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83% of B2B companies are planning to make a digital investment in 2024, prioritizing ecommerce platforms, backend integrations with ERPs and order management systems as the top areas for investment.
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79% of B2B businesses are looking to invest in technologies that improve purchasing experiences for customers.
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The report provides B2B companies with a roadmap to accelerate their digital maturity using a four-dimensional framework that focuses on digital tools, team culture, customer experience, and data insights.
commercetools, a global commerce company and the market leader in composable commerce, announced the release of research published by Master B2B and supported by commercetools, “Accelerating Your Digital Vision: Taking Your Strategy to the Next Level,” which examines digital maturity in the B2B commerce market, and is the second edition of a three-part series. The report found that the tides have turned in the over $7 trillion global B2B commerce market, as 83% of companies surveyed are planning to spend more on digital investments in 2024 compared to last year.
With 94% of respondents reporting support from their CEOs, B2B businesses now have the executive buy-in needed to make technology investments. This represents a notable departure from the cautious spending approaches that practitioners were lamenting in 2022 and 2023. The majority (79%) of businesses are prioritizing investments in technologies that enhance customer experiences, with the top areas of investment for these companies being ecommerce platforms, backend integrations with ERPs, and order management systems. However, timelines for showing return on investment (ROI) have shortened for the majority of respondents (64%) compared to the last three years.
“In 2024, we’ve seen a surge in technology investments from B2B customers as the market increasingly recognizes the value of the flexibility and scalability that composable commerce provides,” said Dirk Hoerig, Co-Founder and CEO of commercetools. “This shift reflects how B2B business leaders are adopting a top-down approach to digital transformation, understanding that their overall success is closely linked to digital capabilities. By adopting a composable approach, B2B companies have reduced operational costs, increased revenue-generating opportunities, boosted innovation, and achieved a faster time to value in a matter of months, not years.”
With composable architectures, B2B companies unlock unparalleled flexibility and the ability to adapt to the changing needs of their organizations and can show the ROI on these investments quickly.
“We moved to a composable platform because we were having difficulty making updates to the website that the business teams were requesting — small changes were taking 3-4 weeks,” said Matt Swan, Technical Product Manager at ACE Southern. “To be competitive, we couldn’t just do what everyone else was doing. We needed to move to a composable platform that would allow us to create a customer experience that would differentiate us from our competitors.”
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With budgets available, companies are continually assessing where to allocate their funds. To make informed decisions, B2B companies need to first evaluate their current level of digital maturity. This enables them to more quickly progress as a company while also showing the value of their investment to the broader organization and leadership team.
“In just a short period of time, we’ve seen that companies can no longer wait and see how emerging technologies, like AI, shake out — companies that aren’t adopting new technologies are missing out on critical growth opportunities and are falling behind competition,” said Andy Hoar, Co-Founder, Master B2B. “If you’re not a leader, or at least a very fast follower, you’ll be left far, far behind. B2B businesses — no matter their size, segment, or level of maturity — need to be adopting the technology that enables them to remain competitive and meet evolving market demands.”
commercetools provides the leading composable commerce platform for B2B companies enabling them to future-proof themselves from unexpected market forces, increase revenue-generating opportunities, reduce operational costs and scale globally. Customers including ACE Southern, Dawn Foods and Zoro USA have chosen commercetools to transform their digital commerce experiences and unlock the value of true composability.