How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 5 Stories Every Executive Should Know
table of contents Executive summary 2 Rexel s Newey & Eyre Develops Groundbreaking One-Stop-Shop 3 MSA Safety Inc. Takes Digital Strategy to a New Level 7 Airgas Drives B2B Commerce Channel Expansion 10 Ingram Micro Mobility Improves Customer Experience 12 Smith Boosts Online Sales 16 Learn more about SAP hybris B2B commerce solutions 19 How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 1
executive summary The only constant is change which means companies need to evolve and rethink how they simplify and deliver unparalleled customer experience to the changing needs of their business customers. So what are some of the best organizations doing to offer their buyers seamless opportunities to buy, regardless of the complexity of back-end systems, at every stage of the customer journey? Organizations with a competitive advantage, understand that B2B buyers expect consistent omni-channel experiences, 24/7 self-service access and accurate information via any device. They also know that customers won t tolerate disjointed channel experiences. This ebook provides real-life examples of how five companies have significantly enhanced their commerce capabilities to grow their business and customer retention through delivering exceptional omni-channel customer experiences. re Sto
Rexel s Newey & Eyre Develops Groundbreaking One-Stop-Shop Newey & Eyre is the UK s leading distributor of quality electrical products, under Rexel UK Limited, a division of one of the world s largest B2B distributors of electrical materials and safety, and other maintenance, repair and operations (MSO) products distributors. Newey and Eyre is renowned for its highly personalized branch counter service. With 150 branches across the UK, they are committed to helping customers select the best products for each project and supporting them in the planning and management of major projects. The Challenge Several years ago, Newey and Eyre recognized a need to offer an effective alternative to traditional, in-branch trading. A multi-channel B2B e-commerce platform would allow customers to order supplies from its massive product range outside normal working hours, meaning they could spend less time travelling to their local branch, and more time on the job. But, as a brand built on exceptional service, they wanted an experience that would still be personal. To balance the two needs, they chose to develop a groundbreaking, functionally-rich one stop shop that that would provide the electrical wholesale market with a web channel that offered best-of-breed search and navigation, with the same web capabilities offered to general consumers in the retail sector. The e-commerce platform had to be able to provide a fully integrated service with the branch network; offer a best-of-breed online purchasing solution; deliver real-time, customer specific pricing; incorporate the B2B functionality expected by the electrical sector; and offer next generation merchandising of products and content pages. It needed to be integrated with the existing ERP system and business reporting solution. The existing product information management (PIM) solution would need to be upgraded in order to support the website and business going forward. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 3
The Vision and Why SAP hybris Commerce Solution Flexibility, scalability and easy integration with existing workflows and systems were the key criteria behind the selection of hybris Commerce as the platform at the heart of Newey and Eyre s new one stop shop. It offered out-of-the-box functionality that met the needs of the business, including the ability to support searchandising, SEO visibility and usability. The fact that hybris could offer a combined e-commerce and product content management (PCM) platform was considered vital for the longterm management of product data. Newey and Eyre worked with a hybris partner that specialized in e-commerce consultancy and systems integration for the implementation. After 4 months, the new platform launched, offering customers the first truly multi-channel B2B experience in the electrical wholesale market. hybris Commerce is fully integrated with the Cognos business reporting solution, Omniture Merchandising, Movex ERP system and Yahoo! Analytics. Omniture Merchandising drives the website search engine and manages the content of the pages, including displaying promotional banners. Data is fed into Cognos from hybris and Movex to provide Newey and Eyre with clear business reporting across the entire organization, regardless of where a customer places their order. The hybris PCM platform was implemented six months later, as part of the second phase of the project, enhancing PIM capabilities for Newey and Eyre s expanding product portfolio and supporting the other channels to market. The Results The new site, neweysonline.co.uk, integrates the traditional in-branch trading services that electrical contractors expect with a web channel that dramatically enhances after-hours customer support. It provides online capabilities not previously experienced in this sector, including: Access to online and offline order history After-hours ordering allowing contractors to place orders for next day delivery or collection up to 8pm Trade accounts and individual price lists Single checkout process, combining click and collect with delivery Live stock checks Job lists customers can create an unlimited number of lists of products for specific jobs that are regularly undertaken so they can simply re-order from an existing list, instead of searching for the same products on each occasion Datasheets contractors can now download their own datasheets from over 3,000 stored online How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 5
Quickfacts neweysonline.co.uk has produced some significant increases in online traffic, sales, return rates and out of hours ordering following its launch: 13% of orders are collected at branch via click and collect. 26% of the online business is now completed outside normal branch hours. 15% of new account forms are now being completed online, assisting new business development. Fastest order placed to date was completed under 3 minutes, with only 7 page views, including login, product search, and checkout. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 6
MSA Safety Inc. Takes Digital Strategy to a New Level Established in 1914, MSA Safety, Inc. is a global leader in the development, manufacturing and supply of industrial safety products. They provide a comprehensive line of products used by workers in the fire service, law enforcement, construction, oil and gas, chemical and other industries, as well as the military. The Challenge Now approaching their 100-year anniversary, the company has decided to revamp its digital strategy to better suit the needs of its customers. Up to this point, their 40 websites were built completely separately from one another, in 20 languages, on a variety of legacy in-house and commercial technology platforms. In an effort to streamline the back-end processes, they developed a new strategy that involved consolidating all of the sites onto one global platform. They hoped this would enable them to globalize their data to provide a seamless, integrated brand experience across all their sites, and to provide useful and relevant product information for their customers, enabling more purchases to be made online. Another goal was to provide a personalized, user-focused purchasing experience that allowed MSA s customers (entirely B2B) to manage their accounts themselves, without needing to contact MSA directly. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 7
The Vision and Why SAP hybris Commerce Solution To achieve their goals, MSA chose to transition their digital experience to the hybris platform, utilizing their B2B Commerce Application, PCM (product content management) and WCMS (web content management system). The choice was based on hybris robust and scalable commerce platform, its well-organized and centralized product data repository, and its search and product data visibility through integration to 3rd party tools. MSA worked with implementation partner Acquity Group to develop the new site. As a B2B-only site, channel partners can now log on and browse the site seeing their own account pricing, order the products needed for their distribution business and place the orders directly with MSA. The site integrates with SAP ERP. All information about availability and pricing comes directly out of the SAP system into the hybris front-end. The Results MSA rolled out the U.S. e-commerce site last year. It has received positive feedback, says Susie Sapsara, Global E-Business Manager for MSA. Our distributor partners appreciate being able to do more self-service. Meanwhile, the benefits of consolidating all the product data into one centralized location are already being seen. MSA is now able to manage and maintain the data for their various global product offerings from one place, ensuring a consistent brand experience across the world. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 9
Airgas Drives B2B Commerce Channel Expansion Airgas Inc. is a leading supplier of industrial, medical and specialty gases as well as hard goods and related products in the U.S. The Challenge Airgas was looking to enhance its web and e-commerce tools to enable customers to interact and transact with them at any time and across all channels, including mobile and social touch points, and to provide customers with the information they need online to manage their gas and hard goods supply chains. The Vision We selected hybris because its B2B commerce and mobile platform capabilities will help us most effectively meet our current and future e-commerce needs, said Kelly Justice, Airgas Senior Vice President e-business and Marketing. It s critical that we make the right business tools available online so customers can find information on our products and services, place and track orders, research order history, receive and pay invoices and more. The hybris platform will enable this enhanced digital interaction with our customers, allowing us to expand our already best-in-class service into a comprehensive multi-channel experience. The Result Drove up revenues, improved efficiencies and increased customer engagements using SAP hybris commerce solution. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 10
ingram micro mobility improves Customer experience Ingram Micro Mobility delivers supply chain and distribution solutions across the full spectrum of the mobility device lifecycle, through innovation, insight and focused execution. Their services provide value to a wide array of the premier names in the global wireless industry. the Challenge When you help bring exciting new products to market, enable access to growing market segments, and deliver cost-effective device lifecycle services, your customers expect you to leverage innovative technical capabilities. To that end, the company wanted to improve its customer experience and reduce redundant business solutions. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 12
The Vision and Why SAP hybris Commerce Solution For its e-commerce platform, Ingram Micro Mobility selected SAP hybris Commerce Suite. Now the company can better meet customer needs while boosting average order value and conversion rates. Not only has the company achieved its goal to enhance the customer experience, but it also streamlined business operations, driven incremental revenue, and accelerated time to customer value. The company s top objectives were to: Enhance the customer experience with improved functionality Consolidate redundant and disparate tools into one commerce solution Improve management of master data across the application landscape Actions they took to achieve these goals: Chose SAP hybris Commerce Suite for its strong product content management capabilities, lower total cost of ownership, and extensibility to support both business-to-business (B2B) and -consumer environments Leveraged increased platform flexibility as a key business enabler to meet unique business requirements Planned to leverage integration functionality for solutions from hybris, an SAP company, as well as mobility and responsive design How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 14
The Results Higher customer satisfaction Faster time to customer value with zero development time, in certain cases, for white-label customer Web shops Streamlined customer self-service environment that enabled employee reassignment to value-adding activities Enhanced and simplified management of master data 10% Increase in average order value in specific channels 18% Increase in aggregated conversion rate 50% Greater B2B order entry utilization in specific channels 100% Automation of product returns and price protection processes in specific channels How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 15
Smith Boosts Online Sales Originating from Sun Valley, Idaho, Smith was founded in 1965 with the invention of the first snow goggle featuring a sealed thermal lens and breathable vent foam. With 50 years of innovation and design experience, Smith is widely known today as an industry leader that pioneers advanced eyewear and helmets that incorporate dynamic technologies, optimized performance and clean styling to fuel fun beyond walls. The Challenge When Smith first connected with hybris, they were only doing about 10% of their business transactions on their e-commerce site. However, they recognized that e-commerce was a growing area for them, and in the industry as a whole. Their existing e-commerce solution was built on a content management-based platform, originally designed as a brochure-ware experience. It worked well enough to meet their needs at the time, but became cumbersome and difficult to upgrade as the business needs changed and became more complex. With this in mind, they sought out a commerce solution capable of supporting them through the growth of their digital selling efforts. They needed a platform that could handle the growing demand for complex e-commerce functionality, and the increasing site traffic for both B2C and B2B customers, so they could consolidate their IT efforts, reduce operational costs, and deliver a seamless brand experience to their customers, on every touchpoint. They also needed backend solutions capable of handling their extensive and rotating product catalog while keeping the user experience streamlined and simple. We knew that our digital initiative would only continue to grow in importance. Rather than continually trying to catch up with our existing platform, we wanted to make one push to get a best-in-class solution with a framework that provided us with the capability and flexibility to drive our online presence forward, and allow us to serve the needs of all our customers. (Eric Stumpner, Senior E-Commerce Sales Manager at Smith) How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 16
The Vision and Why SAP hybris Commerce Solution After evaluating several e-commerce solution providers, Smith opted for hybris commerce solution, utilizing the hybris Commerce Accelerator for B2C. Smith chose hybris because of their market leading commerce capabilities for both B2C and B2B, their flexible deployment options, and their flexibility with both the timing and pricing of the implementation. Compared to the competition, they found that hybris platform was more modern and easy to work with, offering superior features and functionality that better suited our business needs, explained Senior E-Commerce Sales Manager Eric Stumpner. And the single stack technology including fully integrated omni-channel touchpoints enabled future channel growth without additional, hidden technology costs. The Results The new SmithOptics.com features an omni-channel customer experience to match the brand s high-quality standards. And the result has not gone unnoticed by consumers. Since launching their new commerce site on the hybris platform, Smith has seen increased traffic, total revenue, and speed to market with platform upgrades. Their customer base grew 25%, going from 275K to 344K, within the first eight months since go-live. Traffic on the site also increased steadily by 20-25% since the launch, which the scalable hybris platform handled without any issues. Stumpner attributes much of the growth to the simplified buying process, and particularly the addition of a fully integrated, transactional mobile site that allows users to browse and purchase from their phones whenever and wherever they want. The new site handled perfectly, even through the first peak holiday season since its launch. The volume of traffic on the site this winter was higher than we have ever experienced and the site handled the uptick without issue. This is a peak time of the year for getting our brand in front of customers and making sure they have a positive experience to encourage them to return. hybris allowed us to present them with a first class user experience that will be the key to future growth for us., said Stumpner. How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 18
Learn more about SAP hybris B2B commerce solutions Recognized as a leader in commerce solutions by analysts, the hybris B2B Commerce helps companies unify complexity by consolidating management of multiple business models, channels and markets. It enables B2B organizations to accommodate a wide variety of suppliers, distributors and stores on a single platform, while automating sales administration and maintaining the operational efficiency required to drive customer satisfaction and, ultimately, profits. Key benefits: Support multiple business models and synchronize all channels and markets. Provide a centralized platform for all trading partners. Ensure content consistency across channels. Deliver personalized online experience, content and navigation. Provide customized catalogs, prices and offers. Boost sales with sophisticated merchandising. Decrease administrative overload with customer self-service. Streamline order management and fulfillment. Simplify data exchange with external systems. Support demanding transaction requirements with best-in-class scalability, flexibility and performance More information on www.hybris.com/commerce/b2b-commerce How to Drive B2B Commerce Success Today 19
about hybris software hybris software, an SAP company, provides omni-channel customer engagement and commerce solutions that allow organizations to build up a contextual understanding of their customers in realtime, deliver a more impactful, relevant customer experience and sell more goods, services and digital content across every touch point, channel and device. Through its state-of-the-art customer data management, context driven marketing tools and unified commerce processes, hybris has helped some of the world s leading organizations including 3M, ASICS, Bridgestone, EE, Galeries Lafayette, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss & Co, Nestlé, Nespresso, Nikon, Rexel, Samsung Electronics, Ted Baker, Tommy Bahama and W.W. Grainger, to attract, retain, and grow a profitable customer base. hybris Commerce Suite and hybris Marketing sit right at the heart of SAP s customer engagement and commerce (CEC) suite of solutions, alongside SAP Cloud for Sales, SAP Cloud for Service and SAP CRM. These provide organizations with the foundation, framework and business tools to create a holistic customer view across channels, simplify customer engagement and solve complex business problems. www.hybris.com sales@hybris.com Version: May 2015 Subject to change without prior notice hybris hybris is a trademark of the hybris Group. Other brand names are trademarks and registered trademarks of the respective companies.