Business-to-business e-commerce is the future. The work of updating product data, adding online SKUs and creating resources to promote thought leadership never ends, and it changes from company to company. There is no one-size-fits all B2B e-commerce strategy. But one thing many manufacturers, distributors and even marketplaces selling online to business buyers have in common is this: their e-commerce strategy is influenced by a diverse team of professionals working daily to improve their company’s online presence. Two recent interviews, including one with David Spindler, director of e-business at Tech Data Corp., underscored this reality.
Electronics distributor Tech Data recently consolidated its two e-commerce sites into one, shop.TechData.com. A visitor to the new e-commerce site can browse among the company’s more than 1 million products, ranging from Internet routers and network servers for Internet-based data storage, to digital cameras and handheld mobile devices for accessing corporate data.
One of the site’s many awe-worthy new features is that buyers can modify the design of shop.TechData.com’s home page. Once logged in, customers can click a special customizing section to add or delete such content as category listings, making it easier for them to view and purchase the product lines most relevant to them. With such a comprehensive and personalized e-commerce experience, it’s no wonder that Tech Data wins big in online sales.
For its fiscal second quarter ended July 31, 2015, Tech Data reported $6.6 billion in total sales, with 73%, or $4.81 billion, transacted electronically, both through electronic data interchange and web transactions. The company declines to comment on what portion of that was booked directly through the web. But in its fiscal 2015 fourth quarter, which ended Jan. 31, 2015, it noted that e-commerce accounted for about 20% of the company’s revenue.
Tech Data builds its own web sites with Microsoft Corp.’s .Net technology, using the web markup language HTML 5 for web page formats and Cascading Style Sheets for attributes like web page colors and fonts. To keep up its growth in e-commerce, the company’s region-specific I.T. teams meet daily to discuss strategy, Spindler says.
“We’re very proud of our I.T. teams,” he says. “It’s not just in U.S., we also have teams in Europe. We have a very open program here so everybody has an opinion. We have a daily huddle where we talk about the challenges and things to overcome. There’s always somebody else who has some instruction to offer, or an answer or insight to provide.”
And it’s not just online giants like Tech Data that understand B2B e-commerce should be influenced by a diverse team.
Valin Corp., a distributor of filtration, fluid-handling and other industrial products and systems, sells online at ValinOnline.com, an e-commerce site that accounts for about 2% of the company’s sales. The company is currently going through a site relaunch, and moving from software built in-house to technology provided by Insite Software Inc. Phase One of the relaunch is scheduled for January 2016.
When discussing which software provider to choose, Valin’s executive team, joined by the finance, accounting, I.T., marketing and other departments, got together to hash out the company’s requirements for selling online, says Anne Vranicic, vice president of marketing. Together, the team developed a list of more than 300 features necessary for its B2B e-commerce business, including the ability to include punch-out software, create micro-sites for each industry it serves and a feature that allows the marketing team to easily load product descriptions. After reviewing some five vendors of B2B e-commerce platforms, the distributor chose Insite. The software provider met 94% of the company’s criteria, and Valin’s diverse team liked the company’s culture, Vranicic says.
“We looked at the company and of course considered if they’re financially stable, but also considered what their culture is like,” she says. “It’s not just about the products. It’s also, ‘Are we going to be able to work with these people?’”
Since that initial meeting, Valin has created a data quality and content team that meets daily and decides which content to update or SKUs to add to the site. In the next three years, Vranicic hopes to grow B2B e-commerce sales to 30% of Valin’s revenue. Obviously, it is too soon to know if this is a realistic goal. The new site hasn’t even launched yet.
But what is interesting to consider is that, here are two ambitious companies with little in common except that they are both aggressively pursuing and refining their B2B e-commerce strategy. And both companies’ digital transformation is led by a diversified and talented team that meets frequently. Active and broad participation in the pursuit of their goals will likely lead to big wins for these companies’ online operations.
Sign up for a free subscription to B2BecNews, a newsletter that covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B e-commerce industry. B2BecNews is published by Vertical Web Media LLC, which also publishes the monthly business magazine Internet Retailer. Follow Nona Tepper, associate editor for B2B e-commerce, on Twitter @ntepper90.