By the end of this post, you’re going to want to leave your legacy.
In digital commerce, what’s old is old. B2B organizations operating on legacy commerce systems would be the first to tell you that dated platforms have:
- High maintenance costs
- Barriers to globalization
- Inability to scale
- Poor user experiences
- Little ROI
We hear this from our clients all of the time.
But how can you bid farewell to legacy commerce systems and embrace next-generation tech, without rewriting the core architecture?
Hello, replatforming.
And more specifically, hello Salesforce B2B Commerce replatforming.
There are plenty of reasons for why we’ve seen key market players replatform to more robust ecommerce systems that offer the features and functionalities B2B businesses need most. In this post, we’ll dive deep into rapid Salesforce B2B Commerce replatforming and discuss:
- What is Salesforce B2B Commerce?
- Why is replatforming key to outpacing competition?
- How can B2B businesses rapidly replatform on Salesforce in five steps?
What is Salesforce B2B Commerce?
Put simply, Salesforce B2B Commerce is the leader in commerce technology. Making it streamlined for B2B organizations to sell and simple for B2B buyers to buy, Salesforce B2B Commerce is a single and simplified system to manage all customer engagement channels.
We seized the opportunity to partner with Salesforce because Salesforce B2B Commerce is the only commerce platform experience completely tailored to business buyers. The platform boasts crucial B2B benefits:
- Next-generation AI B2B buyer experiences
- B2B buying functionalities for large purchases, negotiated, discount, and account-specific pricing
- Lowered cost to serve with self-service capabilities
- Seamless integration capabilities
Salesforce B2B Commerce facilitates seamless and connected B2B buyer/seller interactions. But more importantly, it is the fastest enterprise B2B commerce platform implementation on the market. Which, in our experience, also makes it the fastest replatforming solution on the market.
When our clients have aligned internal stakeholders and collectively agreed to move off of legacy systems, the next step - replatforming - needs to happen quickly and swiftly to keep the ball rolling. Time is of the essence, both to keep internal buy-in and to get to market quickly to outpace competition.
As a Salesforce B2B Commerce partner, we have five simple, but crucial, steps to guide any B2B organization in getting the business up-and-running on Salesforce B2B Commerce in as little as two weeks.
5-4-3-2-1: How to Rapidly Replatform onto Salesforce B2B Commerce
5: Define
When digital business goes amiss, it’s often the result of lacking technology combined with veering away from the most critical business objectives. A best-in-class commerce platform like Salesforce can only effectively help a B2B organization reach its potential when its implementation is aligned to the most important KPIs. To create definition, we flesh out:
- Revenue objectives
- Customer acquisition and conversion goals
- Customer LTV optimization rates
- Churn reduction targets
- Product expansion goals
From there, we assess how technology has fallen short of these goals. A complete technology gap analysis, digital platform architecture proposal, recommended integrations, and a detailed Salesforce B2B Commerce implementation roadmap follows.
4: Scope
Once there is definition, most B2B organizations are raring to go to market with the full Salesforce B2B Commerce solution. But going to market quickly and effectively isn’t conducive to being everything to everyone all at once.
We scope the project and prioritize the most important platform components (in line with what’s been defined above). This enables us to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that doesn’t try to boil the ocean. In essence, it’s the must-haves for both B2B sellers and buyers.
To define the MVP, we’re really relying on the top most crucial factors:
- Top KPIs
- Use cases and user stories
- Problem/solution user paths and journey mapping
- Product design, testing, and engineering timeline
3: Optimize
With the MVP outlined, we focus now on building an experience on Salesforce B2B Commerce that will differentiate the brand, while minimizing customization to the platform.
We use the Salesforce Lightning Experience framework to help B2B organizations accelerate their replatforming time to market. This fast-track architecture allows B2B organizations to create custom components easily, enable buyers to manage product lists, and track variation details and attribute sets.
2: Assess
Now we determine data-readiness and integration points, and frankly, here’s where challenges typically are presented.
We’ll scrutinize the B2B business’s products, accounts, pricing, and inventory to determine where it is and the condition of its current state.
For rapid Salesforce B2B Commerce implementation, we like to leverage Pimly. This product experience management system, optimized for Salesforce and easily integrated with most PIMs, enables highly configurable digital catalogs, sell sheets, and product experiences that can align sales, customer service, and users. Pimly both course corrects current-state data and also boasts future-proof benefits like the fact it's maintained with clicks not code, eliminating the need for middleware and minimizing integration costs.
1: Execute
It’s time to launch, monitor, and iterate. Once a B2B organization has hit the market with their Salesforce B2B Commerce MVP, a continuous innovation delivery methodology can allow the business to continue to make sprint-based platform improvements.
We stand by a methodology that blends waterfall and agile to enable high levels of solution visibility and definition. Our sprints hone in on:
- Biggest risk areas
- Largest success opportunities
B2B clients can work closely with a Salesforce B2B Commerce partner to modify and course-correct rapidly, obtaining feedback during every sprint.
What’s the legacy you’re leaving behind? Connect with Zaelab about modernizing your B2B digital experience and replatforming to a best-in-class B2B commerce solution.
