If you are a business to business enterprise, you know how the purchasing process can be hectic. It requires you to spend hours going through orders, following up on delivery and preparing invoices. This process can eat into your time and distract you from your engineering work.
If you wish to stay competitive, you’ll need to utilize applications and systems to help with purchases. For these systems to function properly, they should be integrated with other business functions. Sadly, only 28% of business systems are integrated.
This brews trouble for b2b eCommerce. B2B transactions are continuously evolving, meaning the systems must grow too.
According to Gartner, a good eCommerce experience will require around 30 integrated systems. Therefore, your Enterprise Resource Planning systems need to integrate or risk pushing customers away.
In this article, we discuss B2B eCommerce Integration and why you need it. We will look at:
- What is eCommerce Integration
- Advantages of B2B eCommerce Integration
- Challenges of B2B eCommerce Integration
- How to prepare for eCommerce integration
What is eCommerce Integration?
eCommerce integration is the act of connecting your B2B eCommerce platform to other ERP systems. The goal is to ensure that the purchasing processes go smoothly and fast. Some of the systems to which an eCommerce platform integrates include:
- Accounting and Finance
- Shipping
- Order management
- Inventory management
When these functions are connected and utilized fully, you'll have a better grip and control over your marketing, customer service, and sales.
Why you Need B2B eCommerce Integration
Any successful business needs to save time, satisfy B2B buyers and make money. But, if you integrate your digital commerce platform with other functions, you'll do more than save money.
eCommerce integration ensures that data flows within systems fast and smoothly. As a result, you'll eliminate the many possible human errors while providing consistent customer and order information. You'll also make billing and inventory management more efficient.
B22 eCommerce integrations work to improve customer satisfaction and business productivity.
Benefits of eCommerce Integration
Integrating your digital commerce platform with back-end systems and applications provides numerous benefits. Here are some of the advantages:
- Less manual work- Integrating your eCommerce platform to other systems eliminates the need to manually enter B2B buyer information, product, B2B orders, and shipping data. Instead, the systems will exchange information accurately without supervision.
- Improve inventory and price management- Your inventory levels are tracked and consistently shown across all systems. Therefore, the customer sees the correct information whenever they seek it.
- Improves customer experience- Integrations allow your customer to have an easier time using your selling channels, devices, and touchpoints. They'll also provide useful information immediately. These could include product, stock, and pricing availability.
- Business expansion- eCommerce integration allows you to add other business models to the existing ones. You'll be able to sell via marketplaces or directly to end users without interfering with the current.
- Improved efficiency and productivity- Automating data transfer means more work is done and efficiently completed. The new technology increases employee engagement and breaks down business silos into smaller effective functions.
- Improved flexibility- In an ever-changing world, eCommerce integration helps you to adjust to any new changes while offering you the ability to scale quickly. You'll open new locations and use new business models without glitches.
Challenges of eCommerce Integration in B2B Models
While B2B eCommerce integration helps your business to grow and work efficiently, it faces some challenges. Here are some of those challenges.
High Customization
B2B businesses differ from B2C businesses in many ways. One of these differences is the level of customization for the different systems.
B2B uses unique IT architecture and highly customized software built on a large number of products. As a result, few B2B eCommerce platforms are ready for the heavy tasks even though they have integration capabilities.
Each system must be integrated individually following specific procedures, unlike B2C, where you integrate by plug-and-play.
Incompatibility with some Business Systems
The merging or acquisition of companies creates the need to integrate the different business functions. The IT department, which is in charge of eCommerce integration with the business, will face the challenge of disparate business systems for the various companies.
If the systems are incompatible, it would mean getting new systems that run across both entities. It would help if you got customized eCommerce integration for the business.
How to Prepare for eCommerce Integration
eCommerce integration is no walk in the park. The process can be complex, take a lot of business time, dig deep into your budget, and not go as planned. However, it doesn't mean you avoid the process out of fear; you can ensure it is efficient and successful by using the following tips.
- Do your research well to get an eCommerce platform that fits your needs. You can use various templates to rank and shortlist the preferred providers before making contact.
- Investigate your current procedures and point out the manual, error-prone areas. You'll then use integration to eliminate the slow and unnecessary steps that derail the processes. As such, the workforce is directed to more crucial tasks.
- Audit your customer experience and identify ways to make it smoother. The audit will help you use integration to streamline the areas with more friction.
- Look at your other systems like finance and CRM and identify how they work individually. Then, consider how information flows between the system.
- Identify what aspects need to be integrated. For example, under products, it means pricing and inventory, while for customer satisfaction, it includes orders and shipping information.
- Select an integration strategy that caters to your current and future needs.
- Implement the integration. You'll need to contact the developers for some guidance and help.
Summary
As an engineer, you need to concentrate on disrupting the engineering world, and the smaller tasks like B2B transactions could distract you and take up a lot of time. Therefore, getting a way to integrate your eCommerce platform with other business functions is essential.
eCommerce integration will make the processes smooth, fast, and error-free and improve customer experience.
ControlHub can help you by providing world-class purchasing software to help you achieve eCommerce integration efficiently.
