WebSphere Commerce Newsletter

Online transformation for B2B companies

By Srini Rangaswamy, Product Manager, IBM WebSphere Commerce

As businesses emerge from the economic downturn, there is an increased focus on leveraging customer insights and digital channels to transform the customer experience, open up new markets and reduce organizational complexities. According to the IBM Institute for Business Value 2009 Global CRM Leaders Study, “The path forward – New models for customer-focused leadership”, 47% of business leaders have increased focus on e-commerce and 46% are focused on developing effective digital customer experience. For 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.

From the seller’s viewpoint the online channel now becomes a virtual salesperson that needs offer customized catalog, honor contracted prices, accept quotes and negotiate price for special orders, offer promotions, perform cross/up-sell and make product recommendations. For many B2B companies this can be challenging due to complex contractual relationship, product complexity, and a variety of B2B order placement methods that the buyers are accustomed to using.

However, B2B buyer’s expectations are set by the B2C sites that they use for personal shopping experiences. Buyers want a rich and personalized online experience based on their role in the organization, as well as an easy-to-use interface for order placement, inquiry, and tracking. They also are looking for access to product information, product-related news, and other necessary tools, including product comparison, purchasing under multiple contracts, saving and sharing frequent orders, and support for B2B payment methods.

“Elite” B2B starter store

To enable this transformation, IBM WebSphere Commerce V7 includes a B2B starter store called “Elite” – a fully functional and ready to deploy B2B online store that combines B2B operational elements with best practices from B2C e-commerce. This combination allows businesses to leverage not only custom catalogs and contract-based prices, but also the use of Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies for a rich and interactive buying experience. Online users now can use features such as the product fast finder, which filters products based on price, brand, and features, marketing promotions and merchandising, and streamlined checkout processes. The Elite store is optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with support for multiple web browsers and platforms, and translated into 13 languages. The store can be used to support variety of B2B business models including B2B direct selling, the distributor model, hosted partners, and multi/micro-site deployments.

The Elite store enables businesses to deliver B2B 2.0, next generation B2B e-commerce experience, by focusing on the following three key elements:

1. Operational Automation
The goal of this first element of B2B 2.0 is to automate all sales administration tasks to reduce operational costs and relieve sales personnel from manual low value processes to focus on value selling. The Elite store enables sellers to approve buyer registration, deliver buyer-specific online catalog (i.e., product entitlement), display contract-based price, and automatically enforce other contractual terms and conditions around payment, billing, and shipping.

The store also allows sellers to register themselves, browse, filter and configure products, check inventory, shop under multiple contracts, pay for order using credit line, purchase order (blanket, limited, and individual), or other alternative payment methods. In addition, buyers can use advanced procurement methods like quick order, requisition list, scheduled orders, and order-on-behalf.

2. Buyer-centric Marketing
Buyer-centric marketing applies proven B2C online marketing techniques to B2B marketing. For instance, the Elite store includes scrolling advertisement banners at store/category level, merchandising associations for cross/up-sell, and product/order-level promotions, all of which can be easily customized and updated to include new marketing content by the business users without relying on IT staff.

In addition, the precision marketing capability in WebSphere Commerce V7 empowers businesses to develop an ongoing dialog with the buyer by capturing triggers (e.g. page views/clicks, abandoned shop cart, or any time-based events) and responding with actions (e.g. promotional offer, customer landing page, or a mobile SMS message). An example of a trigger would be a customer viewing a specific product review or forum. And, the responding action would be display of a related promotion, either in the same session or during next visit, offering an incentive to the buyer to complete the purchase. This idea of nurturing an “ongoing dialog” helps to deliver a virtual salesperson experience, keep the buyers engaged with the brand, and improve sales.

3. Rich Experience
This final element B2B 2.0 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). The RIA-based Elite store provides an intuitive shopping experience and offers tools like a mini-shopping cart and quick info pop-up to streamline the checkout process. Buyers now can drag-and-drop products into a compare box, add items to shopping cart, and checkout, without leaving the current page. To enable community interaction, WebSphere Commerce V7 includes integration with leading vendors to support product ratings & reviews, forums, and blogs. This rich online experience simplifies the process for the buyer to complete the transaction online and allows sellers to differentiate their brand.

For B2B companies the online transformation has become crucial but it is neither as simple nor as straightforward as B2C e-commerce primarily due to complex B2B relationships and processes. WebSphere Commerce V7 provides an “Elite” B2B starter store that combines the best practices from B2C e-commerce with the B2B operational automation features. This store automates all operational aspects between two businesses, delivers buyer-centric marketing messages, and provides a rich online experience for users. The store can be easily configured and deployed to assist B2B companies with online transformation to reduce costs and B2C-like marketing techniques to increase sales.

About the Author
Srini Rangaswamy is a product manager for IBM WebSphere® Commerce and in this role he studies B2B e-commerce market trends, works with customers from a variety of industries to understand business needs and then executes B2B e-commerce product strategy. He blogs on B2B e-commerce at http://www.b2bsellside.com (link resides outside of ibm.com).

Trademarks:
IBM and WebSphere are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks.