Future-Proofing Your B2B Business with Digital Strategies & Technology

Incremental Improvements for Future-Proofing

 One of our customers, they've been a client of ours actually for a long time, and over time they realized they were in this situation where they were increasingly spending more money on maintenance and upgrades than on being able to implement new features and functionality. They wanted to find a way that they could really be continuing to invest in their digital because they were seeing it work for them, and they believed that if they could invest more money in new features that add value versus in keeping the platform current that would just help them grow more quickly.

So we moved to BigCommerce and that has been a real success for them. That's enabled them to leverage new capabilities through BigCommerce's B2B edition. It's always about making incremental improvements. And so, one of the things that I love about so many of our customers is that they adopt this mindset of continually improving their digital presence and their overall use of technology to help them future proof their business. They're a great example of that at work.

Future-Proofing Your Business

Lori: I love thinking about how organizations can future-proof their businesses. Brilliance has been around for 25 years and we often work with manufacturers and distributors who themselves have been around for 50 or 100 years. They've had some things that have really worked for them to get them to where they are today. And yet, as they look at what do they need to do to continue to be here 20 plus years from now, there's often different things that need to be implemented as a part of their business, both in terms of strategies, but also in terms of technology.

Often when we look at the technology side of how to future-proof your business, there are different things that need to be put in place. One is ensuring customers can digitally self-serve, place orders online, or get answers to questions online, and especially in the B2B eCommerce space.

And then also from a personalization perspective, in order for our businesses to continue to grow, we need to demonstrate how we're different than everybody else. So, the ability for organizations to personalize both their digital experiences, but also their product offerings really enables them to stand out and differentiate in the market.

Jared: The idea of future-proofing, it's a commitment, it's a mindset. You have to be proactive when you take on the idea of future-proofing because technologies are changing so rapidly. Everyone's talking about artificial intelligence and what that's going to do in terms of eCommerce alone. When it comes down to future-proofing, there's a ton of options out there as far as technology goes, but really at its core, it's adopting this mindset of proactiveness and continuing to keep your head on a swivel in terms of making changes and not just being stagnant.

Strategies to Future-Proof Your Business

Lori: We have seen many technologies come and go, and also many technologies stick around, but you're never done. To your point, Jared, it is an aspect of having a mindset that enables you to continually grow and be looking at what's happening next, what's happening on the market.

Which really leads to what are those strategies? How do organizations ensure that they're continuing to have that mindset?

It can sound really basic, but setting goals and sharing them with your team. Many organizations have goals that they set corporately as an organization, but often they don't translate those down in terms of what that looks like for their digital strategy. Being able to be really clear about, “This is what we're looking to achieve, not just in the next year, but in the next three years or 10 years.” Where are we headed? What are the strategies we can use to get there?

And just having that mindset to know that you're never done. It's not like we're going to have this big project and we can check off the box because there's always going to be more to do.

Should I be Replatforming?

Lori: There are a few signs that I look for in terms of replatforming.

One that's a no brainer: if you have a website or a digital experience and it doesn't work well on mobile devices. At a minimum, you need to redesign your site. If you're looking at a need to redesign your site, that can be a good time to also look at a replatform.

Another really important sign in terms of a replatform that we've seen many times is that if you're spending more money on having to keep your platform current, on maintenance tasks, then you're able to spend on implementing new technology that enables you to add value for customers, those are signs that you need to look at a replatform. What we know is that many software platforms that are now available on the market, you don't even need to upgrade, they're constantly up to date.

For B2B merchants, it used to be that software as a service platforms weren't really available to meet the feature set of B2B merchants. And now SaaS platforms have increasingly improved their capability. If you're in a situation where you're spending a lot of money on maintenance, it's a good time to take a look at what else is out there.

Jared: In conjunction with that, lack of core integrations with other systems, specifically in our world, in the B2B world, often we see organizations that are making a change in their ERP or their business management solution. They deem this is the time then to be replatforming our eCommerce solution. Which makes a lot of sense because if your ERP is not tightly integrated with your eCommerce solution, you're going to end up with a bunch of additional work that you may not want be taking on at this point.  

ERP or eCommerce First?

Lori: Every situation is unique. And as you said, Jared, we have had clients who want to do both at the same time, and we have. But if I were to make a choice from a business of my own, it would not be to do them both at the same time because there are complexities in doing both at the same time. It simplifies what you need to focus on. Being able to focus, narrow what you're trying to do at once, keep it simple and get it live and constantly iterate and improve is always best.

And if I had to pick one to do first, it's going to depend on the situation. I would likely pick the eCommerce site first. That is where your customers are interfacing with, and it has the greatest potential to help you grow revenue, if you do it well.

What that means, if you're going to do your eCommerce site first and be on an older ERP, I t means that you're going to have to pay to build an integration between your eCommerce site and your older ERP that you're likely going to throw away in six months when your new ERP gets live. Which is why many organizations will say, “We want to do them both at the same time.”

Jared: I applaud all the customers that have the grit and tenacity to take on both projects at the same time. And I understand their perspective in terms of they might as well just bite the bullet and get them both done. But to your point, because of the complexities associated with both those implementations, I'd rather start with the ERP. Each situation changes because, to your point, you have to have the background on those organizations.

My logic for ERP first is that, someone has an eCommerce solution up and running, they need to re-platform to something better. I'd rather have my central source of truth, the ERP in a strong standing place before I tackle that new one.

What to Look for in an eCommerce Platform

Lori: One of the things that I want to look for is the company themselves.

I often will look at Gartner and Forrester Research and other analyst firms to get a sense of what confidence analysts have in the software company, because you want to know that you're picking a vendor that they themselves are investing in innovation and that aspect of like future-proofing, how they're architecting their solution. So that you know the vendor you're hitching your wagon to is interested and invested in the things that are going to be important to you. And you want to know that they're going to be around 10 years from now.

You also want to pick someone who has a feature set that aligns with features that are important to you. In the B2B eCommerce space that specifically means you need to look for vendors that have capabilities built around account hierarchy, because for B2B eCommerce, it's not just an individual that purchases but the company account. So you want to enable capabilities where anyone in the company could log in and see the orders that have been placed on the account. Or even they have different permissions to see different things.

Integration capabilities are really important to look for. What kind of, both, prebuilt integrations do they already have, but also what's the quality of their APIs and focus that they have on integrating with other systems?

Content management is one that's important to me because I really believe that one of the ways businesses can really stand out in the crowd is to have a digital experience that both has a great content experience and have a really strong eCommerce solution.

Jared: Going back to the original topic of this conversation about future-proofing. Looking and seeing what they have planned in the next 6 to 12 months, if it's possible. I think that can be very valuable for the decision that you're making.

It takes you anywhere from 3 to 12 months to get a e-commerce solution up and running. By the time you're up and running, it's possible they have additional features that are coming out, and so you'd want to know that as well.