B-to-B is Catching Up With Culture

By Kamal Ahluwalia

Anyone with at least a decade of experience in B-to-B retail — listen up millennials — will tell you that e-commerce doesn't qualify as a new trend. It was the next big thing back when new episodes of "Seinfeld" regularly aired on NBC, when people used AOL, and even when NSYNC was on tour. So for me to say e-commerce is changing the face of business feels a lot like a Twitter feed riddled with Kim Kardashian's name — a little exhausted.

Yet, the numbers don't lie. Current statistics confirm that e-commerce is growing at an explosive rate. Online shopping is expected to reach $1.4 trillion this year, a 20 percent year-over-year growth, with a consumer base of over a billion people worldwide and counting. Retail powerhouse Amazon.com did an estimated $95 billion in gross sales last year, while its Chinese counterpart, Alibaba Group, did more business than Amazon and eBay combined!

So the question is: What finally clicked?

Two key driving forces have reshaped both the potential of e-commerce and the landscape of retail: increased consumer power and cloud capabilities.

Let's start with the ubiquity of the internet and consumers' presence on it. Every hour, the human race generates enough data from internet traffic to fill 7 billion DVDs. We consume more information in a day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. More people on this planet own mobile devices than toothbrushes. This may seem obvious — of course we have a greater online presence than ever before.

The result, however, has changed the relationship between buyers and sellers. With the proliferation of interaction and information, we're seeing a massive reversal of transaction leverage. Say goodbye to the adage "buyers beware"; it's now a buyer's market. Sellers beware. Consider the following:

92 percent of consumers trust other buyers' opinions over advertisements;
82 percent of all consumers research brands online before anywhere else; and
buyers complete 70 percent of their purchase process before coming into contact with a sales rep.

Buyers have options, and if they aren't getting what they want they now, they have the capacity to go elsewhere. Customer centricity and convenience are paramount — two things Amazon and Alibaba are very good at providing.

The next question then becomes, how do B-to-B companies match the success of B-to-C e-commerce giants?

The indirect result of an empowered generation of buyers is functionality of the consumer market has begun to bleed into the business world. The same shoppers who enjoy the functionality of Amazon and Alibaba are also business users. They expect that business applications will be as easy to use and functionally rich as those they use in their personal lives, inducing the consumerization of business technology and raising the bar for B-to-B e-commerce solutions. This required an intuitive, agile system that's capable not only of helping users quickly find what they want, but of suggesting new products before they even cross our minds.

While most enterprises are trying their best to sell effectively through all their channels, some of them are stretched beyond their core capabilities. While building a cloud infrastructure to compete with the likes of Amazon may feel as daunting as asking the Michigan Militia to take on the Roman Empire, the good news is that you don't have to be an Amazon to participate in this new era of big e-commerce.

Cloud-based e-commerce delivery models have finally provided enterprises with the necessary economies of scale, specialization and speed necessary to meet the demand of the newly empowered consumer population. Powerful e-commerce apps are built on platforms that leverage the platform's security, scalability and high performance. Designed to fully support complex products and pricing models across multiple channels on a single platform, these apps enable brands to present unique user experiences that boost transaction volume and top-line revenue, delivering seamless buying experiences while harnessing configuration and pricing technology. This means that a $500,000 jet engine part can now be purchased with virtually the same ease as a pair of $30 sandals.

As a result, organizations benefit from capabilities unique to e-commerce, such as online product configuration, guided buying/selling, recommendations engines for cross-selling and upselling, asset-based ordering, and advanced workflows. In addition, physical storefronts and e-commerce sites can leverage a full quote-to-cash suite that provides functionality for contract and order management, renewals, and promotions and rebates.

In a nutshell, cloud-based SaaS technology is ushering in a new generation of e-commerce capabilities, and it's time so-called innovative companies get on board.

Kamal Ahluwalia is the chief marketing officer at Apttus, a platform that automates the "quote to cash" process within Salesforce.com.