Consumer-style product browsing, promotional offers & self-service will enable superior 24/7 customer service and free up sales time for higher-value activities
Guildford, UK, February 26th, – On Demand Solutions, creators of ODSNet™, the B2B e-commerce platform for SAP Business One, has announced that WISKA UK Ltd, the UK’s market leader in the manufacture and supply of junction boxes, cable glands and gel/gel jointing products, will roll out ODSNet as its B2B e-commerce platform over the coming weeks, boosting the customer experience for UK B2B wholesalers. It expects a significant shift in B2B sales moving to online within the next 3-4 years thanks to the improved purchasing and account management convenience, while sales teams will have more time to add value for customers.
WISKA UK primarily sells to the electrical wholesale market. Until now, this activity has primarily relied on taking orders by phone, email and fax. But when WISKA UK conducted a market survey last year, it confirmed an increasing appetite among B2B organisations for purchasing products online.
“We anticipated that e-commerce would be of interest to our customers, and our research confirmed this,” says Elliott Rothon, WISKA’s UK marketing manager. “As more millennials come up through the workforce, the convenience of buying online will only grow in appeal.”
WISKA UK chose ODSNet after reviewing a range of e-commerce platforms, including Magento. ODSNet stood out as the only B2B-specific solution, and one which offers a rich, intuitive, consumer-style user browsing experience, along with the ability to integrate directly with WISKA’s SAP back-office systems. This means the web site stays completely up to date with the latest stock and price information, and promotional offers, and that orders flow through directly to sales and finance systems, without the need for manual data re-entry.
As a result of deploying ODSNet, which is due to go live in April/May, WISKA expects a sizeable shift in online sales throughout 2018 and, within 3-4 years anticipates that online B2B transactions will become the “norm”. This is expected to lead to new revenue growth as wholesalers are able to place orders around the clock, and from anywhere, and because ODSNet can present personalised product offers to individual customers as they log in. The time saved by WISKA UK’s sales team on sales order processing, meanwhile, will enable them to provide enhanced customer service.
On-the-road sales agents will also have access to ODSNet, through ODS Field Sales, on their mobile and tablet devices. “This will give them the tools to react to customers in real time, enabling them to provide an enhanced customer experience,” Elliott explains.
For now, WISKA will focus its e-commerce activities in the UK, where online purchasing in a B2B context is more accepted than in other markets, but as international businesses see the potential there is scope to roll out the ODSNet platform internationally, he adds.
“We certainly see our relationship with ODS as a continuing partnership – something to build on as the market evolves and as technology advances. We’ve started by delivering a successful and professional e-commerce platform. Once that’s live, we’ll continue to benefit from ODS’s expert guidance, ensuring that we capitalise on every possible opportunity that comes from this.”