Tomorrow’s Midmarket B2B eCommerce will Take Place in the Cloud

Dramatic shifts in buyer behavior have forced sellers to adapt their approach to win, serve, and retain more empowered, savvy, and fickle customers.

In the businessto-business (B2B) space, this has proven true as well.

Enterprises and midmarket sellers look to use digital capabilities - powered by sophisticated technology platforms - to meet their customers’ demands for rich
omnichannel experiences.

Many companies are specifically looking to cloud-based, integrated solutions to help drive efficiencies.

Starting in January 2016, NetSuite commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate how midmarket B2B sellers are responding to shifting customer preferences to engage and transact online.

Then to further explore this trend, Forrester developed a hypothesis that B2B sellers are often locked into using legacy systems for managing online commerce.

In addition, Forrester explored the role of legacy technology platforms in meeting modern needs for agility, scalability, and mobility.

In conducting an international online survey with 352 midmarket B2B eCommerce decision-makers, supplemented with three in-depth interviews, Forrester found that companies that have adopted eCommerce platforms credit these technologies for improved sales, profitability, and customer relationships.

These benefits were even more pronounced among sellers who had adopted unified or single-stack platforms.

Key Findings
Forrester’s study yielded four key findings:

• Midmarket B2B buyers are moving toward online channels
• Midmarket B2B sellers are rising to meet this opportunity with the help of eCommerce platforms
• Midmarket sellers who are planning to change their eCommerce tools lean toward a single-stack
• Midmarket B2B sellers credit their eCommerce solutions for helping acquire new customers, improving the bottom line, and improving customer relationships