Powering the Enterprise of the Future With HCL's customer-centric, next-gen digital solutions white paper

Transcription

1 Powering the Enterprise of the Future With HCL's customer-centric, next-gen digital solutions white paper

2 The Need It is no secret that today every B2B company is avidly focused on establishing a robust digital presence to drive growth and success. Digitalization, often likened Industrial revolution 4.0 is being looked as the primary growth engine for most commodity and manufacturing businesses. Digitalization is a growing trend across every industry segment and manufacturers have never previously thought about technology in a manner as they are doing now. Previously, only a few manufacturing companies operated like truly IT empowered businesses and for the others IT was just an enabler function. Today though IT is at the forefront for all enterprises and they are being forced to adapt and change their business models to cater to the rapidly and constantly evolving digital landscape. Statistics clearly reveal that B2B companies are constantly increasing their ecommerce presence and it is inevitable for them to invest in more robust platforms that can drive their growth in the current millennial run economy. In the U.S., where B2B ecommerce is already twice as large as B2C ecommerce, Forrester Research expects B2B ecommerce sales to reach $780 billion and represent 9.3% of all B2B sales by the end of Forrester further predicts that B2B ecommerce will exceed $1.1 trillion and comprise 12% of all B2B sales in the United States by The firm forecasts a CAGR of 7.7% in B2B ecommerce over the next five years, resulting from the need by B2B companies to reduce their costs. Globally, by 2020 the B2B ecommerce market will be twice as large as the B2C market $6.7 trillion vs. $3.2 trillion according to Frost & Sullivan. The Driver: Heightened Customer Expectations In the B2C world today, consumers are spoilt for choice and expect multiple businesses to compete aggressively for their business. They expect businesses to understand their needs, know their purchasing history and offer solutions that span both high touch and low cost options. In general, today s B2C consumer expects a unified customer experience encompassing the key tenets of Value Simplification / Solutions Immediacy Options Personalization Peer Group Validation From a B2B player s perspective, the same B2C user sits in purchasing departments across the world and has been procuring raw materials and supplies offline, this user is now empowered to buy raw materials online - The quantity can be in hundreds or thousands, tonnes or truckloads - but his expectation driven by what he has experienced in the B2C world. He expects much more than just a rudimentary order portal with a clunky interface where all he can do is place the order and then wait for the product to be delivered with limited to no interim visibility. The user now expects to view various product configurations and specifications and also understand the various uses of the specific products with the ability to speak with experts

3 if he so desires. He also expects to see alternates recommendations and what other users are buying. Being a business buyer he expects to generate quotes, view inventory (finished / in process) as well as track the order delivery. As a member of a global team he is one of several product managers or buyer or researcher across the globe, he also wants be able to see what others from his company and industry are saying about a specific product. Thus, while the customer expectations of the buying process and options are high and also evolving rapidly, industry is being further pushed by the dominance of a few global marketplaces that already provide end customers with an experience they expect and are familiar with. While these marketplaces are often the starting point for many customers and have a compelling proposition, they typically do not provide the B2B business with complete visibility or ownership of the customer experience or customer data and thus are sub-optimal for the business. Current Trends: What is the Market Doing? We looked at some of the top chemical companies and their public information to understand what they are doing online in terms of customer engagement and commerce. Our sample consisted of the top 25 chemical companies in the United States. While most of the researched companies are using almost all facets of social customer engagement and commerce, they are doing all of this in a fragmented manner without integrating the various customer experiences and touch-points to provide a unified seamless experience. 12 DIGITAL MARKETING CLOUD ADOPTION DATA MANAGEMENT MOBILE APPS SOCIAL EMPLOYEE PORTAL ORDER TAKING PLATFORMS MOBILE ENABLED WEB EDI Evolving Emerging Traditional Business Impacting Branding Reporting & Analytics 12 Internal Communication 12 End Consumer 16 Prospective employee 24 In addition, many of the researched companies are only leveraging one or two of the multiple successful digital sales channels available to them. HCL recommends a holistic digital B2B business model that encompasses the 4 most prevalent B2B channels (Self owned and operated ecommerce Platforms, Punchouts to customer procurement systems, Selling on online marketplaces and selling though digitally enabled distributors and agents) that enable companies to get the most of their digital investments

4 The Goal Establishing a robust digital channel is a daunting task but one that is essential to the survival of businesses. The needs of the hour is to build a channel that can be your customer engagement, growth and innovation engine all at the same time. This is not easy because it needs to be looked at holistically which requires digitalizing the company s operating philosophy which can be a painfully time consuming task. We asked some of our customers for the top areas they would like to see improvements in. Business Enable upsell and cross sell Drive incremental growth from the top customers Drive distinctive user journeys to support new business models with customer distinction Drive improved purchase from potential customers Improving relevance and impact to Customers Drive personalization to improve the customer experience ApplicATION Solution built to last to support changes in user experience, business models Modernized infrastructure for improving capabilities in digital platforms which while building the best out of the products in performance, intuitiveness and reliability Enhanced user experience, e.g. design, navigation,typography, imagery needed Drive integration so as not to create dependencies How do we achieve the goal? To achieve this desired state, HCL has documented some key considerations for the steps along the journey based on our experiences in supporting the digital transformation of a number of leading B2B organizations. To achieve success, the digital vision should be aligned across the 3 axes of a Customer Experience B Business needs C Robust Scalable System, Architecture and System Landscape

5 A) Customer Experience: Enabling a unified, personalized customer experience is an imperative given the competition and the ease of switching. HCL s experience shows that providing customers with capabilities including Personalization Headless Commerce Self Service capability, Ability to manage their own account hierarchy Enhanced, Intuitive Search Dynamic Tiered pricing Product Recommendations Easy to use Quote management Expert Advice Chat with an expert, Expert Videos goes a long way in driving customer engagement, sales and repeat visits. Analytic Dashboard Senior Management Customer Experience Layer BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE Headless Commerce, Content Rendition Search Analytics, Funnel Optimization Analytics Customer/ Distributors Mobile Website Personalized Experience Account Management Search & Navigation Quote Generation & Order Placement Guidance Video, Expert Chat Dynamic Tiered pricing Content CreatVor/ Admin/Approver Experience Manager Web Store Commerce & Content Layer Third Party System Payment Gateway Order Creation & Routing B2B Org Management Order History Payment Processing Promotions User Registration Data Layer Content Enrichment, Videos, Images Commerce Management, Workflow approvals Business User (Product Creator/ Manager) Business User (Back Office) Product Price Inventory Customer Backend Systems ERP SRM CRM DW Business User (Product Creator/ Manager) Business User (Senior Management) B) Business Needs: Operating a successful digital channel is not just about providing customers with a rich experience, it also needs to meet the needs of the business and meet margin expectations. In HCL s view, we believe meeting the business needs of the digital channel include a laser sharp focus on Providing an End to End Integrated Solution Analytics across all layers Enabling capabilities like Connected Commerce IOT, Wearables, 3D Printing Providing eff ective integration with key enterprise systems for Quote Management, PO Generation, Inventory Visibility, Workfl ows and Approvals

6 As part of aligning with the needs of the business, significant decisions are need on whether to alter the existing business process to achieve a best in class experience or to choose a best in class component or go with a single platform that achieves most but not all goals. At times, using an end-to-end package may be a much better and cheaper alternative to mix and match, but it also depends on the requirement of each business. Key Component Customer Experience and Engagement Content Management System Personalization System Marketing System Cart and Checkout Component Order Creation Component Order Status and History Component B2B Unit Management User Account Management Commerce Engine ApplicATION This component is primarily responsible for providing a rich customer experience as well as engage customers across channels A rich content management system that will enable the content management team to control content on the site, both in terms of product content as well as site content The system will enable business users to customize web stores based on customer groups, user groups, industry, etc. To provide the ability to create promotions and campaigns for customer groups, industry verticals, and geographies which will further propel online sales This component will provide core commerce capabilities to the user This component enables functionality to create order in the web system and propagatethat order to the back end systems This component provides ability to search for orders including current and historical. It also provides the current status of an order. This component helps in creating customer organization/ business unit structure in a B2B commerce system This component creates users, and associates those users to various customers and the underlying business units This engine will integrate with the enterprise systems Once the platform is deployed and active, the key focus is to ensure a low total cost of woensrhip while enabling constant enhancement of the platform as per business needs. HCL brings out industry recognized ALT-ASM model for platform operations that ensures high performance, high availability while simultaneously allowing a low total cost of ownership and continual enhancement of the platform.

7 Among the key considerations for a low total cost of ownership are 1. Leverage the products fully: Best-of-breed products integrated using industry standard Service Oriented Middleware Optimum utilization of the product features for least customization (run as vanilla as possible) 2. Empower the business users: To publish content with little or no dependence on IT for the routine scenarios, with appropriate work flows for compliance and security To gain the real-time and non-real-time view of operational and business metrics through the reporting capabilities Business KPIs Change Drivers TECHNOLOGY REGULATIONS INDUSTRY Business KPI alignment Business Ecosystem User testing Data 4 driven changes Customers/ Partners Business 2 Ongoing Regular business feedback 3 Daily Scrums & weekly reporting HCL ALT-AD Business Ecosystem Driven Development Flexible Platform based delivery Development KPIs Business KIP aligned Solution Design and Development Distributed offshore - onshore Agile through SDLC COMPETITION UserJourney Mapping 1 Employees 4 User testing Data driven changes Extended Flexible Enterprise 5 DevOps enabled continuous delivery with A/B live user testing Next Gen UX enabled by NUI, Usability, Mobility & Gamification CoEs 4 5 Business and User driven Next Gen UX How do we achieve the goal? 1. Building or developing modern applications which are platform-centric and user-centric; and are performant, elastic, scalable, secure, integrated, and extensible 2. Bringing together all the best practices, innovation, and value for every application development project we execute with cloud optimized design, mobile first, DevOps, and Agile-enabled while being process centric and cost and effort efficient

8 The key principles of HC L s ALT-AD principles are: HCL s ALT-AD What of ALT-AD How of ALT-AD Future Ready Elastic Scalable Secure Integrated Extensible of a Modern App of Modern Development ALT-AD Framewoks Platform compatible Cloud Ready Enterprise Ready DevOps enabled Mobile First Design Integration Ready Enterprise Class SOA and API Agile Enabled Process Centric Once the platform is deployed and active, the key focus is to ensure a low total cost of woensrhip while enabling constant enhancement of the platform as per business needs. HCL brings out industry recognized ALT-ASM model for platform operations that ensures high performance, high availability while simultaneously allowing a low total cost of ownership and continual enhancement of the platform. Among the key considerations for a low total cost of ownership are 1.Leverage the products fully: Best-of-breed products integrated using industry standard Service Oriented Middleware Optimum utilization of the product features for least customization (run as vanilla as possible) 2. Empower the business users: To publish content with little or no dependence on IT for the routine scenarios, with appropriate workflows for compliance and security To gain the real-time and non-real-time view of operational and business metrics through the reporting capabilities Reduce IT operations cost with increased automation and monitoring Lastly HCL s solution aims at delivering following business impacts while building the customer experience platform: Operations: Increases of 10% to 15% in speed to market through multichannel readiness and addition of newer products and channels through an agile platform that is api ready Sales: Revenue increases of 15% through service improvement and offering an end to end platform for upselling, cross-selling and building a robust marketing layer System: Improvements of more than 15% in the reuse factor through standardization of systems, storage, discovery, and transformation processes for instant addition of newer platforms Marketing: Reduction in content production costs of 10% to 15% through automation, collaboration, and integration of tools and workflow processes

9 TM References: US B2B ecommerce Forecast: 2015 To 2020: B2B ecommerce Will Top $1 Trillion By 2020 In The US Anubhav Srivastava in his role as Senior Director for Manufacturing business has significant experience helping customers implement solutions that drive integration between ERP s and platforms that help drive customer experience. He works with a single most important goal of driving maximum business impact to his customers business. His primary focus has been alignment of IT services with business challenges unique to each client towards providing value. He has worked on helping customers execute digital transformation programs around front end, integration & back end transformation to enable businesses be future ready. Anubhav has a Bachelor s degree in Polymer Engineering and a MBA from Institute of Management, Nirma University and can be contacted at Anubhav.Sri@hcl.com Kunal Puri brings 15+ years of experience in ecommerce and Digital transformation program leadership across retail, consumer goods, manufacturing banking and insurance industries. He has significant experience in the areas of business process analysis and reengineering, workflow analysis, platform selection and the implementation of technology to support business objectives. As Director ecommerce and Digital Transformation at HCL Technologies, Kunal is responsible for guiding clients to plan significant digital transformations and establish robust, scalable and efficient ecommerce operations. Kunal has a Bachelor s degree in Chemical Engineering and a MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and can be contacted at kunal.puri@hcl.com Hello there! I am an Ideapreneur. I believe that sustainable business outcomes are driven by relationships nurtured through values like trust, transparency and flexibility. I respect the contract, but believe in going beyond through collaboration, applied innovation and new generation partnership models that put your interest above everything else. Right now 110,000 Ideapreneurs are in a Relationship Beyond the Contract with 500 customers in 31 countries. How can I help you?