ERP: The Foundation for a Great Online B2B Experience

Thanks to companies like Amazon, people now expect the same experience whether they’re shopping at home or purchasing supplies for work. They want the Amazon-like experience. The consumerization of B2B commerce means customers expect consistent, relevant and personalized engagements.

Companies that are not equipped for rapid innovation are at risk of having competitors steal their customers. An outstanding online experience is often the only way B2B companies can retain their customers, increase revenue, and compete with a behemoth like Amazon.

The right stack of back-end systems

In a digital world where numerous companies offer similar products and services at competitive prices, your buyer data could be one of your most important differentiators. Meeting the rising expectations of buyers starts with assembling the right stack of back-end systems that will ultimately result in memorable front-end customer experiences and separate you from the pack.

Customers will feel the disconnect when businesses don’t have a complete, accurate and available picture of them. That’s why data living in your back-office solutions is truly the foundation of excellent B2B ecommerce experiences – and central to this equation is the right ERP system.

Great B2B Ecommerce Starts with ERP

An ERP system maintains a single source of customer, order and inventory information to support data-driven experiences. It pulls together critical data around financials, customers, orders, inventory and more in one place. As the system of record, the ERP platform must have accurate, detailed information on every aspect of your business. Once the foundational ERP system is in place, with CRM, order management and inventory management tightly integrated, you can plug in an ecommerce system designed for B2B. Everything starts to fall into place when the right information is feeding into the right systems.

With detailed data from a modern technology enabled ERP system, companies can design innovative customer acquisition and retention experiences online and offer customers consistent and relevant experiences they enjoy and that will differentiate their brand from competitors.

Here’s a great white paper for more about the impact your back-office solutions play on your B2B customer eCommerce experience