Forrester: “Get On Board with B2B eCommerce!”

If you’re on the fence about investing in an SAP® Integrated B2B eCommerce project, click on this link right now!  It will take you to a registration page where you can get your own free copy of this EPiServer sponsored Forrester Report.  It’s the most definitive study of quantitative B2B eCommerce benefits that I’ve seen to date.  Bravo Forrester and EPiServer!

In between March and April of 2014, Forrester surveyed 100 US firms that have implemented B2B eCommerce solutions within the last seven years.  They were in between $50M and >$5B in total annual revenue with about 50% above $1B and 50% below.
The Report’s Executive Summary presents the following three key findings:

1. “B2B eCommerce solutions contribute significantly to key selling metrics and incremental revenue”
2. “SaaS B2B eCommerce solutions have the potential to save time and money in implementations”
3. “Best practices can ensure you stay on time and on budget during implementation”

“The Verdict is In: eCommerce Drives Both The Top and The Bottom Line”
Some of the results are quite dramatic (although not surprising to me).  Over 90% of all of the respondents agreed that their B2B eCommerce initiatives helped them (actual number in parentheses):

• Grow revenue (98%)
• Lower costs (92%)
• Improve customer retention/satisfaction (90%)
• Attract new customers (90%)

I’ve never seen a survey that has this level of agreement amongst its respondents!
“SaaS/PaaS Provide a Path to Faster And More Cost-Effective Implementation”
The market is already conditioned to expect expensive B2B eCommerce projects due to their complexity.  That’s especially true in the SAP® world where everything seems to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to implement.   The fact that companies are moving to SaaS to lower their cost of implementation isn’t a revelation to us at Corevist.  Not having to buy hardware, software, add dedicated staff, and build a lot of customized interfaces can certainly save you an awful lot of time and money.  But what was great to see in print was confirmation that 90% of B2B eCommerce projects who chose the on-premise option spent greater than $1M.  While deploying a SaaS solution certainly lowered implementation costs, 61% of those projects still cost greater than $1M to deploy.
Wow!  We’re in our seventh year of implementing over 40 SAP® Integrated B2B eCommerce websites and we’ve never…ever…come close to charging any of our clients anywhere near $1M for their implementations.
Note to self, review our pricing model! :-)
 “Best Practices for Implementing B2B eCommerce”
The top five vote-getters in the critical success factors to implementing your core eCommerce solution were:

1. Successfully define goals and objectives
2. Involve users throughout the process
3. Engage a knowledgeable eCommerce consultant
4. Build a business case to justify the solution
5. Take a phased approach to project rollout

The folks at Forrester must have been reading my blogs :-).
Enjoy reading the full study.  It will definitely be worth your time!
Sam