Digital Commerce Can Help You Outpace Your Competition by 30% by 2022
How you engage with customers has changed and buyers have no intention of returning to the ‘old ways’. Digital Commerce is the answer but you need to move fast – before your competition does! Don’t limit how you deploy commerce as according to Gartner, by 2022, organizations using multiple go-to-market approaches for digital commerce will outperform non-commerce organizations by 30 percentage points in sales growth(#). Here’s how to make that happen for your company.
Don’t Get Left Behind
More and more B2B companies are ditching paper purchase orders and other antiquated methods and going fully digital. If you want to stay competitive, you have to make the switch too.
As the first generations of digital natives make up an increasing percentage of the global workforce, digital means of commerce and communication are ever more essential to a successful business model, regardless of your industry or location. Businesses that fail to get on board with the digital future will be at a disadvantage, and that gap will only widen as methods of digital commerce advance.
Need more convincing? By 2024, 80% of all ordering will be touchless (##). If you’re not close to that being a reality for your B2B sales team, it’s time to start making changes to stay on track with the competition.
Improve Customer Experience with Digital Commerce
The good news about the huge changes coming to B2B commerce is that you have an opportunity to be at the forefront of digital commerce in your sphere. Customer experience is increasingly a hallmark of a good brand, and in the changing B2B world, it’s your chance to show just how forward-thinking you are.
With a digital commerce solution, your customers can benefit from personalized offers, self-service orders for even the most complex products, and streamlined communications channels that give them answers fast. With mobile solutions and artificial intelligence tools, your B2B sales team can create highly customized experiences for every customer.
When your customers are happy, they become loyal purchasers. And when your sales team doesn’t need to spend hours on a single customer or single order, they can work more efficiently, bringing in more customers who in turn become loyal purchasers.
Capitalize on the Benefits of Going Digital
The move to digital commerce ultimately leads to revenue growth, but you’ll find a few other benefits along the way. You’ll make your sales cycle far more efficient while continuing to improve the customer experience. Let’s take a look at the digital benefits you can reap when you implement a digital B2B sales solution.
Cost Optimization
Let’s face it: taking orders by paper, phone, or fax is time-consuming and error-prone. These methods lead to a higher cost to the business to process each order – the cost of labor, materials, and any errors that need to be fixed add up quickly.
With a digital commerce solution, the ordering process becomes more efficient and more accurate. Instead of needing sales reps to process and transcribe every order form or phone call, online orders simply show up in the order management system ready to be fulfilled.
Digital commerce also optimizes costs by improving price accuracy. Integrating your digital commerce solution with your ERP system or a similar tool helps provide contract-specific pricing for any buyer in the system, reducing instances of price discrepancies or inaccurate quotes. This leads right back to a better customer experience.
Recurring Orders
Many B2B orders are regular occurrences – buyers will place the same order at the same time every month. With a digital commerce solution, these orders can be refilled much more simply. With the right solution, you can even do this automatically.
Recurring orders can be filled through functions like viewing past orders and duplicating them or uploading Excel or CSV files with the required products. You might also consider a saved purchase list. Some B2B companies are even able to leverage their recurring orders into a subscription model, which brings peace of mind to buyers and a steady revenue stream to the company.
Using a digital solution to expedite recurring orders is perhaps one of the most common-sense steps in a B2B digital transformation. The B2B space is ripe for a captive audience who will return to purchase the same products again and again, so why not make that process as easy as possible for your customers?
Cater to Specific Verticals
Digital commerce empowers your team to hone in on specific industries and verticals to create even more personalized customer experiences. With the power of personalization on your side, you can create industry-specific offers and get them in front of the right people at the right time.
Focusing on specific verticals gives your business a hyper-focus on one type of client. It makes your process more efficient, and that efficiency is compounded by digital commerce tools that speed up every step of the sales cycle.
Start Your Digital Transformation Now
If you’re ready to outpace your competition, don’t wait another day to start the digital transformation of your B2B sales team. The B2B sales sphere is rapidly changing, and if you’re not ready to implement digital commerce, you’ll get left behind.
With HCL digital commerce solutions for B2B sales, you can dramatically improve the customer experience by making it easier for customers to find personalized offers, self-service ordering, and faster communications to get their needs met. You’ll improve your sales team’s efficiency by optimizing costs, streamlining recurring orders, and catering to specific verticals.
Get started implementing a digital commerce solution today, and get ready to beat your competition by 30% in just a few years. Contact us for a free assessment of your digital commerce strategy at contactus@zobristinc.com.
# – Gartner – Predicts 2021: COVID-19 Drives Accelerated Shift to Digital and Commerce Model Evolution, Published 23 November 2020, by Dayna Ford, Jason Daigler, Sandy Shen, Mark Lewis, Penny Gillespie
## – Gartner – Predicts 2020: Marketplace Models, New Payment Expectations and Platform Evolution Drive Digital Commerce Opportunities, By: Dayna Ford, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Mark Lewis, Christina Klock
