Continental Breakfast

We founded B2B Next in order to fill a void in the B2B space for an event that offers high-quality content and actionable insight about B2B e-commerce. Our goal from the beginning was to produce the world’s premier B2B e-commerce event, no matter what it took. In his welcome remarks, Andy Hoar, Co-Founder of B2B Next, will describe the organization of the conference and offer insights into how those attending can get the most out of the B2B Next experience.

Professor Clayton Christensen has long believed—and proven—that successful, outstanding companies can do everything “right” and yet still lose their competitive edge, or even fail, as new, unexpected competitors rise and take over the market. His seminal theory of disruptive innovation, first introduced more than three decades ago, has changed the way managers and CEOs around the world think about and create innovation.

TAKEAWAYS: Professor Christensen and Ann Christensen, president of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, will present their groundbreaking research and share clear advice for how companies can be the disruptors versus the disrupted. They will draw upon in-depth, real world examples from across multiple industries to illustrate how B2B companies can make disruptive growth a reality today.

Most companies are optimized to win the e-commerce “home game” by selling effectively on their own website. But few B2B companies are well-positioned to win the increasingly important “away game” and sell successfully on big online marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba, reseller and retailer websites, and even on social networks.

TAKEAWAYS: Join Scot Wingo, co-founder, of ChannelAdvisor to learn how to identify the most important “away game” sales opportunities for your company. Our speaker will also cover how to use price, content, imagery, video, testimonials and other online levers to gain sales on others’ websites and how to manage channel conflict risks while selling across a variety of touchpoints.

Coffee Break

Many companies have raised online sales to 10% or 20% of total revenue, but driving online penetration to 40% and higher is an order of magnitude more complex and difficult. How do you make that breakthrough and establish your company as an omnichannel leader versus a follower? In this session Kristy Howe, VP of e-commerce at Deluxe Corporation, will tell you how her company made changes in its technology, personnel policies and, most importantly, management thinking to take online sales to a dramatically higher level.

TAKEAWAYS: Join this session to learn about innovative ways to think about how people, processes and technology can accelerate your digital strategies. Our speaker will address how to use new metrics to track critical digital-first key performance indicators (KPIs), such as customer lifetime value versus simple customer acquisition costs. Kristy will provide advice and guidance about how to overcome internal objections to iterative processes that create sustainable, rapid change.

If you’ve ever tried to argue that online investments influence offline sales, then you’ve probably also tried to prove the connection. But proving cross-channel influence is easier said than done. Many in B2B have shown that online activity CORRELATES with offline sales, but few in B2B have proven that online activity CAUSES offline sales. Join Devashish Saxena, group vice president of global e-commerce and multichannel convergence at Rexel, to hear how to establish a quantifiable and causal relationship between your online and offline channels.

TAKEAWAYS: In this session you will discover how to create a sales causation study, measure the effects of influence in multiple channels and make a clear and persuasive causation argument to the C-Suite.

If you’re selling products widely available elsewhere, you’re likely competing on price with mega distributors offering tremendous economies of scale. That’s a race to the bottom that can ruin a company’s profitability. But buyers of products often need related services, and those services frequently can be sold at high margins, which can lead to more sales of products as customers seek vendors that represent one-stop shopping and possess domain expertise to fill their needs. This session will detail how one B2B company successfully expanded into selling services online by overcoming internal and external obstacles and iterating on lessons learned.

TAKEAWAYS: Join our speaker to learn how to convert a traditionally product-centric company into a services-selling company, bundle services with product across a broad portfolio and find the best mix of internal and external resources to provide new services.

No one owns the customer today. In fact, no one even owns the attention of the customer today. So how do B2B companies get buyers to pay attention across the B2B Web where products are available on multiple sites, prices are transparent, and inventory is largely known? The right goal is to be everywhere you need to be to influence your customer’s decision-making, without wasting resources on Web venues of little importance. But how do you tell the difference, and how do you stand out on the websites that matter?

TAKEAWAYS: Join our speaker to learn how to determine the important online venues that directly and indirectly influence your customers’ buying behavior, capture the interest of customers as they decide where to research and buy both online and offline, and convert browsers into buyers with targeted, relevant incentives.

Becoming a digital-first company means rethinking every aspect of an organization. That includes examining the DNA of everything from relationships with suppliers to compensation for sales teams. Companies often underestimate the breadth of the project and the time it will take to achieve success. Kevin Yapp, SVP of digital transformation at a major electronics distributor, can speak from experience about the crucial “do’s” and “don’t’s” of leading a digital transformation.

TAKEAWAYS: In this session Kevin will explain how to right-scope the initiative and garner the executive support necessary to prioritize and proceed with a roadmap and timetable for execution. He will also cover how to measure progress in a way that will keep the project on track and business leaders confident of success.

Manufacturers and distributors are increasingly invading each other’s territory via the Web, with manufacturers selling direct to customers and many distributors developing their own private-label brands. The resulting channel conflict is leading companies to fundamentally rethink how they structure their ecosystem relationships. But it’s also creating a “coopetition” opportunity for manufacturers and distributors that can find ways to combine their strengths and sell more together than they could separately. In this session, Apryl Erickson, VP of e-business and customer centricity at HID Global, will describe how her company is sorting out friend from foe and working with partners in new ways for mutual benefit.

TAKEAWAYS: Apryl will discuss how to create emerging business models that allow manufacturers and distributors to gain sales through cooperation, and triage existing partnerships to recalibrate them for a digital-first customer environment. She will also address how to form new partnerships that reflect a more sophisticated and nuanced “coopetition-based” ecosystem relationship.

Seated lunch

Many B2B companies have managed to reach 10-15% of total revenue online. But achieving online sales penetration of 40% or higher and becoming a digital leader in the industry often requires a new and more comprehensive strategy.

TAKEAWAYS: In this session, Linda Taddonio, Co-Founder of IQAcceleration, will lead a workshop discussing how B2B companies can leverage best practices to re-envision strategies and tactics for a majority-digital world. She will also address how to convert to new omnipresence-centric metrics focused on influence, opportunistic selling, and coopetition; and institutionalize iterative processes and sustainable, rapid change.

At its core, digital transformation is about business transformation. And changing the business is a multi-faceted undertaking that involves re-thinking customer, channel, and partner relationships. It also requires re-examining aspects of internal culture, organizational design and more.

TAKEAWAYS: Eric Berggren, adjunct lecturer of marketing at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University and managing director of Axios Partners Inc., will lead a workshop discussing how B2B companies can leverage best practices to create, evangelize and sell the investment thesis for business transformation both internally and externally. He’ll also cover how to establish new key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect the true status and progress of your business in a digital-first age and how to hire the team that will take you into the new world of anytime, anywhere B2B customer action.

Today’s B2B buyers research and buy products and services on their own terms. Increasingly, that means they take the path of least resistance and make purchase decisions whenever and wherever it’s most convenient for them—often now on sites like Amazon and in 3rd party marketplaces. But few B2B companies are well-positioned to win the “away game” and sell successfully on big online marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba, reseller and retailer websites, and even on social networks.

TAKEAWAYS: James Thomson, a Partner in Buy Box Experts and former head of Amazonservices.com, will lead a workshop on how B2B companies can leverage best practices to operate in an environment where products are available on multiple sites, prices are transparent, and inventory is largely known. He'll cover how to directly and indirectly influence your customers’ buying behavior and capture critical “away game” sales opportunities for your company, as well as discuss how to manage channel conflict risks while selling across a variety of touchpoints.

Pricing has gotten a whole lot more complicated in recent years for B2B companies. Not only are most prices broadly known by B2B buyers, but B2B sellers must now keep up with competitors that might be changing prices in near real-time. Throw in MAP and UPP policies, as well as all manner of contract pricing agreements, and you’ve got complex ecosystems with which to contend.

TAKEAWAYS: In this workshop our speaker will lead a discussion on how B2B companies can leverage best practices to track pricing broadly across the sites of both conventional and unconventional competitors, grapple with one-off and situational buying scenarios, and convert both loyal and new customers with price and non-price incentives.

Back to back sessions, first, "People Power: The Frenzied Competition for E-Commerce Talent," and second, "Perfecting the Most Important Sales Pitch of All: To Your C-Suite."

[1:45-2:40pm]
People Power: The Frenzied Competition for E-Commerce Talent

All kinds of companies want e-commerce talent, and manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors may not seem as cool to IT whizzes as Silicon Valley tech giants. That makes recruitment and retention strategies crucial for B2B e-commerce success. In this session, B2BecNews will share insights from a recent survey of B2B companies, while our speakers will report on their recruitment and retention strategies.

TAKEAWAYS: Join this panel session to learn how to recruit talent both internally and externally and strategies to persuade prospects that B2B e-commerce is the hot place to be. We’ll also cover how to adapt compensation packages to the preferences of the millennial generation staffers that make up a big part of the talent pool and modify company culture to appeal to younger staffers.

This panel repeats at 4:00pm, with our moderator leading panelists in exploring different aspects of the topic in each of the two sessions.

[2:45-3:30pm]
Perfecting the Most Important Sales Pitch of All: To Your C-Suite

B2B e-commerce executives frequently struggle to get funding for digital initiatives. They must present compelling arguments for getting started, and then pitch very different types of evidence to support expansion. Moreover, the decision-makers they’re pitching to may be unfamiliar with the metrics that indicate digital success. In this session, our speakers will explain how they got both initial and follow-on funding, and the lessons they learned along the way.

TAKEAWAYS: You will leave this panel discussion with insights into how to explain digital-first metrics in terms that will resonate with executives who came up in an earlier era, and budget for e-commerce technology so as to keep outlays in line with attainable results. We’ll also cover how to educate the C-suite on how an effective e-commerce operation will impact other areas of the business, from supply chain management and marketing to recruitment and technology priorities.

This panel repeats at 4:50pm, with our moderator leading panelists in exploring different aspects of the topic in each of the two sessions.

Coffee & Dessert Break

Many B2B companies have managed to reach 10-15% of total revenue online. But achieving online sales penetration of 40% or higher and becoming a digital leader in the industry often requires a new and more comprehensive strategy.

TAKEAWAYS: In this session, Linda Taddonio, Co-Founder of IQAcceleration, will lead a workshop discussing how B2B companies can leverage best practices to re-envision strategies and tactics for a majority-digital world. She will also address how to convert to new omnipresence-centric metrics focused on influence, opportunistic selling, and coopetition; and institutionalize iterative processes and sustainable, rapid change.

At its core, digital transformation is about business transformation. And changing the business is a multi-faceted undertaking that involves re-thinking customer, channel, and partner relationships. It also requires re-examining aspects of internal culture, organizational design and more.

TAKEAWAYS: Eric Berggren, adjunct lecturer of marketing at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University and managing director of Axios Partners Inc., will lead a workshop discussing how B2B companies can leverage best practices to create, evangelize and sell the investment thesis for business transformation both internally and externally. He'll also cover how to establish new key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect the true status and progress of your business in a digital-first age and how to hire the team that will take you into the new world of anytime, anywhere B2B customer action.

While stories of disruptive innovation provide great clarity in hindsight, identifying disruptive threats - and successfully responding to them - has rarely been done by incumbent players in any industry. In fact, outstanding companies can do everything “right” and yet still lose their competitive edge, or even fail, as new, unexpected competitors rise and take over the market.

TAKEAWAYS: In this session, Ann Christensen, President of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation will lead a session on how B2B managers can recognize where to look for disruptive threats, how to develop strategies for responding to new entrants, and what it takes to build businesses that drive growth and profit.

Pricing has gotten a whole lot more complicated in recent years for B2B companies. Not only are most prices broadly known by B2B buyers, but B2B sellers must now keep up with competitors that might be changing prices in near real-time. Throw in MAP and UPP policies, as well as all manner of contract pricing agreements, and you’ve got complex ecosystems with which to contend.

TAKEAWAYS: In this workshop our speaker will lead a discussion on how B2B companies can leverage best practices to track pricing broadly across the sites of both conventional and unconventional competitors, grapple with one-off and situational buying scenarios, and convert both loyal and new customers with price and non-price incentives.

Back to back sessions, first, "How to Meet–and Exceed–B2B Buyers’ Expectations," and second, "Perfecting the Most Important Sales Pitch of All: To Your C-Suite."

[4:00-4:50pm]
How to Meet–and Exceed–B2B Buyers’ Expectations

From their experience as consumers buying online, business buyers have clear ideas on what makes an ideal B2B e-commerce site, and they demand efficiency and feature sophistication at every stage of their path to purchase. They also expect that purchase path to support personalization and customization to meet their unique business requirements. In this session, Lauren Freedman, president of the e-Tailing group, will present initial results of Digital Commerce 360’s proprietary research on B2B buyer behavior, their business selection process, and what they want to see on a site when researching, ordering and replenishing online, along with customer service and sales rep support scenarios. Mark Brohan, research director, Vertical Web Media, will join as moderator, leading the discussion among panelists to gain a deeper understanding of how the research results resonate with the B2B buyer experience, how B2B sites are bridging the gap to meet customer expectations and what they are prioritizing right now and in the future.

TAKEAWAYS: This session will cover today’s B2B buyer agenda and what that means for what your B2B site must deliver, best practices from top B2B sellers and how to plan for a superior customer experience.

[4:50-5:45pm] REPEAT from 2:45
Perfecting the Most Important Sales Pitch of All: To Your C-Suite

B2B e-commerce executives frequently struggle to get funding for digital initiatives. They must present compelling arguments for getting started, and then pitch very different types of evidence to support expansion. Moreover, the decision-makers they’re pitching to may be unfamiliar with the metrics that indicate digital success. In this session, our speakers will explain how they got both initial and follow-on funding, and the lessons they learned along the way.

TAKEAWAYS: You will leave this panel discussion with insights into how to explain digital-first metrics in terms that will resonate with executives who came up in an earlier era, and budget for e-commerce technology so as to keep outlays in line with attainable results. We’ll also cover how to educate the C-suite on how an effective e-commerce operation will impact other areas of the business.

Networking Cocktail Reception