2. Define the scope of the customer journey which requires SAP integration

Not every B2B eCommerce solution is prepared to cover the entire customer journey with real-time SAP integration. You’ll want to define the scope which you’ll cover first, then look for a solution that can handle the entire scope.

For example, a conventional, B2C-style platform will obviously cover the basics of B2B eCommerce—product catalog, cart/checkout, credit card payment at time of order placement, and order updates. If ERP interaction is required, it will usually take the form of batch updates between SAP and eCommerce.

However, in a B2B scenario (particularly for manufacturers), reliance on batch updates can create gaps in customer experience. Without real-time integration, a manufacturer’s channel partners can’t get crucial information or functionality which they need at that stage.

Here’s what that looks like at every stage of your customer journey.

I. Evaluation stage:

Real-time credit status. In a B2B scenario, credit status can make or break a transaction. Buyers need visibility into their current credit status so they know if the order they’re about to place will go on credit block. Alongside real-time credit status, you may want to offer the ability to pay down invoices (see below, “III. Post-order care stage”).

Real-time inventory/ATP availability in the catalog or cart. This data is generated by a complex calculation in SAP, and it’s often personalized for different customers. Because real-time changes in the underlying inventory quantity will modify each customer’s ATP calculation in SAP in real time, the B2B eCommerce solution needs to get this information from SAP in real time.

Accurate contract pricing, including bundled/scaled pricing discounts. This data lives in SAP; and while it typically remains static (meaning it’s a potential candidate for batch updates), there’s less hassle and potential for bugs if pricing is pulled directly from SAP in real time. This is particularly true if you run promotional price changes which are defined in SAP, or if pricing fluctuates due to outside factors. With a direct, real-time integration loading pricing into the web store, you know eCommerce will always display the right price for every customer, no questions asked.

Personalized catalogs/picklists. In a B2B scenario, each customer often has an assigned list of SKUs which they’re allowed to purchase. If these picklists are rarely updated, they may be a candidate for batch updates. However, if a customer’s list of allowed SKUs changes, it’s simplest to run customers’ personalized catalogs in the web store off of real-time integration. That way, the web experience automatically reflects the state of SAP ERP as far as customer permissions.

II. Purchasing stage:

Accurate contract pricing displayed in the cart. Here’s where real-time integration really comes into play as regards pricing. If the price for one SKU is affected by purchasing another product, you’ll need real-time integration with SAP for the shopping cart. Otherwise, you’ll have to maintain those complex pricing rules in multiple places—SAP, your middleware solution, and B2B eCommerce. That can harm the long-term viability of your eCommerce solution (see below, “3. Determine your appetite for owning complexity”).

Only 100% error-free orders posted to SAP. How many problem orders do you want to come from B2B eCommerce? None? Then you’ll need a real-time SAP integration in the eCommerce cart which checks the order for errors. A deep integration like this should capture any problem which might require human intervention from Customer Service—things like purchasing a disallowed or discontinued SKU, ordering a disallowed quantity, and more.

Intelligent error messaging returned to the user. SAP B2B eCommerce is really only “self-service” if it empowers customers to build and place 100% error-free orders. A deep SAP integration should support intelligent error messaging returned to the user from SAP. That way, the customer can understand why the order can’t be placed—and how to fix it.

III. Post-order care stage:

Real-time credit status + the ability to pay down invoices online. In a B2B scenario, this is essential. Since your channel partners may place orders via PO (rather than paying immediately via credit card), they also need the ability to pay off invoices and keep their accounts in good standing. All of this requires real-time integration to SAP.

Full order history from all channels (not just B2B eCommerce). In a B2B scenario, particularly for manufacturers, it may be difficult to eliminate older order entry methods like phone, fax, and email. For many manufacturers, EDI will always remain a dominant method of order placement. Some customers will simply continue placing orders this way—or they may place orders through multiple channels. That’s why it’s important that the B2B eCommerce portal should display orders from all channels. This gives customers a total view of their order history—plus it helps make the web channel “stickier.”

Real-time order/shipment status + shipment tracking numbers. This information lives in SAP, so if your B2B eCommerce portal is going to provide 100% self-service, you’ll want to provide this as well. If buyers can’t get order status, shipment status, and live tracking number updates, they’re going to call Customer Service to get them, which drives up your cost of post-order care.

The Takeaway:

At every stage of the buyer journey, your channel partners will pick up the phone or send an email if they can’t get the information they need through self-service. That kind of customer interaction requires human intervention. At scale, this drives up your cost of doing business and defeats one of the purposes of launching B2B eCommerce (i.e., cutting unnecessary cost from your order-to-cash cycle).

3. Determine your appetite for owning complexity

Once you’ve determined how much of the customer journey you want to cover with SAP integration, you’ll want to evaluate your appetite for owning the complexity of SAP integration. At a high level, there are only 2 ways to build a B2B portal solution that’s integrated with SAP in real time:

• Conventional, unmanaged B2B eCommerce platform with 3^rd party middleware system passing data back and forth (whether batch, real-time, or a combination) between SAP and eCommerce. (May not cover the entire customer journey in a B2B scenario).
• Managed B2B eCommerce + customer portal solution that’s built on real-time SAP integration. A solution like this acts as an extension of ERP data and processes as they relate to customer self-service. It allows you to maintain this data in one place (SAP) rather than 3 places (SAP, middleware, and eCommerce). A solution like this covers the entire customer journey in a B2B scenario.

This is where many organizations reach a fork in the road. Let’s examine how each model works in detail.

Conventional, unmanaged B2B eCommerce platform + middleware integration

You own the complexity of 3 systems (SAP, B2B eCommerce, middleware).

In this scenario, you choose a B2B eCommerce platform like Magento or SAP Commerce Cloud, then select a middleware solution to pass data back and forth between B2B eCommerce and SAP. You’ll have to maintain your SAP business rules and 3 places (SAP, middleware, and B2B eCommerce).

In a B2B scenario with numerous complex business rules, this architecture creates a considerable workload distributed across 3 teams (B2B eCommerce, middleware, and SAP). You’ll have to hire these resources internally or outsource the responsibility to 3^rd parties.

That’s why this architecture is ideally suited to a B2C scenario, in which customer-specific business rules don’t come into play.

In a B2B scenario, where customer-specific business rules do govern transactions, we don’t recommend this architecture if your company does less than $5 billion in total annual revenue (more on that in our B2B Platform Comparison section).

NOTE: Watch out for cost overrun from multiple vendors billing time/materials

Simply put, this architecture distributes responsibility across too many vendors. You’ll need:

• B2B eCommerce platform licensing
• B2B eCommerce SI to build your solution and support it after GoLive
• Middleware platform licensing
• Middleware platform implementation and support after GoLive

Unfortunately, most vendors in this space bill on a time/materials basis. However long it takes them to fulfill the scope, that’s what you’ll pay. While it’s easy to define the scope you need at the beginning of the project, it’s almost impossible for vendors to quote those hours accurately—especially if they’re building you a bespoke integration solution.

There’s a better way—choosing a managed solution that’s built on SAP integration.

Managed B2B eCommerce + customer portal solution that’s built on real-time SAP integration

You own the complexity of only one system (SAP).

In this scenario, you choose a B2B eCommerce platform which includes prebuilt, configurable integration to SAP. You maintain your business rules in one place only—SAP, where they’ve always lived.

This architecture saves you from making duplicate investments. Without separate databases for B2B eCommerce and middleware, you don’t have to rebuild and maintain your existing SAP business rules in two places (which is a costly proposition, both during the implementation phase, and in the ongoing support phase). Instead, you leverage all of your relevant SAP investments in B2B eCommerce without a third party sitting between the ERP and the web store.

This architecture is ideally suited to a B2B/manufacturing scenario, in which customer-specific business rules determine every aspect of the transaction. This is the architecture which we recommend for manufacturers in the $300M – $5B annual revenue range (see our B2B Platform Comparison section for more).

NOTE: Look for fixed-bid providers

For manufacturers, SAP integration will make or break your B2B eCommerce initiative. Cost overrun and unsolvable integration problems can ruin a project. It’s best to choose a provider who will launch your B2B eCommerce solution, SAP integration included, for a fixed bid (rather than billing time and materials). This ensures that you get mission-critical functionality in your B2B eCommerce solution, and it’s the model we use here at Corevist.

4. Let your SAP integration requirements guide your choice of platform

In the latest B2B wave report (Q2 2020), Forrester suggests that organizations evaluating B2B eCommerce solutions should look for deep, prebuilt integrations in addition to features/functionality:

“More providers today offer proprietary app stores. However, the actual implementation of these add-ons can require everything from a few plug-and-play configuration clicks to a major developer-dependent implementation project. Look for ease of integration, meaning that: 1) the integrated solution is administrable within common tooling, and 2) changes are applied in real time and do not require batch processing or manual refreshes to take effect.” [emphasis ours]

For manufacturers running B2B eCommerce, integration to the ERP is essential for real-time inventory availability, enforcement of complex pricing rules, omnichannel order tracking, and more.

Manufacturers should choose a solution with depth of integration, overall cost, and staffing requirements that fit their business (and their budget). That’s why our B2B eCommerce platform comparison looks at two key dimensions:

• Company revenue, which generally correlates with the size of the digital channel (and, thus, correlates with the resources which you can spend on the solution)
• Depth of integration required

1. Organizations with < $300M in annual revenue

Ideal platforms: Shopify, Bigcommerce

SMBs (small businesses) don’t need all the complexity of heavyweight platforms like Salesforce or SAP Commerce Cloud. The most important thing is a great user experience, the availability of prebuilt frontend widgets and 3rd party integrations, and limited responsibility for the B2B eCommerce tech stack.

As market-leading SaaS solutions, both Shopify and Bigcommerce check these boxes. They’ll serve the small business well.

Magento could be a fit for organizations with <$300M/year total revenue, but with one caveat: Magento is a PaaS (platform as a service) solution, rather than SaaS (software as a service). You’ll need Magento developers, either in-house or outsourced through an agency, to build out, maintain, and support your solution.

That’s why we typically recommend Shopify or Bigcommerce for this revenue bracket. A true SaaS solution will allow you to focus on your business without taking on responsibility for the B2B eCommerce technology stack.

2. Organizations with $300M – $5B in annual revenue

In our experience, most organizations in this revenue bracket fall into one of two groups:

1. You just need a B2C-style front end without any SAP ERP integration for B2B
2. Your business depends on SAP ERP, and the web experience must enforce personalized SAP business rules for each B2B user

1. No deep B2B integration required, just a B2C-style front end

Ideal platform: Adobe/Magento

If you fall into the first category, Adobe/Magento is a great choice. The solution offers everything which a midmarket, non-SAP-dependent organization needs to compete online. Magento’s world-class functionality allows you to replicate a B2C-style experience for B2B segments.

You get greater control of the solution than you would with Shopify or Bigcommerce, but you take on greater responsibility, too. With Magento, you’ll need an internal team of developers or an agency to build, launch, maintain, and support your solution.

At this point, you might be wondering how Magento squares up against Salesforce. Aren’t they going after the same market? You’re right, they are—and their pricing reflects that. All in all, you’ll spend roughly $500k/year for either Magento or Salesforce.

But for the $300M – $5B bracket, Magento has one disadvantage: it comes in at a similar price point as Salesforce, but it’s just commerce. Salesforce offers their flagship CRM solution, as well as other solutions, in addition to B2B eCommerce.

Magento delivery model: PaaS

Magento is a PaaS solution. You license the platform where you (or a Magento agency) can develop, launch, and manage your own unique Magento B2B eCommerce solution.

2. Deep SAP ERP integration required for complex B2B transactions

Ideal platform: Corevist

Corevist solutions were built to meet the needs of the $300M – $5B bracket—with direct, real-time SAP integration included.

Corevist client checklist:

• You’re between $300M – $5B annual revenue
• You’re looking for a heavily SAP-integrated solution
• You don’t want to involve extra internal/external resources in owning and managing the integrated solution
• You want to keep SAP ERP at the center of your world

We’re built specifically for manufacturers whose SAP systems run their businesses with complex, personalized business rules for each customer.

In fact, our B2B solutions are so tightly integrated with SAP, we like to say they act as a customer-ready window into your ERP:

Corevist delivery model: Hybris SaaS / PaaS

Corevist’s delivery model is a mix of SaaS and PaaS. On the PaaS side, we offer a flexible platform with SAP integration architecture which supports commerce (with or without a catalog), order placement, order tracking, and invoice payment, all capable of interacting with SAP ERP in real time.

On the SaaS side, we maintain full responsibility for the cloud technology stack (integration + front end) that delivers your Corevist solution to your customers. You license the platform from us. As necessary, we customize our OOTB product to suit your needs, then launch and manage your Corevist solution(s) under a SaaS model.

FAQ: Why not just use Magento or Salesforce + middleware integration?

We’ve talked to many organizations in the $300M – $5B bracket who’ve gone down this road. Ultimately, if you do have a deep dependency on SAP ERP, standing up and maintaining a middleware integration to Magento or Salesforce may be a challenge. Whether in-house or outsourced, your organization will have to do some heavy lifting.

To bring your SAP business rules to the front end, you’ll need a middleware solution to transfer data to and from SAP and the B2B eCommerce solution. If you’re in the >$5B revenue bracket, the high cost and complexity of that middleware architecture may be justified. However, in the $300M – $5B bracket (where Magento plays), it’s often infeasible for organizations to get the integration off the ground (or keep it up and running).

Middleware-based architectures require your internal teams (or outsourced teams) to build and maintain your SAP business rules in 3 separate places—SAP, middleware, and eCommerce. That leads to a much higher cost than ~$500k/year (typical cost of Magento or Salesforce without SAP integration), as you’re retaining 3 separate teams, one for each system:

For the $300M – $5B range, the high cost and complexity of a middleware integration isn’t a trivial problem. An unreliable integration damages trust among customers, and the high cost of maintaining that integration (and thus, that trust) eats up too many resources for a midmarket company.

Without SAP ERP integration, the only other option is manual order entry. You’ll need CSRs (customer service reps) whose sole job is punching eCommerce orders into the ERP. While that’s a feasible process for small businesses with low order volumes, it’s not scalable, and companies in the $300M – $5B range usually find it unmanageable.

3. Organizations with > $5B in annual revenue

Ideal platforms: Salesforce B2B Commerce, SAP Commerce Cloud

If your organization generates >$5B in total annual revenue, and you’re looking to spend $800k+ on a fully customized frontend solution (plus more on a custom-tailored integration to SAP ERP), then both Salesforce and SAP may be a good fit for B2B eCommerce.

Both Salesforce B2B Commerce and SAP Commerce Cloud are truly enterprise-class platforms. They offer tons of frontend capabilities for a powerful, flexible, B2C-style experience. You buy the platform, then use internal teams (or outsourced developers) to build out a solution using components and customizations tailored to your unique needs.

For $5B+ organizations, both Salesforce and SAP are well-positioned to act as a B2B eCommerce powerhouse.

Of course, with all this power comes great responsibility. As truly enterprise-class platforms, both SAP and Salesforce give you more control—and require you to take more ownership of the technology stack. Their implementations run large (often over a million dollars), and they each require dedicated teams to maintain and support.

For many organizations with >$5B total annual revenue, this higher cost, complexity, and responsibility is easily justified, as you get powerful frontend capabilities and enterprise-class functionality.

Delivery model: PaaS

Both Salesforce B2B Commerce and SAP Comemrce Cloud are PaaS solutions. You license the platform, then use it to develop, launch, and manage your own unique B2B eCommerce solution.

Sources:

• Salesforce data
• Magento data
• Shopify data
• Bigcommerce data
• SAP hybris/Commerce Cloud data

Why go direct?

Manufacturers typically have a simple reason for going direct: When you eliminate the distributor, you take greater control of the transaction with the ultimate customer, and that gives you more tools both to close today’s sale, and to generate future sales from the same customer.

The thinking goes like this: Distributors act as a buffer between you and the end users of your products. Not only do they buffer the transaction, but they also buffer your knowledge of how the customer uses your product.

This is why in some markets, for some manufacturers, distributors may actually do more harm than good. Alongside your products, they also represent competitive products—and they may even show preference for those products over yours.

When you look at a scenario like this from a growth perspective, your distributor is now “gating” your growth. They’re acting as a constraint on it.

Of course, going direct requires an all-new GTM (go-to-market) strategy. It’s not a simple flip of a switch. You need to ensure you’ve got all your bases covered—that you’re addressing the entire scope of the problem in defining a direct-to-consumer model.

That’s why we put together this list. Here’s what you need to cover:

1. Map the politics of going direct (and the impact to your overall business)

In many cases, there’s no way around it: Going direct will upset some (or all) of your channel partners.

Depending on your relationship with them, they may view the move as a competitive threat. At the very least, they’ll see it as a reduction in the value which you place on your relationship with them.

How do you orchestrate a move to selling direct which also preserves your valuable relationships with channel partners?

Luckily, selling direct doesn’t have to be “all or nothing.” There are many ways to sell directly to end users without severing ties with every channel partner. You can sell direct:

• By product. If you discontinue selling a particular product (or product line) via channel partners but keep other product lines available to them, you can start selling direct without ending your existing relationships.
• By geography. With a given product line, you can sell direct in one geography while retaining distributors/dealers in other geographies. Maybe you sell direct in the EU, but keep selling through distributors in the US.

Wherever you plan to sell direct, you’ll want to map the impact which the decision will have on your relationships with channel partners. In an intelligent direct strategy, the benefit will outweigh any potential cost. You’ll want to do the math and determine what mix of direct and traditional distribution is right for your organization.

2. Define how your new distribution strategy will be your competitive edge

Here’s a challenging statement: Next to your products, your distribution strategy is your competitive edge.

Traditionally, manufacturers haven’t attempted to differentiate themselves based on distribution strategy. The product was enough, and channel partners would take care of competitive distribution. Yet the digital world has disrupted this model and forced manufacturers to consider two facets of the “total value” they offer customers:

• Product as a competitive differentiator. Your products differentiate you clearly against anyone else. Functionality, features, unique selling proposition—these add up to create your unique niche in the market, the value which your customers can’t get anywhere else.
• Distribution strategy as a competitive differentiator. Access to your products offers additional competitive differentiation. Your distribution channel that gets this. Since you already provide the value of the product, the distribution channel’s strategic imperative is to provide access to the product that isn’t available anywhere else.

There’s no reason you, as the manufacturer, can’t provide both kinds of value to your end users.

The key to using your distribution strategy as a differentiator

The digital world is in constant flux. What worked this year or this quarter may not work again.

To succeed here, you have to support an experimental mindset and stay Agile. That means:

• Testing one iteration of your new distribution strategy
• Measuring your results
• Tweaking the model accordingly
• Testing again

When you institute a culture of experimentation and Agility, you position your organization to stay competitive in the digital age.

3. Define how close you want to get to the end user (but prepare for the unexpected)

When you’re considering the prospect of going direct, it’s easy to imagine yourself in full control of the situation. But the control you have today could evaporate tomorrow.

This happened to one of our clients. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they lost their distribution channel on the US West Coast. The demand for their products was still strong, but the middleman wasn’t there. The company had to redefine how close they would get to the end user of their products. And ultimately, they had to go direct, whether they wanted to or not.

A few years in, our client is thriving with their direct model. Now that they’ve done it, they realize it’s not that bad. They’ve tackled the logistics, set up a warehouse, staffed it—and they’re not looking back.

Diversify your model

We have another client who sells through all kinds of distribution models. In some territories, they’re incredibly close to the consumer—while in others, they’re using a traditional dealer/distributor relationship. Here’s what that looks like across the organization:

• Brick-and-mortar retailers. Their B2C-oriented products are sold through big box stores.
• D2C online. The company’s consumer products are available directly online, too, through a B2C eCommerce presence.
• Dealers. The company maintains a network of dealers for their heavy-duty equipment, as this model allows buyers to get the best value from the right product.
• Distributors. The company’s business customers still prefer to buy through distributors, so the company maintains those relationships for the appropriate product lines.

The bottom line: Define how close you want to get to the customer

At some point, every manufacturer has to understand that the ultimate customer is not their channel partner. The ultimate customer is the end user.

The larger the buffer you put between yourself and the ultimate customer, the slower your response time will be as trends in the market evolve. Ultimately, that distance and slowness insulates you from the needs of the ultimate customer. Taken to the extreme, that’s a dangerous place to be.

Of course, there’s a tradeoff. The less buffer you have between your organization and the end user, the more Agile you have to be. Closeness to the end user will demand flexibility and fast pivoting.

Some of it is beyond your control, too. Every manufacturer wants to get closer to the consumer, but your business may only allow so much closeness. The supply chain and the nature of the product will place inherent limits on how close you can get.

The key is to map all this, highlight opportunities to get closer, and act on them.

4. Map the eCommerce responsibility you’ll take on as you get closer to the end user

With great power comes great responsibility. Getting closer to the consumer gives you greater power over the transaction—and you take on more responsibility in the process.

Specifically, you’ll need to map the end user’s needs for a B2C-style eCommerce experience. This is new ground for some manufacturers—but it’s not as hard as you might think.

Depending on your market, a B2C-style web store could include several different things:

• Configurable products. If you’re selling products with multiple configurable attributes, you’ll need to provide a way for customers to configure the product in the web store. Typically, this requires a CPQ (configure/price/quote) solution integrated to SAP VC.
• Product catalog + rich content. Many manufacturers have a digital portal solution for their channel partners—but end users may need more than just order entry and account management. A product catalog with rich content empowers your end users to understand your products better and make intelligent decisions.
• Credit card payments. This, too, is new ground for some manufacturers. When you’re selling to channel partners, you may not need to take any kind of electronic payment. But end users are a different story. If they’re consumers, rather than businesses, you’ll have to take credit cards—but business customers may prefer this method, too.

If your customers need any of this functionality (and most manufacturers find that their end users do), you’ll need to provide it in your eCommerce solution or digital customer portal.

5. Answer the “make to order” question

This is arguably the biggest challenge which manufacturers face in selling direct. Manufacturers are tooled up to “make to stock”—to produce large quantities meeting forecasted demand across an entire market segment.

But the end user may not buy tens, hundreds, or thousands of units. Depending on the market and product, they may want to buy in quantities of 1.

To meet this kind of demand, manufacturers must retool their operations to support a “make to order” model. In this situation, the manufacturing process begins after an order is placed, and the process must be able to produce a quantity of 1.

If you intend to keep selling to dealers/distributors in other territories or product lines, you may need to support a “make to order” supply chain alongside “make to stock.”

The challenge, here, is forecasting demand. While there are no clear-cut answers, it’s worth noting that eCommerce analytics offer insight into seasonal variability and buying trends. Learn more here: 4 Key Metrics for Growth-Oriented eCommerce.

6. Answer the logistics question

When manufacturers are looking at selling direct, it’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of traditional distribution.

While that’s understandable, manufacturers should take a balanced view.

In many cases, distributors actually provide a lot of value. This is especially true in geographical storage and fulfillment. If you have a manufacturing plant on the US East Coast, and lots of customers on the West Coast, you’ll run into new fulfillment challenges if you don’t have a warehousing presence on the West Coast. When a West Coast customer buys something, it will cost the manufacturer more time and money to get the product there.

If you have a local distributor who’s stocking product for you, they can deliver it almost immediately—as long as it’s not a “make to order” scenario.

As you’re preparing your direct model, make sure you cover logistics from a geographical perspective.

7. Define your Amazon strategy

Manufacturers are scrambling to understand the opportunities (and threats) which Amazon poses to their various lines of business. While the answer looks different in every vertical (often, even in different product lines), one thing is clear: manufacturers can’t ignore Amazon.

Amazon Business is expected to hit $52 billion in revenue by 2023.

While it’s easy to say “we should be there,” manufacturers should do their homework. There are many questions which organizations need to answer before jumping in.

For a deeper dive on Amazon strategy for manufacturers, check out the webinar we hosted with Brian Beck, renowned Amazon B2B expert.

8. Answer the eCommerce platform question

If there’s one common thread here, it’s this: you really need an eCommerce platform that’s flexible enough to handle the needs of both dealers/distributors, and end users. The problem isn’t trivial. A conventional B2C platform can’t handle the needs of your channel partners, which puts you in B2B eCommerce territory—but B2B eCommerce may not be right for your direct channel if the end user is a B2C consumer.

The differences in the needs of these personas are fairly significant:

• Freight selection. What SAP ERP business rules govern freight selection for your channel partners? How about your direct customers? Those scenarios are totally different. Now the platform has to fit two sets of business rules around shipping/freight. (Hint: Corevist products achieve this through direct, real-time SAP integration which supports the business rules associated with the customer in SAP.)
• Taxes. The eCommerce platform has to support multiple tax scenarios. Depending on the customer type, which products are taxable, and which aren’t? Can you have multiple types in one cart? At what level will you calculate taxes? What happens if you’re going to do a dropship? How do you calculate taxes on that? The platform should support all answers to these questions which your business requires. (Hint: If those rules are defined in SAP, you’re in luck—Corevist brings the appropriate tax rules to the web store in real time.)
• Payments. What kinds of payments will you accept? When will you accept them—at checkout, or in an invoice payoff scenario? Your direct customers may have different needs than channel partners when it comes to eCommerce payments.
• Personalized catalogs. More and more manufacturers are asking for this feature. They need their web store to present different catalogs to different customers—and that need is especially apparent when you’re differentiating between direct customers and channel partners. So how do you achieve personalized catalogs at minimal cost? Corevist does it through our prebuilt SAP integration, which comes standard with all Corevist products. Read more here: Corevist’s 53 SAP integration points.
• RDD (requested delivery date). If you’re going to support channel partners and direct consumers on the same platform, you’ll need to define how you want to handle RDD. Your channel partners need the ability to request a delivery date—but for direct consumers, you probably want to just tell them when it will ship. How do you handle that in the web store? (Note that Corevist supports your existing RDD business rules for the channel partner side of the business.)
• SEO. The channel-partner-side of your web store may or may not have a public catalog. But your D2C channel requires one. Now you’re in the realm of SEO. How will you optimize your catalog for Google and other search engines? The question isn’t trivial, as organic search is a huge source of traffic for manufacturers engaging in a direct selling.

The bottom line

You need a flexible platform for an omnichannel scenario. It should offer:

• Minimal effort to deploy and maintain, with SAP integration included. (Note: This is the thinking behind Corevist Commerce.)
• Accommodation of complex SAP ERP business rules, plus the flexibility to handle the D2C channel, too.
• Right-sized fit for your organization. In many cases, the effort required to stand up the eCommerce solution and integrate it to SAP is cost-prohibitive for organizations under $5 billion in total annual revenue. Check out our in-depth B2B eCommerce Platform Comparison chart for more information.

How do you craft a great customer experience for dealers & distributors?

This challenge has only grown more difficult in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With an uncertain future ahead, manufacturers are scrambling to shift their customer experience to self-service web portals—or to improve the experience, if they already have a web channel, by rebuilding it around ERP integration.

The world is moving to self-service buying and account management.

The challenge here is to give your dealers & distributors the seamless, self-service experience they need to do business with you, both today and in the future. Here’s our take on crafting a great customer experience for your dealers and distributors.

1. Got a portal already? Identify friction points

What do your dealers & distributors actually want in a customer experience? The answers might surprise you. Over the years, we’ve heard many stories from manufacturers who are figuring out their ideal customer experience:

• If you have a standalone B2B eCommerce platform with beautiful rich content, but no SAP integration, you might be surprised to find that your dealers/distributors need reliable pricing/inventory data more than they need product images.

• If you have a middleware integration between B2B eCommerce and SAP, you might be surprised to learn that out-of-sync data is causing a lackluster customer experience which isn’t worth the high cost of middleware-based architecture.

2. No portal? You may be “hard to buy from”

Which order placement workflow best describes your company?

• Phone/fax/email > Customer Service > SAP
• Standalone web store > Customer Service > SAP
• Web store > Batch synchronization system > SAP
• B2B portal with direct, real-time SAP integration (this is the Corevist way)

If dealers & distributors have to call Customer Service to get price, availability, and other purchase-critical information, you may be “hard to buy from.” In the age of Amazon, buyers expect self-service portals—even when buying from manufacturers. The trick here is the integration to SAP ERP. Without real-time integration, your B2B portal won’t offer any visibility into dynamic contract pricing or product availability. These datapoints (and more) are key to closing the transaction with dealers and distributors.

Since this information lives in your SAP ERP system, and since it’s personalized for each and every account, your B2B web portal must interact with SAP in real time if it’s going to create a great customer experience.

This is the thinking behind the Corevist Platform. It’s a B2B eCommerce solution built on top of a real-time SAP integration. Your dealers & distributors get a 100% personalized experience conformed to their business rules in SAP.

3. Decide how to give customers personalized data from SAP ERP

As we mentioned above, SAP integration is critical to customer experience. If your dealers & distributors can’t get personalized pricing/availability, real-time credit status, order/invoice history, and more, then the B2B web portal is failing them. But what’s the best way to integrate to SAP? It’s not a trivial question. The conventional approach looks something like this:

(Standalone eCommerce platform) + (middleware) + (SAP ERP) = SAP-integrated web portal

Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. The liability here is twofold: the standalone eCommerce platform, and the middleware solution. Each system will require its own team of IT specialists supporting it, and you’ll have to duplicate all your business rules from SAP ERP in each one. That means lots of personnel, each siloed in their own system.

But different manufacturers need different kinds of catalogs. For example, if you’re selling finished goods or raw materials, a standard Amazon-style eCommerce catalog may be ideal. But if you’re selling replacement/OEM parts associated with other major SKUs, you may need a visual parts selector as your catalog.

The Corevist Platform supports both types of catalog solution.

5. Make sure your portal offers real-time order/account status info

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated a problem which was brewing under the surface for many manufacturers.

In a nutshell, dealers & distributors have no way to get account/order updates—except to contact Customer Service or Sales.

Your buyers can get this kind of information in their personal lives, shopping on Amazon. You can see the status of any order from within your Amazon account.

Your dealers & distributors need this visibility as part of your customer experience—but they need more, too. Since you take orders on account, with net payment terms, buyers need visibility into their real-time credit status, real-time status of all invoices, and full invoice history and open items.

1. Determine the depth of SAP integration required within eCommerce

When it comes to SAP eCommerce, one question will define every aspect of your initiative:

Do your web customers need to interact with your SAP ERP system in real time as they build and place orders?

If you’re not sure, here’s a high-level list of eCommerce functionality which is only available in a real-time integration scenario. If you answer yes to any of these, you’ll need some form of real-time SAP integration to support your eCommerce transactions.

• Real-time inventory availability within the eCommerce portal, including any customer-specific inventory display rules
• Error-free order posting from eCommerce to SAP without human intervention
• Real-time credit status for customers within the eCommerce portal
• Real-time order status for customers within the eCommerce portal

If your customers need real-time SAP integration, then keep reading — we’ll help you explore your options and build a plan that fits your organization’s needs. We’ll talk about defining the scope of the customer journey which you want to cover, evaluating your integration options and choosing an eCommerce platform.

If your buyers don’t need to interact with your SAP ERP system in real time, then you can pursue a conventional eCommerce project using a platform like Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce or SAP Commerce Cloud, passing data to and from SAP via batch updates. To compare these eCommerce platforms in an SAP ERP scenario, skip to our platform comparison section.

2. Define the scope of the customer journey which requires SAP integration

Not every eCommerce solution is prepared to cover the entire customer journey with real-time SAP integration. You’ll want to define the scope which you’ll cover first, then look for a solution that can handle the entire scope.

For example, a conventional, B2C-style platform will obviously cover the basics of eCommerce — product catalog, cart/checkout, credit card payment at time of order placement and order updates. If ERP interaction is required, it will usually take the form of batch updates between SAP and eCommerce.

However, in a B2B scenario (particularly for manufacturers), reliance on batch updates can create gaps in customer experience. Without real-time integration, a manufacturer’s channel partners can’t get crucial information or functionality that they need at that stage.

Here’s what that looks like at every stage of your customer journey.

I. Evaluation stage:

Real-time credit status. In a B2B scenario, credit status can make or break a transaction. Buyers need visibility into their current credit status so they know if the order they’re about to place will go on credit block. Alongside real-time credit status, you may want to offer the ability to pay down invoices (see below, “III. Post-order care stage”).

Real-time inventory/ATP availability in the catalog or cart. This data is generated by a complex calculation in SAP, and it’s often personalized for different customers. Because real-time changes in the underlying inventory quantity will modify each customer’s ATP calculation in SAP in real time, the eCommerce solution needs to get this information from SAP in real time.

Accurate contract pricing, including bundled/scaled pricing discounts. This data lives in SAP; and while it typically remains static (meaning it’s a potential candidate for batch updates), there’s less hassle and potential for bugs if pricing is pulled directly from SAP in real time. This is particularly true if you run promotional price changes which are defined in SAP, or if pricing fluctuates due to outside factors. With a direct, real-time integration loading pricing into the web store, you know eCommerce will always display the right price for every customer, no questions asked.

Personalized catalogs and picklists. In a B2B scenario, each customer often has an assigned list of SKUs which they’re allowed to purchase. If these picklists are rarely updated, they may be a candidate for batch updates. However, if a customer’s list of allowed SKUs changes, it’s simplest to run customers’ personalized catalogs in the web store off of real-time integration. That way, the web experience automatically reflects the state of SAP ERP as far as customer permissions.

II. Purchasing stage:

Accurate contract pricing displayed in the cart. Here’s where real-time integration really comes into play as regards pricing. If the price for one SKU is affected by purchasing another product, you’ll need real-time integration with SAP for the shopping cart. Otherwise, you’ll have to maintain those complex pricing rules in multiple places — SAP, your middleware solution, and eCommerce. That can harm the long-term viability of your eCommerce solution (see below, “3. Determine your appetite for owning complexity”).

Only 100% error-free orders posted to SAP. How many problem orders do you want to come from your eCommerce solution? None? Then you’ll need a real-time SAP integration in the eCommerce cart which checks the order for errors. A deep integration like this should capture any problem which might require human intervention from Customer Service — things like purchasing a disallowed or discontinued SKU or ordering a disallowed quantity.

Intelligent error messaging returned to the user. SAP eCommerce is really only “self-service” if it empowers customers to build and place 100% error-free orders. A deep SAP integration should support intelligent error messaging returned to the user from SAP. That way, the customer can understand why the order can’t be placed — and how to fix it.

III. Post-order care stage:

Real-time credit status + the ability to pay down invoices online. In a B2B scenario, this is essential. Since buyers may place orders via PO (rather than paying immediately via credit card), they also need the ability to pay off invoices and keep their accounts in good standing. All of this requires real-time integration to SAP.

Full order history from all channels (not just eCommerce). In a B2B scenario, particularly for manufacturers, it may be difficult to eliminate older order entry methods like phone, fax, email, and EDI. Some customers will simply continue placing orders this way — or they may place orders through multiple channels. That’s why it’s important that the eCommerce portal should display orders from all channels. This gives customers a total view of their order history — plus it helps make the web channel “stickier.”

Real-time order/shipment status + shipment tracking numbers. This information lives in SAP, so if your eCommerce portal is going to provide 100% self-service, you’ll want to provide this as well. If buyers can’t get order status, shipment status, and live tracking number updates, they’re going to call customer service to get them, which drives up your cost of post-order care.

The Takeaway:

At every stage of the buyer journey, the manufacturer’s customers will pick up the phone or send an email if they can’t get this information through self-service. That kind of customer interaction requires human intervention. At scale, this drives up your cost of doing business and defeats one of the purposes of launching eCommerce (i.e., cutting unnecessary cost from your order-to-cash cycle).

3. Determine your appetite for owning complexity

Once you’ve determined how much of the customer journey you want to cover with SAP integration, you’ll want to evaluate your appetite for owning the complexity of SAP integration. At a high level, there are only two ways to build a digital portal solution that’s integrated with SAP in real time:

• Conventional, unmanaged eCommerce platform with third-party middleware system passing data back and forth (whether batch, real-time, or a combination) between SAP and eCommerce. (May not cover the entire customer journey in a B2B scenario).
• Managed eCommerce + customer portal solution that’s built on real-time SAP integration. A solution like this acts as an extension of ERP data and processes as they relate to customer self-service. It allows you to maintain this data in one place (SAP) rather than three places (SAP, middleware and eCommerce). A solution like this covers the entire customer journey in a B2B scenario.

This is where many organizations reach a fork in the road. Let’s examine how each model works in detail.

Conventional unmanaged eCommerce platform + middleware integration

You own the complexity of three systems (SAP, eCommerce and middleware).

In this scenario, you choose an eCommerce platform like Magento or SAP Commerce Cloud, then select a middleware solution to pass data back and forth between eCommerce and SAP. You’ll have to maintain your SAP business rules and three places (SAP, middleware and eCommerce).

In a B2B scenario with numerous complex business rules, this architecture creates a considerable workload distributed across three teams (eCommerce, middleware and SAP). You’ll have to hire these resources internally or outsource the responsibility to third parties.

That’s why this architecture is ideally suited to a B2C scenario, in which customer-specific business rules don’t come into play.

In a B2B scenario, where customer-specific business rules do govern transactions, we don’t recommend this architecture if your company does less than $5 billion in total annual revenue (more on that in our Platform Comparison section).

NOTE: Watch out for cost overrun from multiple vendors billing time/materials

Simply put, this architecture distributes responsibility across too many vendors. You’ll need:

• eCommerce platform licensing
• eCommerce systems integrator to build your solution and support it after GoLive
• Middleware platform licensing
• Middleware platform implementation and support after GoLive

Unfortunately, most vendors in this space bill on a time/materials basis. However long it takes them to fulfill the scope, that’s what you’ll pay. While it’s easy to define the scope you need at the beginning of the project, it’s almost impossible for vendors to quote those hours accurately — especially if they’re building you a bespoke integration solution.

There’s a better way — choosing a managed solution that’s built on SAP integration.

Managed eCommerce + customer portal solution that’s built on real-time SAP integration

You own the complexity of only one system (SAP).

In this scenario, you choose an eCommerce platform that includes prebuilt, configurable integration to SAP. You maintain your business rules in one place only — SAP, where they’ve always lived.

This architecture saves you from making duplicate investments. Without separate databases for eCommerce and middleware, you don’t have to rebuild and maintain your existing SAP business rules in two places (which is a costly proposition, both during the implementation phase, and in the ongoing support phase). Instead, you leverage all of your relevant SAP investments in eCommerce without a third party sitting between the ERP and the web store.

This architecture is ideally suited to a B2B manufacturing scenario, in which customer-specific business rules determine every aspect of the transaction. This is the architecture we recommend for manufacturers in the $300M – $5B annual revenue range (see our Platform Comparison section for more).

NOTE: Look for fixed-bid providers
For manufacturers, SAP integration will make or break your eCommerce initiative. Cost overrun and unsolvable integration problems can ruin a project. It’s best to choose a provider who will launch your eCommerce solution, SAP integration included, for a fixed bid (rather than billing time and materials). This ensures that you get mission-critical functionality in your eCommerce solution, and it’s the model we use here at Corevist.

4. Let your SAP integration requirements guide your choice of platform

In a recent B2B wave report (Q2 2020), Forrester suggests that organizations evaluating B2B eCommerce solutions should look for deep, prebuilt integrations in addition to features and functionality:

For manufacturers running B2B eCommerce, integration to the ERP is essential for real-time inventory availability, enforcement of complex pricing rules, omnichannel order tracking, and more.

Manufacturers should choose a solution with depth of integration, overall cost and staffing requirements that fit their business (and their budget). That’s why our B2B eCommerce platform comparison looks at two key dimensions:

• Company revenue, which generally correlates with the size of the digital channel (and, thus, correlates with the resources you can spend on the solution)
• Depth of integration required

1. Organizations with < $300M in annual revenue

Ideal platforms: Shopify, BigCommerce

SMBs (small businesses) don’t need all the complexity of heavyweight platforms like Salesforce or SAP Commerce Cloud. The most important thing is a great user experience, the availability of prebuilt frontend widgets and third-party integrations, and limited responsibility for the eCommerce tech stack.

As market-leading SaaS solutions, both Shopify and BigCommerce check these boxes. They’ll serve the small business well.

Magento could be a fit for organizations with <$300M/year total revenue, but with one caveat: Magento is a PaaS (platform as a service) solution, rather than SaaS (software as a service). You’ll need Magento developers, either in-house or outsourced through an agency, to build out, maintain and support your solution.

That’s why we typically recommend Shopify or BigCommerce for this revenue bracket. A true SaaS solution will allow you to focus on your business without taking on responsibility for the eCommerce technology stack.

2. Organizations with $300M – $5B in annual revenue

In our experience, most organizations in this revenue bracket fall into one of two groups:

1. You just need a B2C-style front end without any SAP ERP integration for B2B
2. Your business depends on SAP ERP, and the web experience must enforce personalized SAP business rules for each B2B user

1. No deep B2B integration required, just a B2C-style front end

Ideal platform: Adobe/Magento

If you fall into the first category, Adobe/Magento is a great choice. The solution offers everything that a midmarket, non-SAP-dependent organization needs to compete online. Magento’s world-class functionality allows you to replicate a B2C-style experience for B2B segments.

You get greater control of the solution than you would with Shopify or BigCommerce, but you take on greater responsibility, too. With Magento, you’ll need an internal team of developers or an agency to build, launch, maintain and support your solution.

At this point, you might be wondering how Magento squares up against Salesforce. Aren’t they going after the same market? You’re right, they are — and their pricing reflects that. All in all, you’ll spend roughly $500k/year for either Magento or Salesforce.

But for the $300M – $5B bracket, Magento has one disadvantage: it comes in at a similar price point as Salesforce, but it’s just commerce. Salesforce offers their flagship CRM solution, as well as other solutions, in addition to B2B eCommerce.

Magento delivery model: PaaS

Magento is a PaaS solution. You license the platform where you (or a Magento agency) can develop, launch and manage your unique Magento B2B eCommerce solution.

2. Deep SAP ERP integration required for complex B2B transactions

Ideal platform: Corevist

Corevist solutions were built to meet the needs of the $300M – $5B bracket with direct, real-time SAP integration included.

Corevist client checklist:

• You’re between $300M – $5B annual revenue

• You’re looking for a heavily SAP-integrated solution
• You don’t want to involve extra internal or external resources in owning and managing the integrated solution
• You want to keep SAP ERP at the center of your world

We’re built specifically for manufacturers whose SAP systems run their businesses with complex, personalized business rules for each customer.

In fact, our solutions are so tightly integrated with SAP, we like to say they act as a customer-ready window into your ERP:

Each user gets a personalized experience driven by their SAP business rules—in real time. That means they get:

• Real-time inventory availability (or personalized ATP quantity, based on your business rules)
• Dynamic, personalized contract pricing (including all scaled pricing rules in SAP)
• Real-time credit status from SAP
• Full invoice, order and account history from SAP (including order history from ALL channels — EDI, phone, fax, email, etc. — in addition to B2B eCommerce)

Corevist delivery model: Hybrid SaaS / PaaS

Corevist’s delivery model is a mix of SaaS and PaaS. On the PaaS side, we offer a flexible platform with SAP integration architecture which supports commerce, order placement, order tracking and invoice payment, all capable of interacting with SAP ERP in real time.

On the SaaS side, we maintain full responsibility for the cloud technology stack (integration + front end) that delivers your Corevist solution to your customers. You license the platform from us. As necessary, we configure our OOTB product to suit your needs, then launch and manage your Corevist solution(s) under a SaaS model.

FAQ: Why not just use Magento or Salesforce + middleware integration?

We’ve talked to many organizations in the $300M – $5B bracket who’ve gone down this road. Ultimately, if you do have a deep dependency on SAP ERP, standing up and maintaining a middleware integration to Magento or Salesforce may be a challenge. Whether in-house or outsourced, your organization will have to do some heavy lifting.

To bring your SAP business rules to the front end, you’ll need a middleware solution to transfer data to and from SAP and the B2B eCommerce solution. If you’re in the >$5B revenue bracket, the high cost and complexity of that middleware architecture may be justified. However, in the $300M – $5B bracket (where Magento plays), it’s often infeasible for organizations to get the integration off the ground (or keep it up and running).

Middleware-based architectures require your internal teams (or outsourced teams) to build and maintain your SAP business rules in three separate places — SAP, middleware and eCommerce. That leads to a much higher cost than ~$500k/year (typical cost of Magento or Salesforce without SAP integration), as you’re retaining three separate teams, one for each system:

For the $300M – $5B range, the high cost and complexity of a middleware integration isn’t a trivial problem. An unreliable integration damages trust among customers, and the high cost of maintaining that integration (and thus, that trust) eats up too many resources for a mid-market company.

Without SAP ERP integration, the only other option is manual order entry. You’ll need CSRs (customer service reps) whose sole job is punching eCommerce orders into the ERP. While that’s a feasible process for small businesses with low order volumes, it’s not scalable, and companies in the $300M – $5B range usually find it unmanageable.

3. Organizations with > $5B in annual revenue

Ideal platforms: Salesforce B2B Commerce, SAP Commerce Cloud

If your organization generates >$5B in total annual revenue, and you’re looking to spend $800k+ on a fully customized frontend solution (plus more on a custom-tailored integration to SAP ERP), then both Salesforce and SAP may be a good fit for B2B eCommerce.

Both Salesforce B2B Commerce and SAP Commerce Cloud are truly enterprise-class platforms. They offer tons of frontend capabilities for a powerful, flexible, B2C-style experience. You buy the platform, then use internal teams (or outsourced developers) to build out a solution using components and customizations tailored to your unique needs.

For $5B+ organizations, both Salesforce and SAP are well-positioned to act as a B2B eCommerce powerhouse.

Of course, with all this power comes great responsibility. As truly enterprise-class platforms, both SAP and Salesforce give you more control — and require you to take more ownership of the technology stack. Their implementations run large (often over a million dollars), and they each require dedicated teams to maintain and support.

For many organizations with >$5B total annual revenue, this higher cost, complexity and responsibility is easily justified, as you get powerful frontend capabilities and enterprise-class functionality.

Delivery model: PaaS

Both Salesforce B2B Commerce and SAP Commerce Cloud are PaaS solutions. You license the platform, then use it to develop, launch and manage your own unique B2B eCommerce solution.

Sources:

• Salesforce data
• Magento data
• Shopify data
• Bigcommerce data
• SAP hybris/Commerce Cloud data

Make-and-ship vs. warehouse customers

Most packaging manufacturers work with 2 types of customers.

• Make-and-ship customers. With lower volumes and faster turnaround times, these customers don’t need warehousing terms. You ship their items out the door once they’ve been manufactured.
• Warehouse customers. These customers have more specialized needs. They often order at higher volumes with longer lead times, but they don’t (or can’t) store inventory themselves. You produce inventory for them and hold it in a warehouse until they need it. They request to release product from their private inventory.

As every packaging company knows, warehousing is essential to compete in the industry. Customers expect you to have a warehouse close to their location where you can store their products until they request to release them. Localized warehousing ensures that lead times aren’t an issue. It also helps customers avoid storage costs and respond to swings in demand. Clearly, warehouse customers have vastly different lifecycles from make-and-ship customers. As we look at tactics for improving your ordering processes, we’ll examine ways in which you can impact both customer convenience and your own operational efficiency for each type of customer. Now, on to the 5 components of a smart transformation plan.

1. Plan to launch a customer portal, but roll it out in phases

If you’re going to become “easier to do business with,” then you’ll need a self-service customer portal. But this customer portal looks a little different than “B2B eCommerce” in the traditional sense. If every customer gets their own private, custom SKUs, then a product catalog with preexisting SKUs may or may not make sense. Maybe you need that product catalog someday, but it needs to support your SKU creation processes, and you can’t think how to get there today. Maybe you have unique stock-releasing processes for warehouse customers. Your customer portal will definitely need to cover that. If you want to reduce your customer service call load, then the portal will need to provide real-time status for orders and invoices, plus full history for both. You might also want to show real-time credit status, so customers know where they stand—plus self-service invoice payments. Zooming out, here are a few essential high-level components of a self-service portal for packaging customers:

• Simple, intuitive interface that works on any device.
• Login tied to customer ID in SAP ERP so that all data is automatically personalized.
• Deep SAP ERP integration that shows this personalized data in real time, 24×7, with 100% accuracy. You’ll need this to display pricing, inventory availability, status and history for orders and invoices, credit status, and more.
• Support for your stock releasing processes (including SAP integration for those processes, so your SAP data is always correct).

Sounds like a lot, right? Let’s talk about the iterative path to get there. How to roll out your portal in phases Digital transformation projects fail too easily when the scope is too big. That’s why a phased approach is best for packaging companies. The key here is to break up your ordering cycle into phases and plan to roll out one at a time. Tracking orders and invoices is the last leg of the customer journey, but it makes sense to start with this functionality first, as it’s easy to display in the portal (assuming you choose a solution that includes prebuilt integration to SAP). It’s also a great way to introduce customers to self-service. Following that logic, here are the rollout phases that work well for packaging companies:

• Phase 1 – Customer self-service for order tracking and invoices.
• Phase 2 – Add order automation for emailed PO’s (invisible to customers, but valuable to you)
• Phase 3 – Self-service order placement (for all customers) and stock releasing (for warehouse customers)

This is the approach that our client Emmerson Packaging took. When Emmerson migrated onto SAP ERP, they lost their old customer portal, which was integrated to their old ERP. They knew an iterative approach was crucial to restoring customer self-service without taking on a project that was too big to handle.

2. Plan to end your dependence on tribal knowledge

The scope of the problem Tribal knowledge is the bane of packaging companies. Joe in customer service has been with you for 20 years. He fully understands the complexity of your customers’ needs, and he knows how to act as a liaison between the customer and your manufacturing processes. In fact, he’s an expert on your customers, their challenges, and your products. He’s a huge asset. But Joe doesn’t scale. And if he finds a new job, you’ve got a problem. Whether he realizes it or not, Joe also slows down your production process. He’s got a lot on his plate, and even once he gets an order finalized with a customer, he still has to rekey it into SAP. Joe might tell you it takes 5 minutes to enter that order—and that’s true. But Joe has to spend a lot of time with customers beforehand to get that order finalized. How much time does Joe spend figuring out what a customer needs? That’s hard to quantify, but there are certainly delays. Maybe a material doesn’t exist in SAP, or there’s no price, or the customer has specified the wrong product. Both Joe and your newer reps depend on tribal knowledge to hash things out with customers. They use their time and brainpower to make sure an SKU is active, make sure the customer PO matches your SAP logic, and so on. For most packaging companies, that quality check takes 15-30 minutes. Per order. How to end your dependence on tribal knowledge Here’s where you need to make a case and present it to the business. You need to advocate for data cleansing (see below) and a commitment to streamlined business processes. This will empower your reps to spend less time on mundane data problems—and more time acting as sophisticated product advisors. So what does it take? Here are the essential elements of ending your dependence on tribal knowledge.

• Commit to 100% accurate active/inactive status for SKUs in SAP
• Commit to 100% accurate customer pricing for each SKU in SAP
• Commit to 100% accurate real-time inventory data in SAP

With these commitments and a customer portal that’s integrated to SAP, you can actually eliminate those manual quality checks. All it takes is fixing the data, then providing a portal where customers (and customer service reps) can access it in real time.

3. Plan to cleanse your SAP ERP data as you go

You can’t succeed with a customer portal if there isn’t “one true truth” for your business data. If some data lives in SAP, some in the heads of customer service reps, and some in a separate customer portal database, you’re going to have problems. Here’s where an SAP-integrated portal offers a powerful benefit that you won’t get with a standalone portal (i.e. one that has its own database): It forces you to get business processes and data out of people’s heads and sticky notes, and into SAP ERP, where it belongs. This can be hard for some organizations, but it’s entirely worth it—and the process gets easier with a trusted advisor to guide you. Benefits of committing to 100% accurate SAP ERP data

• You become easier to do business with.
• Customers get complete transparency on products, prices, orders, credit status, and more, whether they’re getting the information from a rep or from the portal. Your organization becomes more customer-centric.
• Accurate SAP data correlates directly with faster scheduling. Manual validation processes can add 1-2 days to the process. For packaging SKUs with a 3-week lead time, this creates considerable waste at scale. 100% accurate ERP data allows product to ship within hours of order placement.
• You end your knowledge management problems once and for all, rather than facing them again whenever a seasoned employee leaves and/or you have to hire more reps.
• Standardized processes reduce the chance of errors and increase customer trust, which directly feeds retention.
• Engaging customers in the portal project (and data cleanup project) builds engagement and trust, as it shows you care about their needs.
• You can take advantage of a customer portal platform (like the Corevist Platform) that includes prebuilt integration for ECC or S/4HANA and supports all standard configurations related to the order-to-cash cycle. This means you don’t have to build a risky middleware-based architecture to keep the portal synced with SAP.

How to get your SAP ERP data ready for a customer portal Ideally, you’ll want to find a portal implementation partner who can advise on best practices for configuration. Look for a partner who has deep subject-matter expertise in SAP, SD, OTC, ABAP, and best practices for manufacturers. Hint: This is why the Corevist Team is composed of SAP experts. When we implement the Corevist Platform for a client, we engage a deep, collaborative process to align your SAP configuration not only with Corevist’s requirements, but with general best practices. Depending on your SAP ERP configuration, there are several things that may need to be cleaned up.

• Customer master data
• Orderable products
• Substituted products
• Available to promise (ATP)
• Customer pricing

While you could start cleaning up your data before you engage a partner for your customer portal, it’s best to wait until you’ve selected a platform and partner. That way, all configuration changes will support your future direction as a customer-first organization.

4. Plan to automate email PO’s

Not all aspects of a seamless ordering cycle are obvious to customers. Automating email PO’s is one of those things. Customers won’t necessarily know you’re doing it, but it frees up your reps to spend more time acting as strategic advisors, which directly impacts your value to the customer. What’s more, automated processing gets those orders to production faster. It shortens the ordering cycle for both warehousing and make-and-ship customers. With the lead-times that are typical in the packaging industry, this makes a huge impact. How to automate email PO’s A decent customer portal platform should include the capability to automate email orders and post them to SAP hands-free (assuming there are no errors). That’s the thinking behind Corevist BuyBot (available as an add-on to the Corevist Platform). This automated utility reads incoming PDF orders attached to emails and simulates them against the relevant business rules in SAP. BuyBot checks the customer’s allowable SKUs, contract pricing, quantity rounding rules, and more. If the order doesn’t contain errors, BuyBot posts it to SAP instantly, using the SAP integration architecture that comes with the Corevist Platform. If BuyBot detects errors, it routes the order to your customer service team for review.

5. Plan to offer true self-service order placement

Imagine an ordering process in which a customer builds their own order in a self-service shopping cart, then posts it instantly to SAP ERP. The order doesn’t require manual intervention because it conforms 100% to the relevant SAP business rules. This might sound impossible in the packaging industry, but it’s quite doable. (Just ask Emmerson Packaging.) When you give customers the responsibility to create well-formed orders, you take that responsibility off your plate. You also push customers to know their own needs and your products better. When customers engage more deeply on this level, they gain control over the process, which takes away fear and ambiguity. Empowering customers to place error-free orders Some processes will always require back-and-forth human interaction. If a warehousing customer has highly specific requirements for a new SKU, or if they need expert advice on specifications, your reps will always play a crucial role. But once that process is over and an SKU exists in SAP, why should your subject matter experts (your reps) have to re-key long PO’s into SAP? That’s not a good use of their time. A self-service ordering solution empowers your customers to order those finalized SKUs (and/or release them from warehouse stock) on any device. The key here is to offer a customer portal that’s deeply integrated to SAP ERP. This is the best way to provide essential elements of a self-service ordering experience—things like:

• A catalog that shows only the customer’s unique SKUs
• Real-time inventory availability (including support for complex inventory reports displayed dynamically from SAP)
• 100% accurate contract pricing (including dynamic adjustment for quantity discounts)
• Order placement by CSV upload (to support procurement workflows)
• Intelligent error messaging, driven by SAP responses, to help customers fix problems with their orders before placing them
• Only 100% error-free orders accepted and posted to SAP

The last two points are especially important. This is where you give customers the responsibility to create well-formed orders. You can’t do this if you don’t empower them with intelligent error messaging to help them fix problems. While SAP spits out error responses, you need an additional communication layer in the customer portal to translate those outputs into messages that your customers will understand. A solution like the Corevist Platform takes care of this.

Question: Is this the end of customer service?

Absolutely not! In fact, customers need more human insight than ever when sourcing packaging. The key here is not to replace your reps, but to elevate them. With mundane tasks taken off their plate—things like providing order status, credit status, or entering PO’s into SAP—you empower your reps to put their expertise to use. They can pivot to highly strategic roles as customer advisors and product experts. Ultimately, that benefits everyone involved. Customers get more time with the experts to figure out their needs and design solutions. They also get faster turnaround times on orders. Reps get more rewarding work, as they’re asked to play a crucial, strategic role in customer success. This role requires subject matter expertise, which allows reps to flex their muscles with helpful industry knowledge. Your operations get more efficient, too. With humans taken out of the communication chain for routine actions (order tracking, invoice checking, credit status, inventory checks, order placement, etc.), you speed up your order-to-cash cycle. With reps doing more rewarding work, you should also see less churn in your customer service staff. This gives you more opportunity to grow each rep into a subject matter expert who’s invaluable to customers.

Takeaway: Engage an expert partner to help you plan and execute your path

It’s not enough to tackle this with consultants. And it’s not enough to just buy technology. You’ll get better results with a comprehensive partner who not only knows the packaging industry and SAP, but also builds and supports B2B portals and eCommerce solutions on a best-in-class platform. Here at Corevist, we’ve developed the Corevist Platform over 14 years of solving B2B challenges. The platform includes prebuilt, SAP-certified integration for SAP or S/4HANA, and it supports complex use cases in packaging. We manage and support all our solutions and act as strategic advisors on our clients’ next chapters. Ultimately, that’s a great path to a seamless ordering lifecycle.

I. Growth Strategies For Manufacturers With Digital Customer Experiences

If you have a digital portal as part of your customer experience, you’re in a great place to grow. A web channel solution brings you closer to your customers and gives you the control of customer experience which you need.

Here are 8 growth strategies for manufacturers with web portals.

1. Develop thought leadership and content marketing to build your brand

Historically, manufacturers haven’t engaged in content marketing as much as other sectors have. Your value is in your product line and R&D, and your channel partners already understand your value.

That said, the digital revolution offers incredible opportunities to grow your mindshare through content marketing—both among channel partners, and among the end users of your products. Your end users need expert content to help them solve the larger problems which your products help solve. When you provide this content, it demonstrates thought leadership within your market and builds trust in your brand.

What does this look like in real life? Here are two examples.

Example 1: Construction equipment manufacturer selling durable equipment and parts through channel partners.

This manufacturer sells through dealers and distributors, who sell to the end users of equipment (construction contractors). There’s an opportunity here to provide expert content to contractors to help them understand the maintenance cycle for their equipment, how to choose the right machine for their application, best practices for specific types of construction projects, and so on.

Use content marketing to inform your buyers with actionable, hands-on instruction

If the manufacturer publishes thought leadership content along these lines, they can promote their content to dealers and distributors, who can promote it to the end user. This helps with brand building, and with a third party (dealer or distributor) endorsing your content, it will carry more authority.

Example 2: Chemical manufacturer selling adhesives to electronics manufacturers.

This manufacturer sells to other manufacturers. There’s an opportunity here to provide expert content to product leaders at electronics manufacturers. These leaders may need help understanding which adhesives are best suited to certain applications. Interactive content is especially powerful here—for example, a product comparison solution which allows users to input their requirements and get personalized, automated recommendations on which adhesives are best suited to their application.

2. Partner with your distribution channel to run end-user product campaigns

A digital customer experience for your channel partners makes it easier to direct them to specific product lines through coordinated campaigns. To make it easy for your channel partners to participate, you’ll want to develop the messaging and assets (images/videos) which they can use to promote your product.

This content could take many forms:

• Customer testimonial videos: Who are your most passionate, innovative customers? They’re the best candidates to do promotional videos on your behalf.
• Industry award showcase: Have your products won awards or been named as leaders in industry analyst reports? These kinds of achievements make great cornerstones for campaigns. Create content to celebrate these milestones and pass it on to your dealers and distributors to promote to your end users.
• Product comparison infographic showing your product vs. the competition: Help your end users understand which niche your products fit into. Keep it positive and respectful and provide real value to your end users. (NOTE: If you’re working with channel partners on this campaign, a product comparison infographic only works if you leave out competing products which your distributor sells. Your distributor won’t want to undermine their existing relationships with your competitors.)

When you create this content on behalf of your channel partners, you take out friction in their marketing process and make it easy for them to promote your products.

3. Leverage cross-sell/upsell capabilities in your web store

If your digital customer experience includes B2B eCommerce, cross-selling/upselling is a great way to grow your AOV (average order value).

Relevant cross-selling/upselling creates a better user experience (and increases value to the customer)

Here are some ideas:

• Cross-sell your own related products. Do you offer parts, consumables, or ancillary products which are associated with a major product? You can sell more with cross-selling relationships in your B2B eCommerce catalog. The more value you can deliver in each transaction, the more your web store becomes a destination for buyers.
• Cross-sell 3rd party ancillary products. It might seem counterintuitive, but one way manufacturers can increase the value of their digital customer experience is to act like a distributor—selling 3rd party ancillary products that support their own major products. The more customer value you can deliver, the “stickier” your digital customer portal becomes, which leads to more repeat purchases and growing AOV (average order value).
• Upsell from base products to more specialized products. A B2B eCommerce solution with rich content allows you to educate your buyers in a self-guided experience. When you present an upsell from a base product to a more specialized product, the buyer has the opportunity to learn about the product in a no-pressure, self-service environment. This inspires confidence and empowers the buyer to choose the product most suited to their application—often the more specialized, upsold product.

4. Set up personalized catalogs and picklists in your web store

Want to make it easy for dealers & distributors to find the right products? Personalized catalogs and picklists offer a great solution. When you limit the products which are visible to any particular customer, you take out friction in the product search and ordering process.

Personalized catalogs/picklists offer a great solution for several use cases:

• Customers need to save on freight charges. If your buyers want to maximize their freight value by ordering from one plant only (and filling up the truck), personalized catalogs/picklists can help. When buyers choose products from one plant only (which is possible with personalized catalogs/picklists), they prevent waste in their freight charges. The key here is to drive personalization in real time from SAP, via deep integration.
• Customers don’t need access to your entire product catalog for their geography. For some customers and market segments, less is more. This is especially true in highly specialized scenarios. If your buyers need access to only a handful of SKUs, personal picklists can provide a relevant, filtered experience.

This is particularly easy in a solution like Corevist Commerce, which includes real-time SAP integration. If you already have product lists associated with particular distributors in SAP, Corevist Commerce can leverage those existing business rules to create a personalized experience in the web store. You don’t have to rebuild the business rules or maintain them in two places—only in SAP.

5. Use personalized email automations to drive B2B eCommerce revenue

Email automation solutions, like Marketo or ActiveCampaign, offer the next level in sophistication for manufacturer marketing. With nearly infinite possibilities for rule-based sending and personalization, they empower manufacturers to deliver personalized marketing campaigns to buyers, whether those buyers are channel partners, end users, or both.

Personalized email marketing delivers better value to your channel partners.

With the right integration passing data from your B2B eCommerce solution to your marketing automation software, you can run all kinds of personalized campaigns—things like:

• Timed reorder reminders for products with regular reorder schedules. If you know a given product is ordered regularly (say once a week or once a month), you can run reminder campaigns timed to that cadence. If you set the automation up so it triggers only when the customer makes their next purchase, then set the timing to match the reorder schedule, the email cadence will automatically run following the customer’s reorder cycle (assuming that cycle doesn’t change).
• Product replacement campaigns. If you’re phasing out one SKU and phasing in a replacement, you can give customers a heads-up through campaigns for buyers who’ve purchased that SKU in the past. This is a great way to ease any confusion or anxiety which customers may have about a product being retired. When this type of campaign is coupled with automatic SKU replacement in the web store (driven by SAP business rules), it’s a powerful way to manage the product lifecycle and retain existing product revenue across the transition. (Note: Corevist Commerce supports smart SKU substitution within the web store, following your SKU substitution rules from SAP in real time.)
• Brand building thought leadership campaigns. Buyers need expert-level guidance on how to solve the larger business problems in which your products play a role. If you’re creating expert-level thought leadership content, you can promote that content to your existing customers through targeted, personalized email automations.

6. If you sell replacement parts, use exploded diagrams to make reordering easy

For durable equipment manufacturers, replacement parts are often an untapped market. Buyers may struggle to understand which parts they need as they consult print catalogs. Even if you have a digital parts catalog with exploded diagrams, your parts ordering experience may cause confusion if customers can’t click to order directly from the diagram.

In either case (no digital catalog, or digital catalog without ordering capabilities), your customer experience has friction in it.

You want to make it as easy as possible to order replacement parts. Ideally, you should have an exploded parts catalog which also allows the customer to order parts from within the exploded diagram:

7. Tailor your B2B eCommerce experiences to different customer segments with scalable SAP integration architecture

For manufacturers selling in multiple geographies (and/or those with multiple brands), one B2B eCommerce store rarely fits all. Different product lines, different SKU restrictions, different languages and currencies—global B2B eCommerce makes complex demands on manufacturers and their technology stacks.

With the right B2B eCommerce architecture (i.e. one that integrates with your SAP ERP system in real time), you can leverage SAP data for SKU permissions, currency, contract pricing, localized inventory availability, and more. (NOTE: Creating multiple storefronts on one SAP integration architecture is easy with Corevist solutions.)

This way, you bring tailored B2B eCommerce experiences to each geography and customer segment without recreating your SAP business rules in multiple systems. It’s a lean, agile, efficient way for global manufacturers to give their buyers the localized, personal experiences they need.

8. Expand your market footprint through organic SEO

Not every manufacturer wants (or needs) a publicly-viewable eCommerce catalog. In some cases, too much transparency can undermine competitive advantage.

However, for manufacturers who do offer publicly-viewable catalogs, SEO optimization offers a great opportunity to expand your market footprint.

Here’s a high-level punchlist for SEO optimization in a B2B eCommerce context:

• Page-level optimization: You’ll need to follow Google’s best practices for title tags/meta descriptions; URL structure; and creating informative content on the page that’s useful to real users and targeted toward the kind of search intent you want to capture. For example, if you’re a chemical manufacturer, you may want to show up in Google searches for “buy sulfuric acid.” You’ll want to optimize your product page(s) for these keywords. Get started with this post on eCommerce SEO from Moz, one of the leading experts in SEO.
• Links from other sites: Google looks at many, many things in evaluating a page against the search intent of a particular query. Among many other factors, relevant backlinks from trustworthy sites can increase your authority in Google’s eyes. That said, a reckless backlink-building strategy can actually harm your site. You need to know what you’re doing. Make sure you understand what Google is looking for as you put together a backlink-building strategy.

• Monitoring: Unfortunately, SEO optimization is rarely a “set it and forget it” discipline. You’ll need to monitor your performance in Google SERPs (search engine results pages) to see if you’re gaining ground, losing ground, or holding steady. This kind of data is highly actionable. If a certain page is gaining ground, you’re doing something right, and you can take those strategies and apply them to pages that aren’t doing so well. If you’re losing ground, something may be wrong, and it’s time to review the page again and ask how well-optimized it is. You can set up Google Search Console to monitor your performance in Google SERPs.

II. Growth Strategies For Manufacturers With Field Sales Portals

A Field Sales Portal is essentially a digital ordering and account management solution for your sales reps. It’s more than a CRM, because it allows reps to place orders on behalf of customers with the customer’s personalized business rules enforced from the ERP. The best solutions also post the order to the ERP in real time, 100% error free, with all the customer’s relevant business rules enforced.

A Field Sales Portal is a powerful tool for manufacturers, particularly in the post-COVID world. Check out these 3 growth strategies for the sales organization that’s empowered with a Field Sales Portal:

1. Set up personalized catalogs and picklists for each customer account

Some markets will always prefer working with a sales rep (rather than ordering through a self-service B2B eCommerce portal). A great rep makes your customers feel like they’re in good hands, which builds trust and helps finalize transactions.

Yet good reps have to work hard to know their customers—particularly if you have a large product catalog, and/or if you have ancillary product lists associated with major SKUs. The more products you have which aren’t relevant to a given customer, the more filtering your reps have to do when building orders on behalf of their customers.

Setting up personalized catalogs and picklists by customer account makes life much easier for your reps. When they select a customer account to service, the catalog will show only products from that customer’s picklist. This makes it easy for the rep to talk about relevant products, and it increases the value which the customer gets out of the interaction.

Personalized catalogs and picklists make it easier for your sales reps to increase their relevance to the customer.

But how do you set up these personalized catalogs/picklists? And—the million-dollar question—how do you manage them? Sounds like a nightmare, right?

A well-designed Field Sales Portal solution should include real-time SAP integration. That way, any picklists defined by customer in SAP automatically take effect in the Sales Portal. A real-time integration means there are no batch updates necessary. When the picklist is edited in SAP, the Sales Portal immediately reflects the new data—no other input necessary. (Note: This is the thinking behind the Corevist Field Sales Portal. It’s always up-to-date with SAP data for personalized catalogs/picklists for each account assigned to your rep in SAP.)

In a nutshell, personalized customer catalogs/picklists empower your reps to grow their AOV (average order value) and increase the value they bring to customers. This is a great way to grow revenue through your Field Sales Portal.

2. Choose a field sales portal architecture that’s flexible enough to support a customer-facing solution, too

Gone are the days when manufacturers could have a field sales portal alone (i.e. no customer-facing digital portal). COVID has driven manufacturers’ buyers to self-service B2B portals. Yet the trend was in motion before the pandemic, too; in fact, research from Avionos in 2018 found that the availability of a customer portal was a critical factor in choosing a supplier for 97% of procurement managers.

For manufacturers with a field sales portal, there may be an opportunity to leverage the architecture for a customer-facing solution—as long as the SAP integration architecture permits it. (Note: Corevist’s Field Sales Portal solution supports this kind of scaling. For more information, watch our webinar with our client Bioventus, who started with a Field Sales Portal, then scaled up to onboard customers to the solution as well.)

One caveat: If your Field Sales Portal is going to support customers, basing it on your CRM may not be the best choice. CRM data was never meant for customer consumption. It’s better to choose a solution for Field Sales that keeps SAP data at the core through real-time integration. This kind of architecture allows you to roll out a digital customer portal, too, without duplicate infrastructure investment.

3. Incentivize your reps to process all orders through the Field Sales Portal

If you’re making the transition from manual order entry (i.e. reps calling Customer Service) to a Field Sales Portal, your reps may need a little inducement to adopt the new order entry method. In our experience, successful sales reps tend to be independent thinkers who want control of their sales process. They may be skeptical of anything that changes that process.

Yet you need them to finalize orders through the portal. This reduces your cost to serve, as your customer service staff can focus on higher-value tasks if they’re no longer taking calls from your reps and posting routine orders to SAP.

Of course, order processing efficiency isn’t the only reason your reps should be using the portal. As they get more familiar with it, the portal will empower your reps with greater customer intelligence. They’ll be able to deliver better service in calls and meetings with customers.

Processing orders through the portal also offers clarity in sales tracking data. If the Field Sales Portal includes Google Analytics (as Corevist Field Sales does), you can aggregate all your product sales data in one place with Google Analytics.

A Field Sales Portal, coupled with Google Analytics, offers unique business intelligence.

One solution is to give your reps a commission bump for orders processed through the portal. This could be for a trial period (say the first quarter after launching the portal), or a permanent program to incentivize order placement through the portal.

III. Improving Internal Scalability To Provide Resources For Growth

Growth requires resources. And while increasing efficiency doesn’t necessarily correlate with revenue growth, it does free up resources for reinvestment in growth efforts. That’s why manufacturers who want to grow should consider how increasing internal scalability—particularly in their OTC (order to cash) cycle—can provide cost savings to fund growth initiatives.

Here are 4 strategies to improve internal scalability and free up resources for growth.

1. Eliminate price/availability calls to Customer Service

To eliminate wasteful processes, start with the most routine things you can find. We’ve worked with many manufacturers whose channel partners want to check price and availability before they even put an order together. Since these two simple data points already exist in SAP, it makes sense to eliminate manual calls for price and availability by giving customers access to these data points through self-service.

Typically, eliminating these calls requires a digital customer portal with real-time integration to SAP ERP. That way, customers can type in an SKU number and get real-time availability plus their personalized contract price, right in the portal.

With Customer Service freed up from handling these routine checks, they can focus on value-add activities to improve customer retention.

2. Eliminate phone/fax/email ordering (and manual order entry into SAP)

Most manufacturers’ channel partners have personalized pricing and inventory/ATP (available-to-promise) calculations which govern their transactions. They may also have personalized picklists which they’re allowed to order from, unique bundled pricing—and a whole host of other business rules.

That level of personalization is essential to each transaction. But mapping it in a digital customer portal isn’t a trivial undertaking. It’s the challenge which keeps many manufacturers from launching digital customer portals.

However, without a self-service ordering solution, your Customer Service staff will have to continue typing phone/fax/email orders into SAP, dealing with the inevitable order errors, and resolving them through customer callbacks. This drives up your cost to serve, eating up resources which you could invest in growth initiatives.

A digital portal with direct, real-time ERP integration (like Corevist) replaces an existing manual workflow in your OTC cycle.

If you’re going to eliminate phone/fax/email ordering (and replace them with self-service web ordering), the digital customer portal should be built on real-time integration to SAP ERP—including intelligent error messaging from SAP which helps the user create an error-free order. That way, every customer gets a personalized transaction driven by their business rules in SAP, and the new process doesn’t require manual callbacks.

Without that personalization, customers will fall back on phone/fax/email ordering (where they can get the personalization they need, through interaction with a customer service rep). That’s why SAP integration is essential in a digital customer portal.

3. Eliminate order tracking calls to Customer Service

Order tracking offers another opportunity for improving efficiency. Like checking price and availability, it’s a routine request for information which doesn’t actually require human expertise. If you can provide order tracking information through self-service, you can reduce or eliminate the time which your Customer Service staff spends on these routine inquiries. Your staff can switch to other, higher-value tasks—or you can reinvest resources in growth.

You already have the data which your customers need to track orders. It lives in SAP ERP and in the databases of shipping carriers. The key is to provide this data to customers through a self-service portal that includes real-time integration to SAP ERP (and to major carriers).

This is the thinking behind Corevist Order Tracking. It’s a self-service solution which launches in 30 days. Because it includes our SAP integration architecture, you can also expand the portal to full B2B eCommerce when you’re ready—without duplicate infrastructure investment.

4. Empower customers to pay down invoices and manage their accounts through self-service

Many manufacturers rely on manual, paper-based processes for sending account statements, receiving payments, and posting them to the account. These processes may involve your accounts payable department, your customer service department, or both. When human intervention is required, the process lacks internal scalability.

Getting account status, invoice history and status, and making payments are all routine actions in the customer journey. Like order tracking, price/availability checks, and order placement, these processes offer manufacturers great opportunities to improve internal scalability. With human intervention removed, you can reduce your cost to serve and provide customers with the self-service account management capabilities which they need.

The key is to choose a customer portal solution that supports your A/R processes through real-time SAP integration. With this kind of solution in place, you can empower your channel partners to manage their accounts and pay down invoices without the help of customer service or the A/R department. It’s a great way to free up resources for reinvestment in growth initiatives.

IV. Growth Strategies from Data Analysis

Digital tools offer incredible visibility into business data. For manufacturers, the trick is knowing where to find the right data—and then, knowing how to apply it.

Here are 3 strategies which use data analysis to gain insight into business performance and facilitate growth.

1. Leverage digital portal data to measure customer engagement

SAP offers many ways to get sales data. Your IT team can build out practically any report you want, whether it’s from SAP ERP, CRM, Fiori, etc.

But sales data from non-self-service channels will always lack one critical piece of the data puzzle: You can’t measure user engagement.

This is where a digital customer portal offers an advantage in BI (business intelligence) which no other channel does. Not only can you see all kinds of sales data (product revenue, total revenue, trends by time period) and filter it many ways, you can also get data on how your channel partners interact with your digital portal. You can actually quantify the interest which your customers have in your digital content.

With the right portal solution (and integration to Google Analytics), you can see things like:

• Product pages associated with longest time-on-site and largest order sizes
• Most common user paths in navigating the portal, and products most commonly viewed next
• Tasks which bring channel partners to the portal most often (e.g. price/inventory lookups, paying off invoices, routine reorders, etc.)

2. Leverage digital portal data to understand and predict seasonality

SAP ERP has data on product seasonality, but BI (business intelligence) reporting for the business user isn’t the ERP’s strong suit. If you’re from the business side, you may need the help of IT to run a report, and that dependency adds friction to the process of reviewing KPIs.

A digital customer portal, with Google Analytics integrated and e-commerce tracking set up, gives you a dashboard for product/sales seasonality that’s much easier to consume.

Google Analytics allows you to compare any date range with any other date range. You can select previous period, previous year, or set your own ranges. This empowers you to compare all sorts of KPIs over time—things like:

• Revenue
• E-commerce conversion rate
• Transactions
• Average order value
• And much more

In addition, you can filter any one of these metrics further by device type, country of origin, or a custom segment of your own creation. The possibilities are endless—and it’s far easier to get this kind of data quickly in Google Analytics than run a report in SAP.

All Corevist solutions include full integration with Google Analytics for e-commerce tracking. In Corevist, you can analyze what your customers do, when they do it, and emerging trends in that data. This empowers you to connect marketing efforts directly to revenue.

3. Leverage digital portal data to understand customer demographics

A digital customer portal empowers you to understand how your customers prefer to do business with you. You can use it to learn things like:

• What type of device does the lion’s share of your revenue come from—desktop, tablet, or mobile?
• Are there specific browsers that convert highly—or consistently don’t convert?
• How does your aggregate mobile conversion rate compare to desktop and tablet? How does it compare to benchmarks in your industry?
• Is your conversion rate higher in some countries than in others? (If so, maybe your product messaging is tailored well to one audience, but not the other)

Do average time spent on the site and average order value correlate with device type? If so, perhaps there’s room for improvement in your experience on a specific device type.

Wrap Up

No doubt about it, the digital age brings great challenges for manufacturers when it comes to growth. Yet it brings great opportunities, too. The key is to know your market and design customer experiences that delight them.

Want to see this in real life? Check out our case study on Oregon Tool: