More than a buzz word, “transformation” can result in a business figuring out how to better give its customers what they need.

Apart from the word disruption, in all of its iterations, the latest e-commerce keyword is transformation. Discussing the merits of disruption as a positive action will wait for another day. For now, let’s address transformation.

The word can be positive when describing personal growth driven by changed behavior and likewise on the business level, when describing strategic advances. In both cases a need for change—and the willingness to do so—is the driving factor.

At last week’s SAP Hybris Summit in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., digital transformation was the overall theme and for e-commerce software provider SAP Hybris and other vendors it signals changing the way they deliver software and I.T. services to assist businesses in adding, upgrading or streamlining processes. For many vendors the transformation is from providing software hosted by the customer to software and technology delivered via the internet, or the cloud.

Cloud-based software can save buyer and seller expenses and time, and offers other opportunities to gain sales, reduce overhead and redirect dollars spent on maintenance and upkeep of user-hosted software.

But transformation is apt in describing the climate of B2B e-commerce technology and the way companies do business. B2B companies are facing changes at a measured or rapid rate, depending how far along the technology spectrum they’ve advanced: Have they implemented e-commerce software, or integrated it with other operating systems? Are they exploring e-commerce technology, adding or upgrading front-facing CRM tools? Are they in need of new ERP or other systems and facing the prospect of integrating these back-office tools like accounting and inventory management with the customer-facing front office and e-commerce site? All of the above might happen but any of the above will require significant financial and emotional commitments.

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As Naveen Kandasami, global I.T. director, business partnership and CRM strategy for Sealed Air Corp., noted at the SAP Hybris conference, top management must buy into technological change. In Sealed Air’s case it was critical to view the addition of new cloud-based sales and service technology as business-driven. Technology is enabling the company to change its      focus from a product-driven strategy to one based on information about what customers need and the regulatory environment in which they operate. Its goal is to advise customers using its food packaging, sanitation and packaging products and services in the name of the highest levels of performance and efficiency, then sharing in the savings. Sealed Air, inventor of Bubble Wrap packaging materials, is using e-commerce technology in one of its three business divisions and could expand the concept after deploying its new tech tools from SAP Hybris.

Transformation isn’t just a buzz word. These days it can hit the bull’s-eye in describing how company management redirects its I.T. decision-making and spending, and for many it involves embracing e-commerce technology to meet the expectations of their customers.

Such transformations are inevitable for many companies. And likely to be, well, disruptive.

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