All systems go for Go Autonomous expansion

Go Autonomous has secured $10.3 million in funding from Octopus Ventures and Ridge Ventures, with participation from existing investors EIFO and 42Cap, the company says.

“We’re excited to accelerate our product adoption in Europe and the U.K. and begin laying the groundwork for our expansion into the USA, thereby further reinforcing our commitment to revolutionizing the landscape of B2B commerce software,” says Go Autonomous founder and CEO Bjarke Ruse Sejersen.

Go Autonomous has developed artificial intelligence (AI) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that it says identifies the intent of emails arriving in an inbox, extracts and structures the necessary information, and connects it into enterprise systems in real time, enabling end-to-end automation of quotes and orders.

“We saw the opportunity to simplify transactional communication without changing customer behavior,” says Ruse Sejersen. “Our platform not only streamlines B2B transactions but also significantly improves response times, resulting in a more efficient, profitable, and more sustainable growth — we call it Autonomous Commerce.”

Go Autonomous has established customers such as Danish pump manufacturer Grundfos, and Saint-Gobain Distribution Denmark.

The company did not release a U.S. market launch date.

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Those B2B buyers are delivering the message loud and clear: “We want an excellent digital user experience.”

And while sellers hear what buyers want, many organizations are having big problems with a range of ecommerce issues delivering a better web experience, says a new study of 400 companies by Zoovu, an artificial intelligence and ecommerce applications developer, and Forrester Research.

Aligning the B2B ecommerce experience

The study finds that B2B buyers now expect B2B experiences to align with the consumer experiences of their personal lives: quick, convenient, and personalized. Sellers know this, but they have, in large part, yet to digitally transform their selling motions. Their ecommerce operations are stuck without a meaningful way forward in a status quo that is hurting business, the survey says.

65% of surveyed organizations report that B2B ecommerce is “broken at their organization.” They cite a lack of an effective product data strategy for making products available and discoverable online as the primary factor behind this sentiment, including:

• 83% of respondents said their product data was incomplete, inconsistent, inaccurate, unstructured, or outdated.
• 81% said that an insufficient ecommerce platform amplified the problem of poor-quality data. The most common shortcomings were a lack of tools, an inability to manage product complexity, scale, and/or collect customer data from online buyers.

The research also shows that because of these challenges, B2B companies are forced to limit the amount of product discovery their buyers can engage with online. Not even half (44%) of respondents said their buyers have access to some form of self-discovery to evaluate products online.

The survey also revealed a significant opportunity to accelerate digital transformation within direct and indirect sales environments.

83% of surveyed companies say their corporate revenue required some degree of human interaction, whether it was traditional customer service/sales, assisted ecommerce where buyers turn to the sales team towards the end of their process, or digitally enabled selling, which uses digital tools to enhance traditional analog sales channels.

Other findings from Zoovu, Forrester

Aside from an inability to easily add more products into their ecommerce environments, B2B executives ranked additional challenges with their existing platforms as:

• Customer frustration (35%)
• Lower conversion rates (29%)
• Increased cost of sales (28%)
• Lost revenue (27%)
• Increased customer churn (25%)

Meanwhile, 73% of B2B buyers expect the same convenient online experience they get from buying consumer products. And B2B businesses ranked their ecommerce priorities for 2024. The top initiatives include:

• Providing more automated and personalized guidance to online buyers (80%)
• Improving demand generation (75%)
• Improving the ability to collect and use zero-party data (73%)

Incorporating AI into the B2B experience

More than three-quarters (79%) of respondents said they are looking to AI to improve the customer experience. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of those surveyed said they’re counting on AI to reduce the cost of sales and services. 71% of executives say they’re expecting AI to increase revenue.

“This research shows how essential it is for B2B businesses to invest in structuring and enriching product data to make their solutions more discoverable, wherever their buyers are,” says Zoovu CEO. James Novak.

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Huisman was already well-established as a provider of heavy construction equipment for the energy industry. But to better help its customers maintain their equipment in top shape and avoid any costly downtime, the family-owned company, founded in 1929, realized it needed to go digital — and in a way that was helpful to customers who were often out of internet access range.

Maaike de Rover, program manager, digitalization, Huisman

Going digital — enabling customers to order parts and service and view technical manuals from computer devices in remote locations at sea — makes Huisman’s products and services far more accessible and the company far more efficient and proactive in serving customers.

“The ultimate goal is to grow our business and stay relevant for our clients,” says de Rover, program manager, digitalization.

Moving toward predictive maintenance

Moreover, Huisman’s digital applications are putting its Services division into the position to “move from preventive maintenance to predictive maintenance,” she says, with online dashboards designed to alert customers when their equipment may be due for maintenance and new parts.

Headquartered in Schiedam, Netherlands, with worldwide production and service facilities, Huisman worked with digital agency Fenego to deploy the Intershop Commerce technology platform. Intershop, which launched its first ecommerce platform in 1992, “combines the functionality of a B2B shop with the user-friendly aesthetics of a B2C platform,” according to Martijn Reissenweber, director of Huisman Services.

But the new digital technology layout is “more DXP than just an ecommerce platform, it goes far beyond ecommerce,” says de Rover, using the letters for digital experience platform.

In addition, Huisman manages customer and financial data and product information with an Isah ERP system, a Windchill data management application, and Google Analytics. And it uses an image designing tool for displaying 3D product drawings.

To make the digital platform more useful for customers when outside of internet access, de Rover says Huisman worked with Intershop and Fenego to deploy the commerce technology as a progressive web application. That configuration lets customers continue to engage through various mobile devices with downloaded web content, including product and order details, account activity, and service records, even when they have poor or no internet access in remote sea locations, such as windfarm construction sites.

Vessel-mounted Huisman cranes at a windfarm construction site.

Engaging customers via myHuisman

Huisman’s digital strategy is to make it easier for its customers aboard vessels to order parts and technical services through the manufacturer’s new digital portal, myHuisman. The portal also lets them access a broad scope of technical manuals, 3D product images, and other resources with detailed specifications, place orders for replacement parts, and receive technical help online.

Personalized content and service was crucial for Huisman to maintain a helpful digital interaction with customers at different types of companies, regardless of where they were operating and their level of internet access, de Rover says. She notes that a typical cost of equipment out of service for maintenance or repairs can run $200,000 or more per day.

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“Our industry is based on relations and personal contact with people who may work 30-40 years for the same company,” she says. “So, before we started building this platform, I formed a customer advisory board … and the clients helped us build the platform.”

Among myHuisman’s features are:

• Dedicated parts shops for customers with highly customized equipment. “It’s quite important for them to know what specific items are available for their equipment,” de Rover says. For example, she notes that a 2,600-metric-ton leg-encircling crane can have over 10,000 serviceable items and parts available for purchase, and a customer can click to see all the parts that are available, the price and the order lead times.
• Access to a technical digital library of what are typically huge volumes of product manuals and documents related to the purchase and operation of Huisman equipment.

In the past, ships outfitted with Huisman cranes or other products would carry a full ship container stocked with paper manuals and documents. Next came CD-ROMs, which offered helpful 3D imaging used for maintaining and repairing equipment, but intermittent internet access limited their usefulness.

The new library available through myHuisman lets customers download materials online and use them with full interactive features even without internet access.

• An online services ticketing system, which customers can use aboard vessels to arrange to receive technical assistance from Huisman technicians and engineers. Customers can also check other users’ questions and their status and review Huisman’s recorded replies.

In some cases, a Huisman engineer will travel by air and water to arrive at a client’s vessel to conduct onboard service, but to limit the expense of such travel, Huisman has developed alternate remote support services using such tools as photo-taking drones and the enterprise version of smart glasses to share images of onboard equipment with land-based engineers and technicians.

Keeping track online of made-to-order cranes

Later this year, Huisman also expects to launch a digital file management system for keeping customers up to date on the status of customized cranes and other equipment as they’re in production. De Rover notes that the production process can take two to three years, making it difficult to regularly maintain, share and organize project documents with customers on typically highly complex, made-to-order products.

For Huisman’s largest and most ecommerce-mature customers, the manufacturer is also working on providing direct connections from companies’ enterprise resource planning or plant maintenance systems to the myHuisman web shop for fast and efficient ordering of products.

De Rover says there is a significant growth opportunity as Huisman onboards more customers to myHuisman for routine activities like scheduling service calls, freeing up its salespeople and account managers to spend more time on helping these companies match their needs to Huisman’s product offerings.

Sophie du Mortier, marketeer, Huisman

Going forward, Huisman is developing a technology application designed to let customers remotely monitor on myHuisman the construction progress of cranes they’ve ordered.

“Once they buy a crane, they can monitor their equipment’s complete production process,” says Sophie du Mortier, marketeer for Huisman. “Customers can collaborate with Huisman on design and test documentation. They will have full insights in planning. Transparency is key.”

Huisman is also developing a myHuisman online performance dashboard that enables condition-based monitoring, a method using information from equipment-embedded sensors to give customers information on required maintenance.

“They have a complete overview of the status of the equipment,” du Mortier says. “And we are working towards a servicing model in which we can use this data to provide operational advice.”

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Rob Saltiel, president and CEO, MRC Global Inc.

“Our revenue grew for a third straight year in 2023 to $3.4 billion, and we generated $181 million of operating cash flow, resulting in our lowest net debt level ever as a public company,” president and CEO Rob Saltiel said in a statement on the company’s fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Dec. 31.

MRC Global, which launched in 1921, emphasizes its global supply chain expertise and its “robust digital platform” for its ability to offer over 300,000 SKUs from over 8,500 suppliers for approximately 10,000 customers worldwide. Its ecommerce site, MRCGO, processes orders for products ranging from steel and polyethylene pipe to related valves and fittings.

In the fourth quarter, MRC reported a 12% year-over-year drop in total sales to $768 million. MRC said ecommerce accounted for 65.5% of U.S. orders and 53% worldwide. That’s up from 50.2% of worldwide orders in the year-earlier quarter.

Ecommerce drives a big share of sales

MRC didn’t break out the percentages of Q4 2023 U.S. of sales transacted online. Based on its reported figures for 2023 and 2022, Digital Commerce 360 estimates ecommerce accounted for about $340 million in Q4 2023 sales.

In its 2022 annual report, MRC said ecommerce accounted for 41% of total Q4 2022 revenue, or $356.3 million out of total sales of $869 million, while accounting for half of customer orders.

For the full year 2023, MRC said total sales grew 1% year over year to $3.41 billion. Saltiel noted on an earnings call today that, despite the drop in Q4 sales, “we maintain strong profit margins and cash generation that exceeded our expectations.”

He added, “We have seen a meaningful improvement in our backlog of new orders over the first few weeks of 2024. This gives us optimism that our business is stabilizing, and we expect to return to growth in the coming quarters.”

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, MRC reported:

• Gross profit of $153 million, down 3.2% from a year earlier. But a sharp drop in the cost of sales led to a gross profit margin of 20.0%. That’s up from 18.2% a year earlier.
• Net income of $21 million, unchanged.

For the full year, MRC reported:

• Gross profit of $690 million, up 13.1%.
• Net income of $114 million, up 52%.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s MRC Global report.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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The post At pipe distributor MRC Global, U.S. orders are 65% digital appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The moral of the story: B2B marketplaces remain the fastest growing B2B digital sales channel and a key driver in how business organizations of all sizes are undergoing digital transformation, according to the newly published 2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report.

Consider these metrics about B2B marketplaces

• B2B marketplaces grew year over year nearly 100% in 2023. That’s up to $224.0 billion from $113 billion in 2022.
• B2B marketplaces last year accounted for 1.3% of all B2B sales.
• There are now 750 vertical industry marketplaces (and counting).
• Six in 10 B2B buyers are doing 26% or more of their B2B buying on Amazon Business.
• More than half of B2B buyers, or 59%, are conducting more than a quarter of their purchases on online marketplaces, according to a new survey of 103 B2B buyers.
• Amazon Business is the dominant marketplace, the industry’s most influential marketplace, and by far the biggest, accounting for about one transaction of every four, Digital Commerce 360 projects.
• Marketplace service provider Mirakl says the gross merchandise volume on the Mirakl Marketplace Platform, which client companies use for first-party and third-party ecommerce sales and drop-shipping, grew 50% year over year in 2023 to $8.6 billion.
• The rollout of these new marketplaces will continue in 2024, and the total number of B2B marketplaces could exceed 1,000 in as soon as two years, Digital Commerce 360 projects.

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Albert H. Nahmad, chairman and CEO, Watsco Inc.

“In many respects, we consider 2023 an exceptional year given the extraordinary performance during the two preceding years and considering the softer comparative market conditions that have followed,” he said today in a Q4 and full-year financial statement. “We achieved market share gains during a down market, scaled the adoption of Watsco’s technology-leading technology platforms, drove productivity gains, expanded our network.”

Nahmad added during an earnings call that he sees Watsco — which he noted has grown from $1 billion in annual revenue 20 years ago to over $7 billion today — doubling its current annual revenue over the long term.

‘We’re very ambitious; we always want to grow’

“We’re never satisfied — that’s part of our culture,” he said. “We’re very ambitious; we always want to grow.”

He added that changes in the HVAC industry, including more efficient HVAC systems and greater customer participation in improved digital commerce and fulfillment technology, is making for a prime growth opportunity.

“Markets are creating innovation for the first time in a long time — it’s exciting,” he said on the earnings call.

The company noted several 2023 performance metrics resulting from its customer-facing technology systems.

• Watsco ecommerce sales grew 5% year-over-year to $2.4 billion, to about 34% of total sales.
• Active ecommerce customers produced 50% less attrition than non-ecommerce users.
• The gross merchandise value of products sold on Watsco’s OnCallAir digital sales platform for contractors increased 28% to $1.2 billion, as quote volume expanded 14% to about 256,000 households.
• Watsco’s authenticated user community for HVAC Pro+ Mobile Apps expanded to approximately 55,000 users.

Nahmad also pointed to several digital technology investments Watsco has made in the past year.

• Pricing optimization software, providing analytics and insights on more than 200,000 SKUs that help Watsco “enhance competitiveness and improve margins.”
• Warehouse management and order fulfillment systems for accelerated order fulfillment and “faster and more reliable customer service.”
• Demand planning and inventory optimization tools to improve fulfillment rates and inventory turns.
• Logistics and operations software and expertise to facilitate more efficient product movement.

Watsco is ‘well-positioned’ to invest in growth

Going forward, executives said acquisitions will remain a key part of growth.

“Watsco remains well-positioned to invest in most any-sized opportunity to build further scale in the estimated $60 billion highly fragmented North American HVAC/R distribution market,” the company said.

Since 1989, Watsco has acquired 69 companies. Its three most recent acquisitions are:

• Capitol District Supply, acquired in March 2023. It generated 2023 revenue of about $13 million.
• Gateway Supply Co., acquired in September 2023, which generated 2023 revenue of $180 million.
• Commercial Specialists, acquired this month, generated 2023 revenue of about $13 million.

As Watsco grows through acquisition, it will seek to gain market share by brands in each market it enters, Nahmad said.

Watsco operates a distribution network with 692 North American locations serving over 125,000 contractors across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other markets in Latin America.

Watsco reported for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31:

• Total sales grew 1% year over year to a record $1.60 billion.
• Gross profit declined 4.4% to $414.16 million for a gross profit margin of 25.8%.
• Net income declined 37.8% to $97.74 million.

For the full year, Watsco reported:

• Watsco ecommerce sales grew 5% year-over-year to $2.4 billion.
• Watsco ecommerce represented about 34% of total sales.
• Total sales were slack at $7.28 billion, compared to $7.27 billion.
• Net income declined 9.9% to $634.14 million.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s Watsco report.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Visual Boost AI is an artificial intelligence application that supplements vehicle inspection data. It does so by prominently highlighting detected exterior damage directly on photos within condition reports.

AI for evaluating used vehicles in its marketplace

The goal, the marketplace says, is making experiences faster and easier for interested buyers. Use cases include accurately locating and assessing potential defects before making purchase decisions.

Visual Boost AI combines artificial intelligence and computer vision technology. As a result, Openland claims it can provide a virtual overlay of any exterior damage detected.

The overlays feature hot pink highlights that pinpoint detected damage, including hail, paint peel, detached panels, broken lights, rust, scratches, dents, and cracks.

“Buyers can toggle the overlays on or off within the condition report for each vehicle they review and interpret the data captured in the vehicle description and make smarter, more profitable bidding and buying decisions,” says Openlane executive vice president and president of North American marketplaces James Coyle. “With one click, dealers can toggle the overlays and effectively get a second set of eyes to help them see anything they might have missed — like seeing the car in-person, from the convenience of your screen.”

How Openlane says the AI application will be used

The AI tool was built using applications and services from Click-In. Visual Boost AI automatically generates AI-detected damage overlays for eight standard condition images showing the vehicle at successive 45-degree angles, which the vehicle inspector can validate and reconcile, the marketplace says.

Openlane is a public B2B marketplace company. For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, the company reported total marketplace revenue increased 8% to $316.6 million from $293.9 million in the prior year.

The marketplace, based in Carmel, Indiana, says it sold approximately 1.3 million vehicles in 2022. That same year, it generated revenue of over $1.5 billion and a total gross profit of $685 million.

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Machinery Partners B2B marketplace

A total of $8 million will come from Armory Square Ventures and joined by Pritzker Group, two venture funds with expertise in the industrial technology space, Machinery Partners says. Other investors include RiverPark Ventures and Contour Venture Partners. Pacific Western Bank provided an additional $3 million in venture debt and some money from previous investors such as:

• Euclid Ventures
• One Way Ventures
• Techstars Ventures

Venture debt or venture lending is a type of debt financing provided to venture-backed companies by specialized banks or non-bank lenders to fund working capital or capital expenses, such as purchasing equipment.

“This funding will equip Machinery Partner to further expand across the country and become the go-to destination for heavy equipment manufacturers to sell to construction, agriculture and recycling companies,” the company says of its B2B marketplace.

Machinery Partners, based in Boston, currently does business in 35 states. The B2B marketplace offers procurement, financing, and support for a wide range of industrial equipment and heavy machinery.

In addition to selling in 35 states, it plans to expand operations throughout the country and internationally. In doing so, the company says, it hopes to support local construction and infrastructure development.

“Machinery Partner has brought a new approach to heavy machinery procurement designed to support industrial businesses facing labor shortage and needing more specialized equipment,” says Machinery Partner co-founder and CEO Clement Cazalot. “With this funding, we will continue to expand our offerings for our customers, support new factory partners, and increase availability to disrupt the $580 billion global heavy equipment industry.”

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Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both operate in China.

Eddie Wu, CEO, Alibaba Group

Alibaba revenue in fiscal Q3

The lion’s share of revenue was in Alibaba’s China retail ecommerce operations Taobao and Tmall, which grew combined revenue 1% to $17.43 billion. At Alibaba’s China B2B ecommerce site, 1688.com, revenue increased 23% to $747 million. Sellers on 1688 include include such U.S. manufacturers as Avnet, 3M and Stanley Black & Decker.

But Alibaba’s sharpest ecommerce revenue growth came in its International Digital Commerce Group, where retail commerce revenue surged 56% to $3.28  billion and wholesale climbed 8% to $740 million, for consolidated international growth of 44% to $4.02 billion.

Alibaba’s international retail commerce sites include Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz. The company conducts its international wholesale sales through its Alibaba.com B2B ecommerce site.

The IDCG is headed by its CEO, Fan Jiang. The IDCG ‘s chairman is J. Michael Evans, a former vice chairman of investment bankers Goldman Sachs who joined Alibaba Group last year as president.

Alibaba also reported an 86% revenue increase in its Cloud Intelligence Group and a 24% increase to $4.01 billion in its Cainiao Smart Logistics Network.

Investing to drive Alibaba’s growth

CEO Eddie Wu said Alibaba intends to drive stronger growth across its operations.

“Our top priority is to reignite the growth of our core businesses, ecommerce and cloud computing,” he said today in a statement about its fiscal third quarter. “We will step up investment to improve users’ core experiences to drive growth in Taobao and Tmall Group and strengthen market leadership in the coming year. We will also focus our resources on developing public cloud products and sustaining the strong growth momentum in international commerce business.”

Alibaba said Q3 net income fell 77% to $1.51 billion. It attributed the decline to “impairment of intangible assets of Sun Art and impairment of goodwill of Youku.”

Alibaba earnings

For the nine months ended Dec. 31, Alibaba reported:

• Taobao and Tmall Group China retail commerce revenue increased 5% to $45.94 billion.
• China wholesale commerce revenue increased 13% to $2.19 billion.
• Cloud Intelligence Group revenue increased 3% to $11.38 billion.
• International retail commerce revenue grew 62% to $8.36 billion
• Alibaba international B2B ecommerce revenue increased 6% to $2.22 billion.

In November 2023, Alibaba Group became the first Asian Internet technology company to join the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a group of over 200 businesses, to support WBCSD’s drive to make global value chains more sustainable.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. 

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The post International commerce drives Alibaba’s biggest growth rate appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Insights from the 2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report

The overall business market for manufacturing and distribution ended the year in a deep freeze. In 2023, the combined sales of U.S. manufacturers and distribution companies were flat at $14.87 trillion. That’s in sharp contrast to B2B ecommerce, which grew 17% in 2023, based on data and analysis in the forthcoming 2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report from Digital Commerce 360.

But high interest rates, nervous consumers and businesses tightening spending based on a prediction of a hard (or soft) recession, along with other factors such as lingering supply chain issues, put the brakes on business growth in 2023.

Manufacturing sales grew just 3%, totaling $6.82 trillion in the last 12 months compared with $6.59 trillion in the prior year. Meanwhile, distributors fared even worse, with combined sales that declined by about 3% to $8.04 trillion from $8.26 trillion in 2022.

2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report

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The market for B2B products and services is expected to rebound in 2024, with many economists forecasting the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) to grow between 1.6% and 2%.

“The expectation of below-trend real GDP growth in 2024 results in forecasts for slower — but still positive — job growth and a modest increase in the unemployment rate,” says a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis report.

But regardless of how the overall American business economy performs in the year ahead, one aspect seems certain: The continued growth in B2B digital commerce will drive — or at least highly impact — the expansion of business sales overall in 2024.

Business buyers today use anywhere between three and 10 channels to research, negotiate and purchase goods and services from sellers. Those channels can include online, such as ecommerce sites and apps, B2B marketplaces and e-procurement, and offline, including branches and manual orders entered by sales reps.

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