Other Voices: The limits of Amazon Business is where opportunity exists

Editor’s Note: The following column is by Earl van As, VP of marketing and product management for ecmarket, the cloud solutions developer of the patent-pending Conexiom sales order and invoice automation solution. It is part of Modern’s Other Voices column, which features ideas, opinions and insights from end-users, analysts, systems integrators and OEMs. Click here to learn about submitting a column for consideration.

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As technology opens new doors for sales opportunities in e-marketplaces, supply chain companies are struggling to keep up with more competition and margin erosion. New distribution purchasing channels like Amazon Business promise customers hard-to-beat fulfillment, customer service and price. The e-platform has a massive inventory that offers a breadth of equipment and services, ultimately affecting businesses’ internal e-commerce strategies.

The question is no longer how Amazon Business will impact the industry, but how the industry can survive alongside the disruption. While some are cautious of the threat, others are beginning to think about new opportunities that may arise from embracing this challenge.

For companies starting their own B2B e-commerce platform, or those who already have a mature system in place, it’s worthwhile to evaluate how your business will be impacted, as well as the strategies to help stay competitive.

Consider using Amazon Business as an additional sales channel for overstock items or products that do not require customer service or product support efforts. This new route gives businesses the opportunity to sell excess inventory easily, allowing the focus to be on creating a customer centric experience on internal e-commerce platforms.

To ensure a smooth transaction process is in place with customers who buy from Amazon, the fulfillment requirements set forth by Amazon must be met. Automation solutions like document automation that support orders placed through this platform without manual intervention can help deliver orders into ERP systems with speed and complete accuracy. Order notification can be immediately routed from Amazon to the automation solution and processed to pack and ship. In this way, executives and distribution center professionals can enjoy the revenue benefits of an additional sales channel, without having to worry about creating a new transaction process.

Identify a unique value proposition for customers and serve them accordingly. Across the industry, staying competitive has always been about offering superior customer service to attract and retain customers. Rather than jumping into resource-intensive undertakings to outcompete Amazon Business, supply chain decision makers should first consider how to best serve customers where their needs are. They need to be able to provide the value-add of personalized support that responds to individual customer preferences.

Subsequently, the focus should be on analysis of customers to fully understand how they want to be served in order to secure and retain relationships. For that to happen, key decision makers must have accurate insight into the unique buying habits/patterns to provide support that matters. One key element that Amazon Business lacks is technical support for more complex and niche products, which gives industry professionals a unique edge. Leading decision makers will start leveraging technology that also enable similar levels of purchase experience for customers and elevate their experience where Amazon can’t compete – live one-on-one service.

Improve the order fulfillment process across all sales channels to provide a similar customer experience. Order fulfilment is a vital contributor to customer satisfaction, and is a process that has been perfected by Amazon Business. To compete, solutions must be found to reduce processing times to deliver a seamless, fast, and accurate order placement to fulfillment journey. Time wasted on inefficient tasks like manual order data entry is no longer sustainable and increases the order to cash (O2C) cycle.

Implementing solutions that can eliminate manual processes will be key in delivery and an on-par order fulfillment experience. For example, automating data entry of sales documents can ensure that they are accurately processed at any time of the day, and is one way to dramatically reduce order cycle times. This also promotes customer satisfaction as customers will be confident that for every transaction, they will receive orders quickly and accurately. In the process, businesses can scale up with ease as the O2C cycle time is dramatically reduced.

While the age of Amazon Business is changing the landscape of the industry, there are unique opportunities that can help ensure companies can prevail. Smart decision makers will combine data and technology to minimize inefficiencies and unveil new paths for growth.