The Most Important Marketing-Related Functionalities of A B2B Commerce Platform Are…

May 16, 2016

This article is included in these additional categories:

B2B | Customer Service & Experience | Digital | Mobile Phone | Personalization | Retail & E-Commerce | Search Engine Optimization | Tablet

EconsultancySAPHybris-Marketing-Related-B2B-Commerce-Platform-Functionalities-May2016Only half of B2B professionals feel that their customers would rate their digital customer experience as being at least on par with a typical B2C retail experiences, per a report [download page] from Econsultancy and SAP Hybris. While limitations of executives’ current commerce software aren’t viewed as a major barrier in delivering an optimal digital experience, some commerce platform functionalities could use improvements.

The survey asked respondents to rate the importance of various types of marketing related and customer-facing functionalities when selecting a commerce platform. The most critical is multichannel functionality, per respondents, though the most important overall (combining those seeing it as “critical” and “important”) is personalization.

Interestingly, among respondents who rate their CX strategy as being “very advanced,” site search is the most critical functionality, though personalization is tops again when it comes to overall importance.

Generally speaking, most respondents feel that their current platforms are at least okay in the various functionalities listed. But very few feel that they are “good” – ranging from a low of 20% for SEO capabilities to a high of just 30% for localization (languages and locales).

Those respondents with a very advanced CX strategy, meanwhile, are more likely to have “good” capabilities across the board, ranging from a low of 41% for personalization to a high of 51% for mobile functionalities.

These respondents (with very advanced strategies) are far more likely than the overall sample to say that commerce platform limitations are a hindrance to delivering an optimal digital experience. Zeroing in on their responses, it seems as though the specific functionality that could use the most improvement is personalization.

With e-commerce delivering a greater share of B2B firms’ revenues, companies will be tasked with delivering a B2C-standard shopping experience, which is already providing a challenge for 84% of professionals surveyed. See this article for a look at how B2B vendors have been working to meet buyers’ omni-channel wishes.

About the Data: The Econsultancy and SAP Hybris report is based on an online survey of more than 220 B2B professionals from the IT, marketing, digital and e-commerce fields, carried out in November and December 2015. Respondents most commonly worked in IT (28%) and operations (14%) functions, and the manufacturing (31%) and retail (10%) sectors were most heavily represented. Some 62% of respondents hail from companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenues.

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