Capgemini’s Report Highlights Top Digital Features Driving Procurement

Capgemini‘s new report highlights the top digital features and experiences that drive procurement officers to trust or remain loyal to a supplier, and which that would make them less likely to return.

Capgemini’s findings show that customer loyalty is won through a connected ecosystem of storefronts, customer insights, and back-end systems. Vamshi can discuss which factors and attributes motivate B2B procurement officers and therefore, which offers and services should be top-of-mind in creating a seamless, transparent, and efficient purchasing experience that maintains a long-term buyer relationship.

The name of the report is “Transforming the B2B Ecommerce Experience in a Digitized Landscape.”

Here’s a look at just some of the key findings from the study:

• Accurate product descriptions and advanced pricing features for complex orders are top drivers of trust among the discrete manufacturing and tech manufacturing industries:
• Accurate product descriptions: discrete manufacturing (61%), tech manufacturing (52%)
• Advanced pricing features for complex orders: discrete manufacturing (38%), tech manufacturing (52%)
• Top drivers of loyalty for discrete manufacturing include subscription commerce/auto-refill (42%) vs. inventory and pricing transparency (52%) for tech manufacturing.
• A lack of insight into available inventory/untrustworthy product data, lack of advanced pricing features for complex orders, and inaccurate product descriptions were among the top experiences that make procurement officers less likely to return to a supplier.

The above findings highlight how procurement officers’ trust, loyalty, and deterrence are all motivated by two central themes: accuracy and transparency. Vamshi would be happy to discuss these findings in more detail with you and help answer any questions you might have.

Vamshi Rachakonda, Vice President & Manufacturing Segment Sales Head at Capgemini shared more insights with SCMR in this exclusive interview.

SCMR: Which key findings in your study came as a surprise?

Rachakonda: The research revealed some interesting findings about personalization preferences – especially for the B2B world. Traditional manufacturing has standard assets and products with a focus on specific outcomes, so personalization capabilities weren’t always a priority. However, now it is important that sellers continue to treat companies as individual consumers and address the unique needs of each business.

The research also found 43% of buyers will be loyal to suppliers who offer subscription and autofill features as part of their ordering capabilities. These options, especially around autofill, were not a major requirement in the past. It was very interesting to see how loyalty trends were identified to be tied to these features.

42% of procurement officers said they would not return to a supplier if they did not offer insight into available inventory or had inaccurate/untrustworthy product data. Traditionally, suppliers were measured on priorities like product quality, cost, and speed. While supply chain transparency was always required, it wasn’t to such a strong extent – unless it was impacting the three aforementioned priorities. The necessity of transparency is aligned to the trends of real-time information and control towers in the supply chain.

SCMR: Will you have new questions to ask in your next research study because of these findings?

Rachakonda: Yes, the findings from the study raised the following questions:

SCMR: With buyers relying on online channels and the need of resilient supply chain evolving, how do you perceive the technological shift around demand sensing?

Rachakonda: The “Intelligent Industry” is changing the manufacturing and supply chain landscape; how do you envision the impact of procurement in the supply chain space?

• With the advent of “as a service” model in products, how do you see the transformation in supply chain and after-sales processes?
• With customer service becoming critical to B2B sales, do you foresee a technological shift, such as AR and VR, becoming a norm in the after-service space?

SCMR: How can supply chain managers and procurement officers use these findings when planning for the future?

Rachakonda: As our research shows, there are evolving expectations related to personalization capabilities. Supply chain will have structural changes within the paradigm shift in demanding sensing, forecasting, and product variant management. It’s important to have a broader strategy to build a resilient and flexible supply chain enabled by fine-tuned processes and technology. This also affects the customer experience – where a positive experience leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The other parallel trend is the customer’s interest in transparency. This will drive the need of AI, machine learning (ML), and a data-enabled intelligence layer built around real-time information and control towers in the supply chain for improved insight and visibility.

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