An ERP system can digitize and speed up your business processes. That's great, but is it enough? In 2023, we see ERP systems increasingly taking the customer as the starting point. And rightly so.
ERP systems emerged when companies started using more and more separate software products to digitize manual operations. Bringing everything together in one system was the next, logical step.
However: in 2023, it is time to start thinking the other way around: how can your ERP system add as much value as possible for the customer or end user? And: what impact will that have on your business processes?
Increasing demand
Research by the Panorama Consulting Group in 2020 already showed increasing demand for ERP systems in customer-facing industries. Currently, manufacturers are the largest group of ERP users (34%), followed by nonprofit organizations (7%), healthcare (5%), retail (4%) and utilities (nearly 4%).
B2B companies still often have a relatively traditional sales process where everything revolves around sales calls and telephone sales. In the B2C market, this has long since ceased to be the standard: here, large web shops have been calling the shots for years.
You now see B2B buyers increasingly demanding the same sales experience from their suppliers as they are used to as consumers. Not surprisingly, e-commerce is now making great strides in the B2B market as well.
The digitization of the B2B sales process was greatly accelerated in recent years by the corona pandemic. Month-long lockdowns made short work of traditional sales processes based on human contact and the favor factor.
Customer-oriented functionalities
Anno 2023, over two-thirds of B2B companies use a web shop to sell their products. Not long ago, this was less than 50%.
In addition, customer-facing companies in the B2B market use their ERP package primarily to streamline their backend processes, improve customer service and align inventory with ever-changing demand for specific products.
By 2023, we see ERP vendors responding to the demand for customer-orientated ERP software by over-investing in the continued development of inventory and order management modules and even offering omnichannel support.
Uniform customer experience
Another trend is that modules and functionalities for inventory management, order management, CRM and sales are increasingly merging. In B2B companies, these are often very different departments, however: the customer does not care.
'Buyers mix online orders with offline customer service or even in-store pickup, while expecting their invoices to be updated automatically,' said Arno Ham, Chief Product Officer at Sana Commerce. 'So it's important to offer your customers one unified customer experience, even when customer contact is across multiple channels.
Personalization
Although B2B customers increasingly demand the B2C customer experience from their suppliers as well, the old sales techniques also remain in vogue. These include price agreements, discounts, priorities or established maximum delivery times.
Customer-oriented ERP systems also take this into account. In the Web shop, after logging in, these customers enjoy the same privileges they've always had. Think customized catalogs, customized prices and fast backorders based on order history.
In this way, digitization does not feel like a step backward, but rather a continuation and improvement of the current customer experience.
