Costas Xyloyiannis

In recent years, ESG (environmental, social, governance) was hoisted to the top of the board agenda. To manage it, business leaders had to ensure that compliance and readiness across multiple areas were captured, analyzed and reported.

This job needed an owner. When it came time to delegate, leaders assessed whether a single department with a clear responsibility across all suppliers for all these areas existed. Unluckily, in most cases it did not. So, management turned to the next best option: procurement.

The function’s leaders, chief procurement officers (CPOs), now had new mandates to meet and quickly sought to apply technology. “Point” solutions, software dedicated to tackling individual use cases, were implemented. Often these tools were standalones. Integrating them with established P2P (purchase-to-pay) and S2P (source-to-pay) software suites, used to manage sourcing and supplier relationships, emerged as a challenge.

Today, swapping between these old and new tools is a slow and painful experience for procurement teams — and all their suppliers. The impact of this digital struggle extends even further, to the greater business. So, how does this stack up, and what can business leaders do about it?

Get to the heart of the problem

The digital environment which plagues procurement teams must also be navigated by suppliers. According to recent research, if a supplier wants to serve a single customer, they have to navigate around eight different tools, each with a unique login. The time loss to these, often smaller, businesses is a concern. Another is that behind each password, many of these solutions produce and then store data from suppliers using it.

So, the way in which each supplier works with the business results in their data being stored in an average of eight databases. Viewed as a whole, the supplier’s data is unreliable. It will be riddled with duplicates, gaps, errors and inconsistencies.

Now take this data pool scenario and multiply it by hundreds of thousands of suppliers. The millions or billions of entries that result in a murky view of supply chain activity. A consequence is that ESG reporting suffers. And so does the supplier relationship. Apart from the disjointed tech landscape, the experience suppliers have in communicating with procurement is also unsatisfactory, which for the most part stems from bad data.

All considered, can procurement teams really expect to receive the best work from suppliers? What about trustworthy data? If “no,” then how will the function progress? It has reached an evolutionary sticking point, and CPOs have a choice; they can accept things the way they are or find a way forward. Business executives can give their counterparts in procurement a hand, but first they should know the risks and rewards of progressing the function.

Resolve whether the reward is worth the risk

It’s one thing for management to see the problem for what it is, but deciding to address it cannot be taken lightly. Let’s start by envisioning what could be.

Encouragingly, a reality exists in which suppliers and procurement teams work together seamlessly, like partners in the same ecosystem. Suppliers are happy, their work is good, their data is pure. In this environment, procurement can thrive. Not only can the team deliver on traditional cost-saving metrics, but they can also generate accurate ESG reports. Further, the function is set up to contribute opportunities in areas that span the business — such as diversity and inclusion, sustainability and product innovation.

Behind this utopia, there is a movement which I like to think of as “supplier experience management.” As the name suggests, the idea is to manage an experience for suppliers, in which everyone is empowered to succeed — from the supplier base right through to the board.

As attractive as this environment is, the journey to reaching it is not easy or risk-free. The first challenge lies in people management: the entire business, from management to every employee, will have to reform how it views suppliers. Next, procurement will need to transform its digital setup. This transformation will require the CPO to radically rethink the architecture of the digital landscape, and then to embark on a rebuild. Expensive tools and teams will be needed to progress this plan, which raises the stakes. No doubt this is a momentous task.

But business leaders who refuse to stagnate won’t be alone. Many enterprises have transformed the status quo and are enjoying the fruits. For example, in 2013 an early adopter, BAE Systems, started to manage supplier experience. This led their procurement team to remove process friction for suppliers and enabled them to consolidate data from 50,000 suppliers across North American. The resulting “single source of truth” was incredibly valuable to the broader business in 2020 when COVID-19 hit. When leaders needed it most, they could access a clear and accurate view of the supply chain. This visibility, coupled with the zero-friction supplier environment they had established, meant that every department could respond to the crisis with agility.

The benefits of the agility gained through supplier experience are being enjoyed by many other companies, including the likes of Mondelēz International, Baker Hughes, Lenovo, and more. A wave of globally recognized CPG brands such as Unilever, Mars and Heineken have also joined the supplier-centric movement in the last 18 months.

Take inspiration from the pioneers and drive change

Trailblazers of the supplier experience principle follow a proven method. Four steps stand out, by which the broader business, procurement and all suppliers can achieve mutual success. For business leaders to reach this point, here’s a plan of action:

• First, work with the CPO to assemble a legion of loyal leaders. Their support will be invaluable. Attaining it, however, might push your persuasion skills. Some executives, particularly those who still view procurement a transaction center, will resist working with suppliers beyond the boundaries of cost savings. So, show them the value. Look at the virtues of “experience” management in other areas, such as with employees and customers. Can parallels be drawn to suppliers? Showcase the woes of a fractious supplier environment. What risks arise? Were major opportunities missed? Explore what a more harmonious setting will yield.
• Next, with the c-suite on board, it’s time to gain ground. The key move is to abolish 100% of the barrier to supplier success: friction. Before that, you need to know what all the process pain points are. Unearthing these insights will require curiosity. What do these obstacles look like to suppliers? How are they removed? Getting immersed in their world — caring, stepping into their shoes, doing surveys — is key.
• Now from this vantage point, work with procurement to craft a friction-free digital environment. Other pioneers follow a data-first approach, in which a central platform is used to consolidate, host and govern all supplier data. Once the landscape is engineered to prioritise master data, procurement can automate. Apply routines for transactional jobs and then use the saved time to introduce digital workflows that make the supplier experience even better

Finish strong

At this stage, the business has helped procurement to digitally transform. In doing so, the function — and the business — have gained two assets: a single source of truth in supplier data and a supplier network whose needs are better met.

It would be easy to stop at this point, but a crucial step remains. The supplier experience which has taken so much to improve, must be maintained. For this maintenance, we need human collaboration. Everyone who engages suppliers (most of the company) must view them as equal, valued partners in a shared ecosystem — and treat them as such.

With both interpersonal and operational barriers removed, the business can partner with all its suppliers. In this scenario suppliers are happier, and procurement can deliver its mandates, the benefits of which extend well into the business.

About the author

Costas Xyloyiannis is co-founder and CEO of HICX, a supplier experience management platform.

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“B2B buying is in danger of becoming a numbers game dominated by procurement professionals, vendor selection checklists, and lowest-price mentality,” writes Forrester. “2022 data indicates that, on average, buyers consider three vendors, only one of which succeeds in winning the deal.”

Business buyers are more restless than ever, and their buying behaviors keep changing, says Forrester.

“77% of B2B marketing decision-makers agree that buyers and customers expect an immediate response to their questions, and 74% agree that buyers expect an experience personalized to their needs and preferences across sales and marketing interactions. Forrester’s Buyers’ Journey Survey, 2022, reveals that 83% of buyers were dissatisfied in one or more areas with the winning vendor. “Organizations that lack a digital sales strategy may fail to meet the needs of their customers. The longer they hold off on creating such a strategy, the more likely they are to lose customers to the competition,” Forrester says.

Forrester is also charting other B2B buyer demands, including:

74% agree that buyers expect an experience personalized to their needs and preferences across sales and marketing interactions.

More than half of buyers responding to Forrester’s Buyers’ Journey Survey, 2022, reported that they used a digital transaction for their purchase.

“Organizations that lack a digital sales strategy may fail to meet the needs of their customers. The longer they hold off on creating such a strategy, the more likely they are to lose customers to the competition,” Forrester says.

Although 59% of employees in B2B organizations say their companies encourage alignment and collaboration between different parts of the business, major challenges persist, according to Forrester’s 2022 data.

“Improving marketing alignment and collaboration with other departments, including sales and product,” was frequently cited by B2B marketing decision-makers as needed to support marketing priorities over the next 12 months,” Forrester says.

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Doug Gray, vice president of technology, Amazon Business

The 3-Way Match feature lets purchasing account administrators and approved buyers use the Amazon Business mobile app on a mobile device to reconcile a purchase order within seconds, says Doug Gray, vice president of technology at Amazon Business.

Buyers use the app to scan and verify a purchase order and check it against the invoice and the receipt before a payment is completed. The feature also works with the Amazon Business Punch-In procurement tool, which lets buyers make a purchase on Amazon Business and have the transaction automatically sent to their company’s procurement spend management application.

The 3-Way Match feature on the Amazon Business app.

The 3-Way Match tool was previously available only via a desktop computer or handheld scanner. It is now available to the nearly 1 million U.S. active account users of the Amazon Business mobile app.

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Alexis Normand, CEO, Greenly

Given mounting climate issues, and increased public interest in supporting sustainable brands, the ecommerce world is experiencing a huge shift in how it approaches its operations. Companies are well aware of the massive impact that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies have on consumer behavior and stakeholders, and as such more than 88 of them have introduced ESG initiatives in the workplace.

Part of a successful ESG strategy involves monitoring a company’s carbon footprint. And such a mammoth task faces plenty of challenges along the way.

An ecommerce company’s supply chain – anything from raw material sourcing to distribution – can make up a huge bulk of its operations and thus account for an enormous portion of its carbon impact. However, this is seldom the biggest priority embedded within business goals, so the supply chain often goes largely unchecked.

As a result, ecommerce businesses can easily overlook the carbon footprint of their supply chains, which can be 11.4 times larger than operational emissions. What’s even more troubling is that online purchasing is set to balloon in coming years, which should make the problem even worse.

Increasing public scrutiny and calls for greater sustainability are becoming impossible to ignore. Ecommerce companies must therefore look at their supply chain emissions as part of any net-zero strategy. While the carbon footprint from a company’s supply chain can be difficult to monitor, the good news is that it’s often considerably easier for companies to take action against these emissions.

Monitoring Scope 3 emissions

Carbon emissions are so complex that they’re separated into three different sections that form part of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol: Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Scope 1 refers to a business’s direct emissions, while Scope 2 deals with indirect emissions from purchased energy, such as electricity.

Scope 3 emissions are those indirectly produced by other businesses and functions in a company’s supply chain. Scope 3 can account for up to 80% of a company’s carbon footprint. However, since these emissions are often the province of other organizations, they are notoriously hard to monitor. Although Scope 3 emissions are considered a big risk indicator in GHG monitoring, few effective frameworks have emerged to help companies monitor Scope 3 emissions effectively.

In the ecommerce supply chain alone, there are many moving parts that make up business processes. For example, a clothing ecommerce company will need to design garments, source materials, ship them to a factory for manufacturing, package items, ship purchases to customers, and so on. If a customer then decides to return a purchase, a similar reverse process comes into effect. It’s not unheard of for some fast fashion companies to send returned garments straight to the landfill rather than engage in the costly process of shipping, checking, and repackaging garments.

Some of these steps also tend to be outsourced to other companies. For example, an ecommerce business may work with suppliers and subcontractors to manage logistics, transport and shipping, or oversee warehouse spaces. With so many other parties involved, monitoring indirect emissions can be tricky, to say the least.

Much of these indirect emissions aren’t currently being accounted for. According to McKinsey, only 25 percent of ​​reporting companies engage with suppliers to try to reduce emissions. Failing to monitor Scope 3 emissions, or even communicate about this with partners. This means that companies simply aren’t able to measure, manage, and reduce their overall emissions.

Taking control

It doesn’t have to be this way. The first step to overcoming the profound challenges of Scope 3 emissions is to recognize the sheer scale of the problem. To do this, companies should develop an overview of every step of their supply chain processes. Luckily, the EPA has created a Scope 3 tool to help companies gain an initial understanding of their supply chain emissions. With this, business leaders can begin mapping supply chain emissions.

We also need to face the challenge of previous monitoring processes becoming outdated. Most carbon reporting processes used in the past are not up to current standards. Plus, they’re overly labor intensive and require business leaders to complete multiple spreadsheets and crunch many numbers in the process.

A new generation of carbon reporting tools is finally changing this, and they can help with Scope 3 reporting, too. For example, the GHG Protocol offers guidance to businesses on how to measure Scope 3 emissions. Also, the Sustainability Consortium has created multiple tools to help businesses develop and track key performance indicators related to supply chains.

Increasing supply chain efficiency

After you’ve mapped and gained a better understanding of supply chain emissions, you can then take steps to reduce them.

According to McKinsey, businesses could instantly cut a whopping 30% of supply chain emissions  through simple operational changes like the procurement of low-carbon energy. Other minor adjustments such as rearranging the way items are packaged in order to fit more into delivery trucks can go a long way. Taking each of these steps – one by one – is the most impactful way to build a sustainable, scalable strategy moving forward.

There are now plenty of supply chain management tools available that can also help provide better oversight and accountability, albeit through a lens of sustainability. These tools are often integrated with smart devices that can monitor, for example, the temperature of warehouses and turn off lighting when no-one is around.

Working with third-party suppliers always takes a great deal of collaboration, and this is also the case with reducing emissions. Ecommerce partners can leverage their influence and open a dialogue with suppliers to shift toward an emission-friendly strategy. You might even share your reporting tools with suppliers and offer support.

At the very least, the above pointers might inspire ecommerce businesses to start thinking about the supply chain impacts and how to reduce emissions. However, it’s not their mission alone to drive down GHG emission levels.

A dual approach to Scope 3 reporting is necessary in order to encourage the much-needed change. In this dual approach, the government would create policies that demand Scope 3 reporting from businesses, while also providing solutions to facilitate easier Scope 3 reporting in the first place.

Imminent government regulations concerning the monitoring of GHG emissions suggest that the gates are closing in on those who fail to accurately monitor their emissions. If anything, the time is now for ecommerce companies to finally address the full range of their carbon emissions.

Alexis Normand is the co-founder and CEO of Greenly, a carbon assessment and accountability solutions provider for small to large companies.

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Vinny Maurici

The opt-in era poses new challenges for online advertising. But by offering ecommerce sites that provide a helpful customer experience, B2B companies can rely less on online ads, writes Vinny Maurici, vice president, data strategy and services, Pivotree.

For years, companies have been able to track their users’ website and app activity across other companies’ apps and websites, using the resulting data for advertising purposes or for sharing with data brokers.

Last year, Apple launched a highly anticipated privacy feature: App Tracking Transparency (ATT). With this policy change, Apple users now have to opt-in to Apple’s Identifier for Advertising (IDFA), a unique code assigned to mobile devices, which data brokers and ad marketers use to track users across apps. Using this code, they can combine their users’ behavior into one comprehensive profile, providing companies with the information they need to send targeted ads.

Historically, this process took place behind the scenes, with most users generally unaware of what data was being collected and how it was being used. Now, users receive prompts the first time they open an app, letting them know how the app is tracking their data and giving them the option to opt-in.

Unsurprisingly, Apple’s ATT policy was met with outrage from platforms like Facebook and Snap, who rely on their users’ data to send targeted ads and generate revenue. And their fears became a reality – in the United States, data from analytics company Flurry showed that users chose not to opt-in of app tracking 96 per cent of the time, following the implementation of ATT.

Now, in 2022, nearly every direct-to-consumer (DTC) company is dealing with revenue contraction, shrinking margins and runaway losses. In combination with supply chain costs, heightened interest rates and shrinking venture capital investments, DTC companies are in trouble.

It’s important to note that B2B organizations are different in their focus compared with retail and DTC. While retail and DTC home in on price and customer acquisition,  B2B focuses on digital product experience and elements like punchout, which lets B2B buyers link from their procurement/spend management software to a preferred seller’s ecommerce site.

B2B organizations have long understood their customers, however, and have been less reliant on paid advertisements or targeted ads as a source of revenue. On top of that, they have been focusing especially on the product experience of finding, selecting and ordering products.

For that reason, B2B companies, once viewed as the dinosaurs of digital commerce, are now at the forefront of digital commerce strategy with many B2B distributors building more complete, in depth, and intuitive shopping experiences than retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, Etsy or Wayfair.

For once it seems, retail has to catch up on the digital front when compared to leaders in the B2B digital commerce space.

About the author:

Vinny Maurici is vice president, data strategy and services, at Pivotree, which  designs, builds and manages digital platforms in commerce, data management, and supply chains for branded manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

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The 2022 State of the Supply Chain Report, released this month, notes that more than 80% of suppliers say they lack access to fully automated systems for processing invoices or requests for proposals submitted by either existing buyers or potential customers. At the same time, however, 43% of suppliers cite the management of RFPs and invoices — crucial steps for landing new business and maintaining cash flow — as the processes offering the most benefits through automation.

“A lack of widespread automation on the supply side is creating inefficiencies that could stall broader progress and inhibit suppliers’ growth and performance,” says Georg Roesch, vice president of direct procurement strategy at Jaggaer, which released the study. “True supply chain transformation requires a fully digitalized and frictionless commerce experience for both buyers and suppliers.” Jaggaer is a provider of online procurement technology.

Jaggaer says the report had 47 respondents for its survey throughout the months of May and June. It describes the research project as “a pulse survey that provides a quick look and insights into the supplier market.”

The Jaggaer study also found:

• 73% of suppliers say that shortages of products and materials are having a major impact on their business. Other top challenges including inflation which 69% cited, strained production capacity (53%) and geopolitical risks (50%).
• 59% of suppliers cite having a central commerce hub providing access to buyers as vital to improving business. Benchmarking data for competitive comparisons (57%) follows, and then automated workflows to improve collaboration (48%).

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More than two-thirds, or 69%, of B2B buyers work at organizations that require them to make purchases from sellers that follow sustainable practices, according to the second State of Business Procurement Report from Amazon Business.

The report notes that procurement is becoming a crucial part of meeting corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals. And it asked respondents to name their four top CSR-related procurement priorities. Improving sustainability in purchasing practices was cited by the largest percentage of respondents (63%). This was followed by supporting local businesses (39%), supporting remote work for employees (37%), and increasing diversity among suppliers (34%).

In addition, the report says that 68% of B2B buyers said they plan to make at least 40% or more of their purchases online by the end of this year. That is up from 56% in 2021.

Amazon Business surveyed 440 U.S.-based buyers at midsize organizations (fewer than 250 employees) to large enterprises (10,000 or more employees). All commercial organizations involved in the survey made more than $250 million in revenue in 2021. Surveyed buyers worked in sectors including government and nonprofit, education, healthcare, and commercial industries.

Buyers intend to buy more from certified sellers

E-procurement is nearly a $1 trillion annual ecommerce market, based on a projection from Digital Commerce 360. Promoting sustainable practices now will help establish confidence in buyers that want to practice a conscientious business strategy. And being mindful of one’s impact on the environment is increasingly important. 54% of U.S. online adults are concerned about the impact of climate change on society, according to a Forrester Research report “The New Green Consumer,” published in March 2022.

The Amazon Business report highlights that 43% of buyers have an internal goal to spend a certain amount with certified sellers. But it’s not a requirement. A smaller share of 24% indicated they have a required dollar amount to spend with certified sellers per year. 24% said they will try to spend with certified sellers, but not at the cost of dollars or convenience. And 9% said they don’t take certifications into consideration when purchasing.

Sustainability must be affordable and convenient

69% of B2B buyers said their organization had established sustainability-related goals. These goals require them to purchase from sellers that are certified as carrying out ing sustainability practices, such as net-zero carbon emission production or the use of renewable energy. In addition, the buyers identified convenience and affordability in procurement as also top priorities when pursuing products from sellers following sustainable practices.

But more than half of respondents (55%) said it was challenging to fulfill those goals because it is difficult to source sustainable-certified sellers. And 81% of buyers said that the difficulty in sourcing sustainable suppliers hindered their organization from achieving sustainability goals in e-procurement.

That’s a problem since, according to the report, 91% of B2B buyers prefer online purchasing over traditional offline channels. The impact of buying from sellers enforcing sustainable practices will have long-term effects — as will not taking sustainability into account.

More than half of B2B buyers (52%) said insufficient online information about suppliers’ characteristics is why they can’t find suppliers that fit the goals of their business. And 44% cited having trouble finding new suppliers as part of the reason it is difficult to reach sustainability goals.

But 89% of buyers said they would be more likely to make purchases from sellers they can easily identify as sustainably certified.

The sustainability role of B2B marketplaces

To find certified suppliers, buyers should lean on e-procurement channels. This includes e-procurement software and B2B marketplaces. Buyers can find, compare and purchase products in their price range. And suppliers are certified as sustainable or carbon-neutral, the Amazon Business report says. Such e-procurement systems also let purchasing organizations monitor and adjust their spending throughout the year to meet sustainability as well as other CSR goals.

B2B marketplace Circular.co, for example, supports the buying and selling of sustainable commodities like plastic and other materials. By establishing a website where buyers can purchase from certified recycling suppliers, the Circular marketplace frees buyers from the manual practice of calling up a limited number of trusted suppliers and comparing prices. “Circular.co is not just a point or spot marketplace. It facilitates the entire sourcing, vetting and pricing process,” says Ian Arthurs, the founder and CEO.

Amazon Business provides through its Business Prime program APIs, or application programming interfaces, to integrate its B2B marketplace with a participating company’s procurement and accounting software technology. For example, such integration helps healthcare industry buyers “automate time-consuming tasks, find and order supplies, and evaluate suppliers’ certification status within their existing systems,” Todd Heimes, director and general manager of Amazon Business, said in the report.

Refining procurement technology and processes

Still, challenges remain for companies to upgrade their internal technology systems to get the most out of e-procurement. This includes systems for authorizing purchases and managing digital invoices, the report says. “Business buyers now need to refine their processes, workflows, and digital strategies to take full advantage of e-procurement,” according to the report.

“Organizations should tackle the basics of digital transformation — such as adopting digital/online invoices and automating procurement processes — before tackling advanced technologies like voice or AI,” according to the report. “Laying a strong digital foundation helps procurement departments confidently and effectively tackle advanced capabilities when they’re ready. Being prepared for the needs of tomorrow starts by taking small steps today.”

The report found that a little more than half of companies have plans to upgrade their technology over the next several years to support e-procurement. The report lists the following as the top four procurement technology investments over the next five years. By 2027, the percentage of companies planning these investments include:

• Automation of manual procurement processes, such as purchase approvals, 57%
• Digital/online invoices, 55%
• Voice technology, such as placing orders via a voice-activated technology device, 35%
• AI-driven optimization of purchasing decisions. This considers such criteria as a buyer’s related purchasing history, a supplier’s sustainability practices, and spending budgets, 34%.

Amazon Business’ tools to gauge procurement progress

Amazon Business provides B2B sellers with 16 certifications, which include Compact by Design and Pre-Owned Certified and the Climate Friendly Badge. For buyers, the Guided Buying feature allows Amazon Business Prime members to prioritize products and sellers with sustainability certifications, says Aster Angagaw, vice president, head of strategic and public sectors for Amazon Business. Members can filter out products that don’t meet their organization’s policies and goals. In addition, they can designate which items are approved for purchase; their employees can submit purchase requests for items in restricted categories.

Data can also play a critical role in optimizing buying processes and encouraging sustainable purchasing, said Angagaw.

Tools to visualize trends

“The Spend Visibility feature on Amazon Business improves visibility into purchasing trends with out-of-the-box dashboards, allowing teams to track progress toward their ESG goals,” she says.

The Amazon Business Analytics tool provides data that buyers can use to create spending reports, configure visual dashboards, and track progress towards spending goals in real time. Business buyers can create exportable order reports to track spending against sustainability certifications.

Companies can also set up guardrails with digital purchasing to ensure they’re meeting sustainability goals while staying within their spending budget, she says.

The Budget Management tool on Amazon Business gives procurement teams more budgetary transparency and control checkpoints like pre-purchase approvals. “If there is a specific limit on spending in certain categories, buyers on Amazon Business can set those parameters to work within,” Angagaw says. Members can also filter for suppliers with the required sustainability certifications.

“Digital purchasing lets small businesses filter for products that are both budget- and climate-friendly. It ensures they can meet their purchasing goals,” Angagaw says. “This ability to cross reference is a simple but powerful tool. It gives buyers full control over what they purchase and how they impact the environment while doing so.”

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Along with punchout, or when a seller’s B2B ecommerce site is available from the buyer’s e-procurement platform, e-procurement is hitting the major leagues of digital commerce. E-procurement is nearly a $1 trillion annual ecommerce market, based on a projection from Digital Commerce 360, and is becoming even more of a priority for organizations of all sizes, says new research from Amazon Business.

Amazon Business, which Digital Commerce 360 projects generates one in every three transactions on B2B marketplaces, in April surveyed 440 business buyers for its 2022 State of Business Procurement Report.

Today, 91% of business buyers prefer purchasing online and 47% of procurement managers also expect to manage a bigger procurement budget this year, the report says.

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Hyeyoung Moon, global lead of marketing, Amazon Business

Already Amazon.com Inc.’s fastest-growing unit with more than $25 billion in annual gross sales, Amazon Business is out to win over more hearts among buyers and procurement managers at small as well as large companies. Last week it launched “Buy Smarter. Dream Bigger.” as its first major marketing campaign across multiple media channels, featuring a fictitious manufacturer of pet devices that translate animal sounds into English.

Hyeyoung Moon, the global lead of marketing at Amazon Business, says the campaign is designed to promote Amazon Business as easy to use in a way that “frees up business leaders to focus more on their businesses and mission.”

‘Fun and engaging’ campaign

“That’s the spirit we are capturing with this fun and engaging campaign that celebrates the dreamers and empowers more decision-makers to buy smarter,” she said in an email reply.

The campaign, directed by ad agency BSSP in association with Biscuit Filmworks, will run nationally through November. The campaign will be supported by complementary creative materials across national radio, digital elements and out-of-home images placed in airports and other locations in “key markets like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago,” a spokeswoman says. Public relations firm Walker Sands is also supporting the campaign’s social elements.

By emphasizing humor, the campaign is addressing recent findings that many consumers and businesses expect brand marketing to be funny.

People remember funny ads

A recent report from business software provider Oracle Corp. and author/podcaster Gretchin Rubin, for example, found that 91% of people worldwide prefer brands to be funny in their advertising. In addition, it found that 90% are more likely to remember ads that are humorous. But only 20% of brands say they use humor in offline ads, 18% in online ads, the report found.

In the Amazon Business Pet Tech video, an ostrich, an alpaca and a poodle wear what appear to be electronic devices as collars and use them to speak in English to a meeting of Pet Tech executives. The ostrich kicks things off by telling the executives, “Your translation device works — bravo!”

But when one of the executives asks the ostrich to say “peanut butter,” the bird declines and instead starts a conversation joined by the alpaca about how the team can use Amazon Business to purchase the supplies they need to grow their business while controlling their spending. (The poodle, meanwhile, complains after an Amazon Business Buy page doesn’t let it purchase 1 million dog bones.)

In the video’s ending, the ostrich chimes in one last time: “Hey everybody — peanut butter!” The video ends in laughter.

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Kristina Harrington

When it comes to ecommerce — and B2B ecommerce success — there are really two key stakeholders. There are the customers who buy products and services online, and the businesses responsible for selling the products and services online. Both have their own goals. Buyers in an industrial equipment setting are looking for a faster, safer, and easier way to do their job. Ecommerce sellers are looking to improve customer loyalty through greater customer satisfaction and ultimately increase market share and revenue online.

Step 1 to B2B ecommerce success: Define the customer journey

To achieve both of these goals, an essential first step for any ecommerce investment is to map the various customer journeys when using your online store. Before long-term B2B ecommerce success can be achieved, it’s critical to understand who your customer is (all the various personas) and why they’re coming to your site.

As an organization, have you answered these three critical questions?

• What are you offering that no one else can?
• Why should your customers care?
• Who are those customers?

If not, now is a good time to start.

A good idea when trying to understand your customers is to put yourself in their shoes. 85% of business buyers believe the experience a company provides is as important as its products. So, one way to provide that is to think about how they find a product on your site. What details do they typically have when they begin a search for information on your site?  It’s easy when they have an exact product number or description, but what happens if all they have is a serial number, model number, or a product category? Maybe they are just looking for a certain brand.

Being able to anticipate the different ways customers will come to your site and then providing them a path to what they’re looking for, no matter how they’re looking for it, is a key feature of an industrial products ecommerce site.

Beyond thinking about search and product identification, there are several questions when you think about each customer persona.

Consider the following:

• What are their responsibilities?
• What are their goals and challenges?
• What do they need to make their job easier?
• What do they expect from a digital experience?
• Why do they buy from you?
• What is all the information they need from you to make a purchasing decision?
• What devices do they use?
• Are there any additional customer personas you seek to attract? If yes, where are they, and what do they need to make a purchase?

Understanding your customer is more than just thinking about a transaction; it’s understanding all the types of information they may be looking for in a self-service portal and then giving it to them in the easiest way possible. Achieving all of this may not be possible at first launch. The key to this and overall B2B ecommerce success is to prioritize according to business objectives, launch, learn and then adjust or complete the remaining priorities. Remember this is an iterative process. Customer needs will evolve, and, over time, your ecommerce solution should evolve as well.

As the adoption of ecommerce accelerates, customers increasingly expect to find what they’re looking for quickly, accurately, and easily. If a site isn’t able to meet those expectations, customers have more options available to them than ever before. Creating an efficient purchasing experience can separate a site from the competition, and buyers have proven to reward businesses for this experience.

About the author

Kristina Harrington is the president and chief operating officer at GenAlpha Technologies, which provides digital commerce technology for manufacturers. Prior to joining GenAlpha, Kris worked for more than 10 years in leadership positions at two large multinational original equipment manufacturers, Bucyrus International and Caterpillar, supporting the mining industry. In her various positions, she worked with internal stakeholders, dealers, and customers to deliver business results both in aftermarket and equipment sales. She can be reached at kharrington@genalpha.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.

The post 5 steps to ecommerce success: Step 1–Define the customer journey appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.