StraightSell for SAP Business One: Powering B2B eCommerce

If you’re truly interested in serving your customers, you need an online presence. A website is an essential touch point for any business that deals with people. That includes B2B sales in industries like manufacturing, wholesale and distribution.  

Forrester research has shown that 68% of B2B buyers prefer to research online on their own and 60% prefer not to interact with a sales rep as the primary source of information. What do they do instead? They search online, read digital content, and review social media to choose vendors and products.

A well-managed online channel is crucial to engaging customers throughout the entire buying journey. But being able to attract and sell to customers online means nothing if you don’t connect and excel across all aspects of your value chain.

Ensuring alignment between sales, marketing, finance, production, inventory management, and dispatch means linking digital B2B marketplaces with advanced enterprise and cloud technologies. An effective way to do so is by combining the power of SAP Business One with an e-commerce website from StraightSell.

Digital sales are part of a complex value chain your business needs to manage

A website doesn’t exist in isolation, and it doesn’t exist simply to facilitate purchases. It should augment your strategic efforts to differentiate and grow your business.

That means taking your B2B business online should be seen within a broader digital transformation context.

The question isn’t whether you need a website (you do). The real question is, how do you put holistic systems in place that simplify interactions, streamline processes, coordinate back-office operations, and manage costs and quality in order to drive better customer experience?

A Deloitte report on the trends disrupting wholesale distribution argues that managing the growing complexity within the industry—new sales channels, expanding product portfolios, and value-added services to name a few—makes the case for adopting modern ERP solutions.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software that can integrate seamlessly with e-commerce applications helps growing B2B companies become more efficient and insight-driven.

SAP Business One is one of the most attractive ERP solutions for mid-market manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors because it’s feature-rich, modular and built on modern technologies, meaning it can scale as a business grows.

The solution integrates quickly and easily with StraightSell to enable companies to develop their business online with a completely customisable e-commerce website.

SAP Business One connected with StraightSell offers a cost-effective way to embrace new business models that put the customer first while gaining the visibility and functionality needed to improve and expand your operation.

[FEATURE ARTICLE – How winning wholesale distributors are using technology in 2019]

Together, SAP Business One and StraightSell improve your go-to-market mastery

SAP Business One provides a centralised database to capture, analyse and share data across all business functions, automate and enhance production and inventory management workflows, and get a high-level view of business and financial performance.

The solution has built-in sales and marketing management features that help you track opportunities, deliver campaigns, gain a single customer view and use customer data to increase engagement, manage warranties and service, and report on sales including forecasting.

When integrated with a StraightSell website, SAP Business One makes the process of managing online orders, sales, and product catalogues simpler. You can include up to 50,000 products on your site, empower your B2B customers to create a manage their own orders via an online account, and enable purchases via credit card, PayPal and Zip Pay.

When orders and payments are received via your StraightSell site, your SAP Business One database is automatically updated. That means your finance team always has the information they need to complete accounting tasks, create accurate cash flow reports, and identify cost savings.

Up-to-date data from online transactions feed into business intelligence tools in SAP Business One that can help sales managers and business executives to see trends, analyse product and team performance, and explore new opportunities.

SAP Business One is your company’s point of truth. StraightSell integration ensures that data flows seamlessly to your e-commerce site—information about products, customers, and invoices that your team creates within SAP Business One is reflected on your website and within customer’s accounts.

In particular, that makes maintaining a current online catalogue less time-consuming, with no duplication of effort or data.

Create an online presence a unified approach to business management

Unless you adapt to customer preferences and implement digital B2B marketplaces, you risk missing sales opportunities. But all facets of your business need to be in alignment to remain competitive in the long-term.

It makes no sense to cater to B2B online sales if you don’t also invest in systems that improve the entire customer journey and your ability to make, dispatch and deliver high quality finished goods and run a profitable operation.

You can do both when you integrate SAP Business One and a StraightSell e-commerce website.

Curious about digital transformation to enable digital sales? Tap into our consultants’ knowledge of SAP Business One by phoning 1300 045 046 or email info@leveragetech.com.au.