David Boone, interim CEO, Essendant Inc.

Essendant Inc. is a top-tier workplace supplies wholesale distributor that has learned critical lessons over the years on how to keep growing in a rapidly changing digital world, David Boone, interim CEO, said in a keynote fireside chat this week at EnvisionB2B in Chicago.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based company does more than $5 billion a year in net sales of office products, sanitation/janitorial supplies and other items to thousands of distributors, wholesalers, resellers and retailers across the United States and abroad. And it’s doing that all increasingly through digital commerce connections, Boone said.

“What’s happened over time … all of these categories that we trade in have actually had significant ecommerce penetration, our end users have all gone online, and therefore we have had to build a lot of capabilities to serve those customers,” he said during the fireside chat with Mark Brohan, Digital Commerce 360 senior vice president for B2B and market research.

Those capabilities, he said, range from managing and providing visibility into supply chain operations and sharing product data with trading partners to providing drop-shipping services and last-mile deliveries to end customers.

Essendant has built over 1,700 integrations with distribution platforms

Boone noted that, over the past 20 years, Essendant has built over 1,700 integrations into the distribution technology platforms used by its trading partners. He added that Essendant recently upgraded its product information management (PIM) system, enabling it to better syndicate product with “thousands of different customers across the U.S.”

Essendant distributes products from more than 1,800 independent brands, including Brother, Canon, Clorox, Georgia-Pacific, Honeywell, Lysol and Rubbermaid. It also operates 10 online stores for its own brands.

In its fulfillment and delivery services, Essendant says it  provides next-day delivery to 98% of the U.S. market.

Essendant builds on its digital commerce experience

Boone said Essendant has evaluated its experience and capabilities to figure how it can build on them. “We can grow into something new and really add value to brands and to retailers,” he said. “That’s the mission.”

David Boone, interim CEO of Essendant, right, shares his B2B ecommerce insights in a “fireside chat” with DC360 SVP Mark Brohan at EnvisionB2B in Chicago this week.

For example, Boone said that, for brands looking to expand their market reach through multiple channels, Essendant is primed to provide those connections. He said Essendant’s pitch to overseas brands is: “If you want to come to the U.S., put your inventory with us. We can work the supply chain and logistics … we can you have you up and running in two weeks to whatever channels you have.”

“That’s our vision for what connected commerce is — sustaining what we’ve done individually and putting it together as a value proposition for brands,” Boone said. “And we’re super excited about it.”

Boone encouraged his EnvisionB2B audience to evaluate how they can build on their digital commerce strengths, warning that, if they don’t, their competitors or industry newcomers will still push ahead with their own innovations.

Boone calls out the need to solve problems for customers

He said it’s crucial to provide a work environment where ecommerce professionals can make mistakes, adding: “I believe in my heart: you try ten different things, if you get one or two of them to work that’s scalable — that’s a winner.”

Boone added that one thing that worries him is the “global environment around ecommerce,” where it’s super simple in some categories for industry newcomers to buy rival products overseas and sell them on U.S. marketplaces.

“The challenge for people like us,” he said, is to find ways to provide more value to customers. “There is ample supply around the world of hungry manufacturers and distributors that are pressing things,” he said, adding: “Are we keeping up the pace? Are we finding a point of difference? Are we modifying our product? Are we finding different ways … so that we remain extremely relevant” to customers?

“We need to solve problems for customers,” he asserted.

Boone cautioned that B2B companies shouldn’t get complacent with small levels of digital commerce for some product categories and figure they’ll continue to make good money even on an small ecommerce penetration rate of, say, 6%. He noted that competitors, including retailers, will always be figuring out how to sell more categories online.

“The benchmark is not your B2B competitor; it is the consumer experience in that channel,” he said, adding, “You’re going to have to find ways to move fast. The world is moving quickly.”

To position a company to excel in a digital commerce environment, Boone said it’s critical for businesses to get buy-in across their organization for two broad concepts:

1. The spread — and fast pace — of digitization across every industry as a disruptive force. Boone noted that, in many cases, executives fail to understand that they can’t just turn dials like pricing to remain competitive but “miss the big picture of the pace with which digitization is happening.”
2. Companies need to ensure they have the right talent to be able to excel with digitization.

Boone added that companies need to show their executives and team members examples of how ecommerce is generating results “through a bit of show-and-tell” of early wins. “And I will tell you, nothing changes people’s minds faster than showing some sales wins.”

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].

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