innovation refer to the IBM Institute for Business Value study “Seizing the advantage: When and how to innovate your business model”. IBM WebSphere Commerce solution helps B2B companies to execute a variety of business models including B2B direct, Value chain, and Partner hosting. Examples include Wasserstrom selling directly to both businesses and consumers and Mazda selling through dealers using the value chain business model.

Note: The above posting is my own and don’t necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or other companies