Business vs. IT, who's buying commerce today!

Looking at last week's article, by Matt Boland, on what a Packaged Business Capability (PBC) is, let's look at PBCs and why this changes the way companies should buy eCommerce today. What PBCs bring us is how the business can take the lead in a Commerce (inclusive of eCommerce) buying decision. To understand this, let's look at the history and where we are today!

The balance between the business and IT has swiveled based on critical buying needs. Early in the 2000s, the business team ran the buying process. The critical issue to solve was the customer's journey, i.e., how we sell to the end consumer without impacting the sellers' channels, which was commonly referred to as channel conflict. In other words, where is the customer coming from, and how do we support that journey.

Companies back in the early 2000s made platform decisions based on business and how it would affect the channel and their sales at their brick-and-mortar stores. Mobile was not a consideration, but channel conflict was a key concern.

Then, the typical buying persona was the VP of Marketing, the VP of Sales, and the Operations Manager. These roles were vital, as the VP of Sales needed to understand any impact on channel conflict. The VP of Marketing was going to be the driver behind the growth of the newly created digital storefront. The Operation Manager was going to make sure that they could get the product out of the warehouse to the end consumer in a manner they did not support before the digital storefront.

While channel conflict remains today within specific industry verticals, the roles have drastically changed. By the late 2000s, companies saw 10%-12% of their revenue come from their newly created online channel. Mobile still was not a concern, but companies knew that the channels they were going to be concerned about were not just bricks and mortar but also online. Think of Walmart, Best Buy, Target for B2C, Ingram Micro, and Tech Data for B2B.

The roles of buyers began to change. Salespeople started to see more technical resources becoming decision-makers. After all, technical resources had to implement the business strategy, so they wanted more than just a vote. Channel conflicts for many verticals within B2C and some B2B became a non-issue due to varying strategies to mitigate how key sales channels viewed selling directly as a competitive issue. VP of Sales was no longer part of the buying process due to the mitigation strategies employed to support the channels and the revenue recognition of the direct sales channel being given to new internal resources. In the mid to late 2000s, CMOs were replacing VPs of Marketing in the decision process as the impact on the business became greater due to the revenues becoming more significant from the direct sales channel.

On a side note - Channel Conflict is another reason for the business to lead the selection and buying process. Channel Conflict is still a big deal, but it is an argument for the business and therefore does not require IT input; however, the platform selection must be able to replicate and manage attribution strategies.

Commerce applications must be able to mirror constantly varying sales strategies around attribution and execution challenges across and in cooperation with adversarial channels. Sales strategies change frequently, and the ability of the business to pivot and manipulate the workflows to manipulate the strategies of a new concept falls within the business's purview. And the platform selected must quickly replicate the strategies agreed to by the business

Example: Website Flash Sales that are bought online and picked up in-store or fulfilled by the store or returned to the store. Or a shopper in the store that is browsing the website and wants the discount they are viewing. The ecommerce platform must be able to recognize all the variants and permutations therein.

Channel Conflict is a back-end workflow concern and should be a subject for another day.?

Getting back... The VP of eCommerce became a new role, as they managed the direct digital sales channels. CIOs were becoming more involved as they worked the technical side of the business. And a new persona called CDOs became important as mobile, and new channels were created, and the complexities of the mid-2010 decade added a new level of requirements. Revenues increased from direct sales, and companies saw roughly 15% - 20% of total revenue come from their digital storefront.

Today, I rarely see CMOs in the buying journey of organizations. The CIO/CDO has become the key buying persona due to the back-end systems' requirements and required integrations. Additionally, the technical teams are in the lead in evaluating new platforms based on business requirements. The best buying process includes both the technical teams and the business tightly integrated into the buying process.

Platforms, like Ultra Commerce, enable companies to manage processes with little or no-code development, as was required back in late 2000 until recently. More modern platforms, like Ultra Commerce, are built to support business processes within organizations that are managed by "workflows." Each workflow can create new functionality by allowing the platform to be driven by the "events" that occur and take action from these events.

Having a platform that is "event-driven" and will allow a workflow to be created based on events provides the business with an extraordinary amount of control of a platform without developing code to build out the process.

Businesses can now take a more active role in the buying process of a platform, as the business is empowered with the ability to create new functionality. An easy example to describe the workflow and event-driven would be the abandon cart email served up from the commerce platform. In this example, the platform will listen for an event to be triggered based on, for example, a person leaving the cart that was previously authenticated. Then, a workflow can be created to send an email based on the authenticated person leaving the cart and other criteria, like what type of buyer they are. Finally, the message can be tailored based on the response within the platform and created through the control panel. All of this is done without any code development or the add-on of a third-party product but with a system configuration through the control panel of Ultra Commerce.

This is just one example, but many other exists. Configuring a platform based on events and then creating workflows hands the business much more control and removes the need for IT involvement and the development of code, which can take weeks, if not months. These developments can be done now by a Business Analyst, who can gather criteria around the business problem that is trying to be solved—then configure the platform to meet the specific need. This takes a straight-up business strategy that is uncovered, researched, solved, and implemented in the system by the business. Within Ultra Commerce, you can configure based on individual Business Units or Brands that can be managed under a single instance of Ultra Commerce or multiple instance….the choice is yours.

A low-code commerce platform that is headless, like Ultra Commerce, should require that the CMO now be an integral portion of the buying process of the commerce platform, if not leading the decision like they are within a CMS decision. Ultra Commerce provides an extensive list of eCommerce, Marketplace, PIM, and OMS features. Additionally, its event-driven capabilities, and its ability to create workflows, removes the need for IT but should include the role of the business analysis to understand the configurations and what events are needed to be considered.

"What was old has now become new"! Sounds familiar. As CMOs should now focus on buyer journeys, as was initially done in the early days of eCommerce. Decisions should now be on how to make those new journeys drive the business for the sales channels that the platform touches, which should be nearly all, when using Ultra Commerce! An API-first platform like Ultra Commerce is not just an online channel within your domain. It enables domains across many sites to support the overall sales strategy and the organization's brand strategy, including the brick-and-mortar experience. The CMO should be looking at differentiating the journey to create unique experiences around how people engage with the brand. Additionally, being headless does not mean your team is required to change your CMS. Our philosophy is that you Bring Your Own - CMS (BYO-CMS), which means less fear of change and increased adoption.

The business needs to drive the buying process, with IT supporting the decision to accomplish this. The business should look at the platform to understand the value it can bring without requiring the following;

1.????A platform focused on configuration through the interface, without coding, to enable new marketing and operational activities.

2.????A minimal amount of integration decreases the time to market and reduces the complexity required to support the overall platform.

3.????A single database provides the ease of gathering information from a single source without conflicting data.

If these are areas you are working to understand, I would love to put you in contact with our partners and with our sales team.

Now that we are talking about buying software, be on the lookout for Matt Boland's next article, working title:

Disruptive Licensing answers the "Why did Commerce get so Expensive?".

Previously referenced articles:

Subscriptions by Andy Wamstad

B2B Subscriptions by Matt Boland

Microservices, Monoliths & the Middle by Matt Boland