The top 3 B2B trends digital leaders are acting on now

Top 3 takeaways for B2B digital transformation

Every journey begins with a single step, but knowing which direction to walk in is crucial. Annually, we collect the insights from B2B digital leaders to better understand the status of the industry. Through the creation of the report and the events we hold to supplement it, we gain insight into what’s working and what’s on the horizon for B2B manufacturers. This year, we gave a presentation at Econnect while also holding direct interviews with digital leaders from ABB, Danfoss, Hempel and SKF.

The top three topics for all B2B companies looking to take the next step in their digital journey are as follows.

B2B transformation must start with the customer

No successful B2B transformation journey can start anywhere other than with the full understanding of the customer. You must fully understand your customers’ needs and expectations to meet, and hopefully exceed them. The questions companies on this journey are asking themselves are all about who their primary customers are, what do they need and how can the business deliver while placing those needs at the forefront of what they’re building.

B2B transformation needs to start with the customer. You need to really understand what the customer needs—your channel partners, your OEMs, and from that you need to decide what are you going to do for them, what you want and remain extremely focused. Focus on a little, but just do it right.

~ Javier Rodriguez, ABB

Long gone are the days of developing a digital system based primarily on the needs of your employees, or worse your IT landscape. While creating a system that’s easy for your team to navigate is certainly important, it’s not as important as creating a system that’s fun and easy for your customers to use. Companies that excel in this area often focus on the small things they can deliver and build the loyalty in the customer relationship through getting those small things right. The goal is simple but not easy: Make doing business with your company as effortless as possible.

Companies are focused more on existing customer growth

The digital transformation journey for B2B has largely shifted from acquiring new customers and breaking into new markets to growing and deepening the relationship with existing customers. Building customer loyalty and thus increasing wallet share among the people who already know you carries more benefits and is ultimately less expensive than acquiring new customers.

This focus has led to an increased demand for customer portals. In fact, 25% of the respondents to our survey of the digital leaders in manufacturing acknowledged that customer portals and digital services are their most targeted digital transformation areas. With a deep understanding of your customer, the development of customer portals they’ll be happy to use is easier and leads directly to the building of that important customer loyalty.

A partner that understands the trends

The three most important trends for B2B digital transformation are all interconnected. A strong focus on putting the customer’s needs first blends perfectly into the importance for developing customer portals with a high ROI, and those two factors are crucial considerations for developing an aftermarket strategy.

It's really about internally aligning in the organization first—that's key. You need to start from the top and have the full support from top management. But then you also need to drive it from bottom up because you want everyone to be in on the journey and understand why we are doing this.

~Johan Gente, SKF

Highest growth potential is found in the aftermarket

At the intersection of the customer-first focus and the development of strong customer portals sits the industry-wide focus on the aftermarket. Investing in digital solutions that harness the power of the aftermarket and develop new ecommerce functions is critical for enhancing customer loyalty.

When your customers can easily find and order replacement or maintenance parts for the equipment they’ve purchased from you in the past, that stops them from ever needing to consider going to one of your competitors. Beyond that, it also helps you develop additional streams of revenue and upsell opportunities. The aftermarket is universally agreed to be the B2B area set to experience the most growth in the immediate future, so you don’t want to miss the opportunity to invest in this direction.

What what I think is the most important is ecommerce adoption and also enabling our partners, our wholesalers, to be able to sell Danfoss products more efficiently through efficient product data integrations.

~Simon Tholstrup, Danfoss

Now that you know what the industry is focused on, all that remains is to find out how to implement these learnings into your own transformation journey. Choosing a digital partner with a strong understanding of the trends affecting your industry as well as the tools that go into building successful solutions to common challenges, like organizational change, is a great first step.

With years of experience diving deep into the needs of B2B manufacturers, Valtech is the perfect partner for this transformation. Check out our Voice of Digital Leaders in Manufacturing report for more in-depth information on these and other trends facing the industry, and contact us for a more personal consultation.