6 minute read
How to uncross your wires
There has been plenty of talk in recent years about how the vast majority of B2B buyers start their purchase journey online, about how much more dependent on content they are, and about how many have already made a purchase decision before a salesperson even makes contact. What we don’t hear so much about is the difficulty for B2B companies of managing the complex processes that have always characterised their sales. How can they reach those buyers in their decision-making process and maximise online opportunities?
Anyone selling B2B solutions or products is likely to be involved frequently in assembling quotes and proposals, getting approval from a manager for a discount, or working with the product or solution manufacturer to develop a bespoke configuration for a customer. This can be challenging and is riddled with multifaceted processes, including ever expanding catalogues of products and services, large partner and vendor networks, fluctuating prices and currencies and, increasingly, customers who are looking to replicate their digital B2C experiences in their professional working lives.
Advertisement
There’s no doubt that B2B sellers face many obstacles. While key trends such as managing the millennial workforce, getting to grips with social selling and sales intelligence, a renewed interest in the customer experience, and using machine learning to deliver a predictive sales strategy, all combine to provide digital opportunities, they also present more complexity in the already intricate B2B buying and selling ecosystem.
ECOMMERCE IS THE FUTURE But among all of these trends, online selling is perhaps the most prevalent, and is increasingly where the future lies, so organisations are under pressure to emulate the success of B2C ecommerce. Recent research by Forrester in the US, UK, the Netherlands and Germany, found that ecommerce currently accounts for 35% of sales. But where an ecommerce solution is in place, companies said that they were looking to achieve 50% of sales from ecommerce and the other 50% from traditional direct, indirect or a combination of direct/indirect channels.
It’s easy to see why – ecommerce can be a very effective method for streamlining sales processes while providing customers with a convenient and familiar digital buying experience. In another report published earlier this year, Forrester identified some of the major benefits to B2B sales organisations: l Maintenance costs are reduced as customers self-serve and can take advantage of automatic renewals and order processes, allowing sales
STEPHEN HARDY is UK managing director of Dallas-based FPX, which specialises in enterprise Configure Price Quote (CPQ) for B2B buyers and sellers. Visit www.fpx.com executives additional time to focus on more lucrative accounts l Companies can more easily retain low-volume customers, supported through online customer service portals and guided buying features, as well as intelligent FAQs l Customers often spend more as they interact with sellers through ecommerce as well as traditional sales channels.
We know there are challenges involved in migrating product and service catalogues online, not to mention adapting custom pricing, and with personalisation and custom configuration, selling B2B products across multiple channels is only set to become more complex. But, the returns can have a significant impact and allow businesses to steal a march on the competition. In fact, businesses that opt for an omnichannel strategy can make inroads into new buyers, while delivering more cost-effective and resourceefficient methods of selling products online or via partner channels and direct sales.
FACING THE CHALLENGES So, the issue is not whether organisations should be facing up to these complexities, it is how they face up to them. Many that have already started the process and are now building their online operations have turned to powerful ecommerce tools to help them source, manage and distribute information on product details, pricing, customer data and business logistics. Some have invested in CRM and ERP, which are designed to help manage complex processes ranging from sales to manufacturing and configuration.
These are reaping rewards, but they can also present some difficulties because applications of this kind often work in isolation and gaps appear between front and back office operations. As a result, users from the sales, marketing, pricing, manufacturing and development departments, and elsewhere across the enterprise, not to mention any partners, must manage data and processes independently, often with timeconsuming and costly outcomes due to confused quoting, pricing, configurations and delivery.
Alternatively, there are platform-agnostic solutions that have been built specifically to work with, and bridge the gaps between, these disparate technologies. Configure, price quote (CPQ) applications are designed to deliver information accurately across the enterprise and ensure that each user as well as each customer – regardless of the channel they work in – has a consistent experience when researching, pricing, configuring, and ultimately buying and receiving a product or service.
When it comes to finding the right solution to help alleviate sales complexity, companies could start by considering the unique challenges they face and their overall objectives. They then need to evaluate a variety of technology solutions and vendors that help extend the capabilities of their existing resources while adding much-needed features and functionality to their sales and delivery processes.
CPQ FOR ONLINE MIGRATION A comprehensive ecommerce solution backed by a best-in-class CPQ application can help enterprises in all sectors take their businesses online. But it is also important to ensure that while they are improving the delivery of their digital buying experience for customers, they are also providing a solution that is suitable for direct sales and channel partners. The aim might be to achieve 50% of sales through ecommerce, but the reality is that the vast majority of sales are through more traditional direct and indirect channels and these must be considered as a key part of any technology deployment. B2B direct sales are not going anywhere and have a huge role to play in the growth of enterprises today.
Going back to Forrester’s research, two-thirds of survey respondents said that delivering a consistent, high-quality sales experience in direct channels is at least somewhat difficult, which underlines how crucial it is to get the balance right. B2B firms have traditionally placed a high priority on improving direct sales, but have done so through a technology “Band-Aid” approach, adding solutions piecemeal to solve challenges as they arise. The result is that sales reps already selling inherently complex products and services must navigate and leverage a disjointed set of sales solutions to get information and complete the sale. This creates a difficult experience for both sales reps and customers alike.
The most obvious solution is to take an omnichannel approach, and ensure that across all of their channels, their teams have the tools to configure, price, quote and ultimately sell products accurately and efficiently. Training new sales executives, offering key features like guided selling, upselling and cross-selling, as well as ensuring product and pricing data are updated and consistent, all involve varying degrees of complexity that require agile and powerful solutions to resolve.
By mapping out the complexity challenges, companies will be better able to identify technology solutions and strategies, and take meaningful steps towards becoming more efficient and experience-driven.
We are at the beginning of momentous change in B2B buying and selling, but the tools are there to provide support if companies are prepared to look, assess and invest in them.
