How to set up your digital B2B strategy for growth and customer loyalty

Digital self-services and online procurement assisted by sales reps is something a future-proof digital strategy in B2B should be based on.

Guest speaker: Joe Cicman • Forrester

How to set up your digital B2B strategy for growth and customer loyalty

Future-proof your B2B commerce strategy

In 2020, e-commerce experienced 10 years' worth of growth during the first three months of COVID-19. How can B2B companies address the new customer expectations?

We invited Joe Cicman from Forrester Research to our webinar and talked with him about the rise of B2B e-commerce, the shift of customer expectations and how B2B firms can answer those changes with the right digital strategy.

 

Contact us for more information!

What you will learn:

  • How B2B e-commerce will grow in the next years.
  • How a B2B commerce strategy will meet your customers where they buy.
  • How customer experience impacts your growth.
  • How much agility matters when it comes to customizing your e-commerce platform.
  • How internationally operating manufacturers already succeeded in their digital ambitions.

Meet our guest

Joe helps eBusiness professionals assess, improve, and optimize B2B and B2B2C eCommerce technologies and strategies. As part of the digital transformation team, Joe provides a proven practitioner’s lens for organizations to understand how to deploy the economics of digital commerce that unleash best-in-class outcomes. His research also supports technical teams by covering the tools and software suites for driving online channels, digitally enabled selling, and new direct-to-consumer (DTC) initiatives.
Joe-Cicman
Forrester
Joe Cicman
SENIOR ANALYST SERVING EBUSINESS & CHANNEL STRATEGY PROFESSIONALS LinkedIn

The hosts of your webinar

Anke_Bebber
Intershop
Anke Bebber
Senior Content Marketing Manager LinkedIn

 

After working 10 years in the area of e-commerce, Anke is always curious about the next big thing, especially in B2B. As host of the webinar, she will make sure that all your questions will find an answer.

 

Tobias_Giese
Intershop
Tobias Giese
Global VP Digital Solutions

 

 LinkedIn

 

With his about 15 years' experience in e-commerce, Tobias drives the evolution of simple websites to customer portals in many aspects. He will present real-life examples from manufacturers that turned traditional procurement into digital customer excellence and therefore were able to react quickly to the new paradigm.

Manufacturers need to customize and compose their e-commerce solution

Globally, self-service and rep-assisted B2B e-commerce sales combined increased to 42% the prior year, while purchases through sales reps decreased to 42% by that same time. As B2B buyers are accelerating their shift to self-service, they want higher-quality interactions with sellers before and after the transaction. That’s because many products aren't a fit for purely digital selling.

Firms must continuously optimize their customer experiences and operations as well as react to opportunities and threats. For digital businesses, ongoing process change is normal — and a competitive advantage. Which means the software must also easily adapt. When acquiring business software, technology pros still commonly frame their choices as build vs. buy, an outdated and inaccurate notion. In the digital era, software is an expression of the business. Firms can't buy this; they must create it using a blend of customization and composition.