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The FODcast
In the FODcast (The Future of #DigitalCommerce) we explore the real career stories of the people who have made it to the very top of the sector and those who are working at the cutting edge of innovation and change right now. Listeners to the podcast gain insight into the journeys industry leaders have taken to be where they are today, the challenges they are facing now and their aims for the future.
The FODcast
Platforming the Future: B2B's Digital Commerce Revolution with Jochen Binder
The e-commerce platform market is evolving - and fast.
Gone are the days of two-year projects and monolithic systems. Today’s businesses demand flexibility, speed, and the right balance between out-of-the-box functionality and best-of-breed integrations.
In this episode of The FODcast, Jochen Binder, Head of Backend and Data Solutions at diva-e, takes us inside the latest trends shaping the future of digital commerce.
With over two decades of experience across B2B and B2C digital transformation, Jochen shares why some platforms are thriving while others are losing relevance - and why even MACH-first strategies aren’t immune to challenges. His real-world insights cover:
- Why Germany’s “hidden champions” are quietly leading B2B digital innovation
- The future of MACH architecture - and why pragmatic hybrid models are on the rise
- Emerging players to watch like VTEX and Scayle
- Why AI and B2B loyalty programmes are set to reshape commerce strategies
- The shifting dynamics of a post-pandemic platform market
If you're selecting a platform, planning a digital transformation, or just want a real-world view of what’s next in commerce tech, don’t miss this candid conversation.
#DigitalCommerce #B2BCommerce #PlatformStrategy #FODcastSeason7 #EcommerceTrends #AIinCommerce
Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.
Find our more about our approach and our services within digital commerce recruitment here: https://simply-commerce.co.uk/
Hello and welcome to Season 7 of the podcast, the podcast focused on the future of digital commerce hosted by Simply Commerce. Season 7 promises to continue to bring you some of the industry's brightest minds across the globe as we unpick the sector and where it's heading From war stories to strategy and technology, deep dives to future trends we cover it all as we continue our journey to have one of the most popular podcasts in commerce. Before we start, if you enjoy our content, please do hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you're listening on, like and share on socials. Hello and welcome back to the podcast the Future of All Things Digital Commerce.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm pleased to welcome Jochen Binder, head of Backend and Data Solutions for DivaE, one of Europe's leading full-service agencies. Jochen and I share a few similarities. He's a fellow fitness enthusiast that calls high-rex his sport. That said, he's been slightly more successful than me, making it to the world champs on more than one occasion. Anyway, today we will be breaking down the development of e-commerce platforms and what the future holds, an area he is also slightly more knowledgeable than me too. Welcome to the show, jochen.
Speaker 2:Thank you, james. Thank you for having me. So, yeah, it's nice that we talk about high rocks today. No, not really but big congrats to you. I think you broke your personal best last weekend in a half marathon. That's really also a nice achievement thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's all in all in the aim of uh of high rocks, right? So, uh, you got to be better at running to uh to be better at the sport. So we get there slowly.
Speaker 2:I'll be at your level soon, jochen yeah, yeah, hopefully we will see in berlin in our next joint high rocks event event. Definitely so. But yeah, unfortunately we will not talk about HIROX. Hopefully some of you do sports when you hear that. But I want to introduce myself a bit.
Speaker 2:So I started business informatics more than 20 years ago, worked a long time as a backend, andend and full-stack software developer and later also as software architect. In parallel, I always was in leadership roles like team leads, and begin then to lead the subsidiary in Karlsruhe and after we rearranged at DYE the structures. Now I'm responsible for the backend and data solutions. So we do mostly all the composable commerce projects at DYE and also some custom development projects. So I started at DYE at the end of 2009.
Speaker 2:Maybe also a few words about DYE you mentioned. It's a full service provider, so we call it end-to-end business. What we deliver we really start by strategic consulting at the beginning of a project or maybe it's just consulting a customer until and do the implementation front and back, and also search optimization, content creation, stuff like that, and also we do application management, so really maintaining applications all around the world, doing deep systems running, which is really important, and it's end-to-end. We are about 900 employees, mainly in the German-speaking area where our customers are located. They do business all around the world and DWA is also part of the conclusion group. Before we start in the questions, I want to mention that a small disclaimer. I will talk today about my experiences in different e-commerce projects, different e-commerce systems, and we have many partnerships at dva. So it's other departments are focused on their partners, I'm focused on my partners. Maybe I I will say a few better words on my partners, but, um, that's really my, my opinion and my experience I want to share today that's all good.
Speaker 1:Obviously, everyone everyone has different experiences and different opinions and and different thoughts about, uh, technology and obviously, in particular, what the future holds, jock and so. So, yeah, don't worry, we won't, uh, we won't, hold anything against you at the end of the podcast, but that's correct. But I wasn't aware that you were part of a larger group as well. So there we go. Every day is a school day and you learn something new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that started in the middle of last year. Conclusion is now the main shareholder of D-Way.
Speaker 1:There we go. At least I'm not too outdated then. So, um, I was starting to starting to worry a little bit. Um cool, well, let's, um, let's jump in. I think this, uh, let's get started and um start off by uh breaking down the current landscape of platforms. Obviously, there's been substantial change, um in that space over the last five years, with a number of challenger brands picking up market share. So what are your thoughts on the current landscape of platforms, jochen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the main difference, if you take a look at the landscape, is to see the systems. Who are for B2B business or B2C business? So some players are in both sides available, but the main business we do is, I think, still B2B, but also there are many big brands we support in the B2C sector. So that's mainly the big difference. If you take a look from the outside and there D-Waze is, as I said, with 900 employees, a big company and we do the really enterprise project. So you always have to think about there are many e-commerce systems for smaller agencies, for smaller budgets, which is not mainly the focus of DYE. So we typically talk about budgets about 250,000 euros, up to a million, two million, three million, stuff like that. So, and if you think about that, you also have to think about the systems where the license costs is really uh, yeah, matching to that projects. And yeah, I said, maybe we can talk about first about b2b, because it's, I think, the main part of the most projects. We do um and there are the typical sec. B2b can be everything. So you also do b2b between fashion brands, but in our case the sectors are typically the manufacturer sectors. So sensors, machine producers, automotive industry. In germany we call them the hidden champions.
Speaker 2:So you do not know these brands who really sell their products in 40 countries over the world and do really a billion euro revenue a year and they are typical, maintained by us or do large relaunch projects with e-commerce systems or do large relaunch projects with e-commerce systems and what we really see in B2B is that they are a bit behind B2C. So everybody is there in Amazon buying products and B2B is different. So there are really old systems running and b2b is different. So some there are really old systems running and it's, but every person working in the purchase department wants to buy same customer experience like in amazon, and the b2b companies really have to change um their thing, um their customer experience, their buying experience, and that's really something which is demanded and we have to react on that. But you cannot really do the same because products are different in B2B. They are more hierarchies, more layers, more attributes than if you think about Amazon or other big companies who really sell the product direct to the customer.
Speaker 2:And you need also systems which are flexible for that product data, for that complex product data, and flexible to plug in many other systems in the back end in the ERP systems or you do the, for example, the OCI, punch out, if you know about that, that you really can buy products from the customers a from the custom customers sap system directly from the shop. So many things to combine, to integrate, and that's the main part where these e-commerce systems must be flexible and and usable. Um, if you think about B2B in a DWA we compare two streams the enterprise suite stream, where is also Adobe, where is Salesforce and SAP, and the composable commerce stream. We see Spryker and Commerce Tools on the B2B side. So that's maybe the landscape. I will maybe deep dive in a few of these typical, not every, don't be afraid that I will talk about every detail, but maybe get an overview about the main e-commerce systems we are using at eWay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'd be interesting to see you touched upon five, five main platforms there, that it'd be interesting to hear kind of the conversations that you're having to your customers and where you're seeing the most demand, basically on a B2B side. Is one of those platforms standing out as the platform of choice for B2B brands that you're working with, that you're speaking to, or is the market very much split between all five?
Speaker 2:I think it's mainly split about these five. So I'm talking about Spryker, sap Commerce, commerce Tools and Salesforce. Of course, and yeah, always there are rumors A is switching to B, a is dying, but A is still there, so it's not dying. I think A is dying, but A is still there, so it's not dying. I think it really started with SAP Commerce. I think it was bought at the beginning of 2013 or something like that from SAP and this was the big hype of SAP Commerce. So it was built up on premise. Um, it had really much um possibilities for the b2b sector, but you also have to implement a lot of stuff to get it plugged in to your processes. So you have possibilities, for example, vouchers, but to use it as you want it, you have to implement many things. But many, many projects have been there or are still in the market because, um, what we see in our customer who maybe are switching from sap commerce to another pro, to another platform that it's not longer maintainable, or you have your development team and what you do is, after three, four or five months, you have to upgrade to the next version, and this took a few weeks to upgrade it and that's really expensive and that's really yeah, it doesn't bring to you any business value. If you upgrade the system, keep it maintainable.
Speaker 2:And other problem from SAP Commerce was the switch or the ending of the on-premise support. So many customers have to switch to the cloud and, yeah, you also. If you just switch, you have many migration efforts and nothing for business value. And this is the point where some think, okay, then I can switch to another system, maybe which is more flexible. So that's about SAP Commerce, but I'm still think that is such a it's the market is. It's still a leader in the magic quadrant. So, um, it's a relevant player also for us and for our projects. Um, I've developed it on my own, so I've experienced with sap commerce and I think it was at the right time at the right place, because at the mid of 2010 years, the cloud was not so popular as it is now.
Speaker 2:So on-premise was really the focus, to trust in the system, to have it in your own computers running in your own and, and at that time, also Spryker raised. So we, we was, we have been at the Mexico Fair in Cologne 2018. I think it it was a really big start. Spryker was founded before, but I think there was the beginning where it really, where we accelerated and we did more and more projects beginning at that time. At the same time, we were also under DMX code together with Commerce Tools, and the difference there was Commerce Tools was cloud only and Spryker was also possible to do both so as a pass or on-premise solution. And we were there at the early beginning together with Spreicher and grew to the biggest partner in Germany or the German-speaking countries. So this was the starting point and I think, if you think about the B2B business, breiker is matching to what we see in the automotive industry very well. So they have developed a lot. We have good experience with them and really big systems running all over the world with them.
Speaker 2:But yeah, on the other hand, side commerce tools maybe for a few I don't know A few early adopters, I would think in 2018, who really started directly in the cloud. They really were successful and I think the cloud is now popular than ever. So I think this time has gone. I think, beginning of the 2020s, this fear of the cloud disappeared. So it's not longer a point and nobody wants to do it on-premise again or we'll start with that, so that's no point. So CombiTools is also a very high player in the b2p sector. They also developed a lot in the last five years. Um, I think main part for commerce tools is being the, the pure mach player. So from from beginning, they also joined or founded the Mac Alliance and that's a really, really important part of Commerce Tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's as I said. Commerce Tools certainly rode the wave of the Mac Alliance and the prominence of them coming to market. Obviously, commerce Tools is widely associated as the platform of choice for many that moved to that composable architecture and it's done well, both in B2B and B2C. I'm sure we'll talk about the Mac Alliance and Mac itself in a bit more detail during the call, but in terms of B2B then then. So I guess you mentioned a few, but the the key ones you're really seeing is sap, commerce spryker and commerce tools.
Speaker 2:That's kind of where you're personally seeing the demand and the conversations are are going yeah, I think that is um, that is what what we see in the market and it's also also a challenge between these systems, of course. Sometimes commerce tools win, sometimes biker win, sometimes as of e-commerce um, but we will maybe also talk about later about the market situation in in the moment. So there are not many projects in the moment. So we have a really good customer base and developing their systems. So not so many relaunch projects in the moment. Um, yeah, but it's it's always different.
Speaker 2:So commerce tools is really mac, the pure mark tool, but also separated in domains. You really need some other systems to use next to commerce tools, maybe to send mails or create mail templates and stuff like that. That's not inside commerce tools. If you choose SAP commerce, you have a really good tool to manage everything. So it also depends what you want and yeah, we can do all of them, but yeah, it differs what the customer really wants. At the end, you can be successful with all of these three.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, okay, cool, all right, how are you seeing in the b2c space? And then then uh, yeah, b2c space um.
Speaker 2:So what we do in b2c is all also not the typical easy projects with um a single brand brand thing of compression socks for running or stuff like that. That's maybe a typical Shopify case. We do more also the complex projects around B2C. We also have Spryker B2C projects, commerce Tools, b2c projects. So commerce tools is, of course um part of that market um, and spryker also. But there are also different players um.
Speaker 2:What is really a few words about vtex, also partner of us. Um, I I'm I'm really um excited what, what the the future will bring us, especially in the German speaking market. We started I think we had the first project with Vitex in Germany and Vitex is located in or founded in Brazil and very I think they dominate the market there in the south of America and they are also in the US now more and more and increase their footprint there, their footprint there. And also they started in the German speaking market I think last year. They have now introduced to German speaking VPs and salesperson in Germany. We will see what they will come back or do more and more projects in that. So really excited and they really offer many uh possibilities from marketplace possibility um to have a really check out in place, um, and every process you need for B2C brand. But yeah, this our new rising star at DYA, I would say, or maybe also in the B2C market, is scale commerce.
Speaker 1:The rising star. I like it, but what a title to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds good, no, it's really. Uh, it's, it's like that. So scale uh was founded from um. I think the same story than commerce tools. Commerce tools wasn't beginning a digital, so a glossary store. Scale was uh, um, the, the e-commerce project from about you. It's a german, or mostly um uh german, a big fashion brand where you can buy products and they develop their own e-commerce systems and created a spin-off out of that and um yeah had more and more customers on that platform. Scale is, but not just only fashion, so they can do fashion really well. We have also brand, which sells um automotive parts for b2c and um and and other other brands, or baby baby products, um with for santos waltz.
Speaker 1:They also do Bayern Munich and man United right, so they're obviously venturing into the sports sector as well, where there's a lot of innovation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think Rising Star would say they have really big brands who everybody knows in Germany or in the UK Last year. They have Manchester United, they have Harrods. We also supported the background with the Harrods project.
Speaker 1:Nice. I've certainly heard a lot of good things about scale as well. They've done very well in the UK market over the last couple of years. I also have heard a reasonable amount about Vitex over the last two or three years, but it doesn't seem to have quite had the same traction in the UK. But it sounds like they're starting to make some headway in Germany and the dark regions. So it'll be interesting to see just how the platform gets on and what is a very competitive landscape right now, because you've also got BigCommerce, shopify, commerce, layer Centra I mean, you name it. There's too many to name at the minute. So, yeah, yeah, there's too many to name at the minute.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, also Emporix. We are watching the market and really take a look at these systems, how they evolve. Emporix is very similar to SAP or it was the the cloud part. Um was separated and emporex developed that, but um, I think, yeah, they have a really small footprint in the market.
Speaker 2:Also, big commerce is, I think, very strong in the US. I think in the DACH region two years ago they laid off many salespeople, what we've seen. So that's a part where sometimes the market stops and that's what I see at BigCommerce and also Salesforce. We do also many Salesforce projects, but the main part also eCommerce, but the main part what we do is with the CRM system, loyalty cloud, marketing cloud. These are the main Salesforce systems. And there's also still Magento in the market, but we do not recognize growth at that part. So on our side I'm really not included in Magento project, but, as you said, we have many systems, many good systems and when we think about the growth of the last five years, these are the ones that are still which have grown very much in the last five years and are really do big business.
Speaker 1:so okay I think, okay, and do you think that is that because the um, the reputation that the platforms have? Is it just because of the capabilities that they have? Is Is it the fact that the commerce tools scale VTX? They're all very modern. If you had to kind of put your finger on one reason as to why they've seen that growth, what would you say? It is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if we think of the SAP hype SAP commerce hype it was that there was really a system who is flexible, you can put everything in there, but on the other hand you created a monolith maybe and it's not maintainable. And I think the last five years it's the first of the five years was driven by the mach um alliance. So commerce tools was really cool in that and over the time there was also we also was in a project with a um, with pure mach um project which, uh, which was also in in the pandemic pandemic so which flopped at the end or was stopped because the customer changed everything um at the same time. So the e-commerce system, then um the crm system, every, every sas product in the market was loyalty system, um delivery, payment provider, stuff like that everything what you need and everything um at the same time. And that I think there are many projects in the market who flopped, who tried to do the really um dogmatic mach way.
Speaker 2:And I think, if you think of scale, also V-text or also commerce tools developed in that that you do not have to use a specific system for every use case or domain.
Speaker 2:So the system brings some complexity or some product applications you can use.
Speaker 2:This is maybe if you think about the checkout so scale has a checkout you have to use that.
Speaker 2:That's maybe sometimes not that flexible as you want, but also commerce tools now has a checkout you can simply use and be much more fast. I think this is the main part to be what changed that if you start a project, you want, you define a most valuable product and you want to be on the market in three months or four months and really learn very quick and also if some things you have to be adopted, then you can react really fast and and change stuff. It's it's not longer the part you have not the possibility in the market to develop a systems one and a half year or two years and this was possible in the 2015 or something that it was possible to develop a system two years long before you go live. This is not longer possible. What I see you have to really be fast with the first parts of the project and get feedback from from customer experience, from from the customer, and all these systems must be much more flexible okay.
Speaker 1:So you touched upon something there which is quite interesting and that's how some of the uh, the vendors, are starting to enhance their products and they're starting to add more capabilities commerce tools, for example, having a checkout um, my opinion is we're starting to see some sort of consolidation between the vendors and I feel as though, kind of that, we're going to see more of that over the next five years. Um, I don't. If we're looking at the, the move to, to mac in particular, I don't think many businesses want or need to have 15 to 20 different systems talking to each other. Um, so I I see consolidation between them becoming more of a more of a thing. We're we're already seeing that and I think that will continue. But how do you see the next sort of uh, sort of four or five years developing? You're developing your industry, obviously, outside of the consolidation. Do you see anything else sort of happening in that, in that space?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think we had this small accelerator hype. I would say it's a commerce tool started with that, or pre-composer call it. Everybody has a different we, we all we do also have an accelerator, so it's it's difficult to have these 20, this. We often call it a zoo of systems and you need a, a guide, who who goes to you to the zoo and says, oh, this animal is interesting and this and that, and you have these three animals and you are very happy and you do not have the time to to play with that every animal in the zoo.
Speaker 2:So accelerator is fine to combine products, but I think if you do that, you also have to take care which person is really using it and, as you said, you do not want to be a marketeer and go to Algolia and change that and go to a story block and change that and go to commerce tools and change the price. This must be more easy. The customer experience outside should also be in the back office, so you also have to be fast there and that's also a point where systems should be more flexible to include stuff in their back office. I think you can do that with a merchant center, for example at Commerce Toolside. But I think it's also important on the other hand, to have maybe, if you think for the promotion engine for example, that you have a possibility and maybe it's enough for some customers, but also you should have the flexibility to plug in a really specialized product like Talon One, to do the promotions or to do loyalty in a in a much other level than your product can.
Speaker 2:But this is the way um, where commerce tools um and and scale and evolve. They have very good um, I think, um use cases, for maybe 80 percent can use it and are happy with that and they also develop their products. But I think it's still important that you can plug in really special products, also for search and recommendation, like Algolia. It's really hard to have that in an e-commerce system and we do not have to talk about content management, which is in every e-commerce system not usable. If you really want to do content commerce, if you need content to describe your products, to give more information, more possibilities, this is not really useful to use that just from the e-commerce system.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you see businesses maybe picking a standard commerce platform, but still going down the route of really specialist areas when it comes to things like search, loyalty, cms, etc. Um, something like something I asked earlier. Um, as I mentioned earlier, was the fact that there are so many commerce platforms now um the easily 10, if not 15, that we could probably list quite quickly. Do you see any of those platforms disappearing from the European market? Are there any that you think struggle to really stand out versus others or not? Jochen, what's your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to say in the moment. So what we see is I think we also had this post-pandemic market situation where everybody thought, oh, this will be growth, and I think that was also the problem of some of these e-commerce systems that they really hired salespeople, hired marketeers, hired many, many peoples, and we see it now in the market that these companies are struggling. So big commerce started two years ago with, uh, layoffs in in the sales departments. Uh, the recent example is commerce tools. Who who laid off? I think about, when I read it right, about 70 people.
Speaker 2:So, and also sea levels change. But, uh, another ceo, cro is not longer there. Cmo with the cso, kelly gutch, who was also in your show, is not longer there. So that's, I do not have insights. But if you see it from outside, I think not have insights. But if you see it from outside, you think, um, is it maybe? Um, because, um, what we also see in the market that there are now new big e-commerce projects a few, of course, but not 15, 20, 30 projects a year for for each of these vendors, and this is a problem and I think they there are many of them who do not reach their goals in vendors and this is a problem and I think they there are many of them who do not reach their goals in the moment. This is because there are so many changes. It's not just commerce tools also spryker.
Speaker 1:Many changes have been there um, who do you, who do you think will struggle the most? I mean, we've obviously, obviously got brands like shopware, not brand, so you've got vendors like shopware as well that seem like they're losing market share. You mentioned Magento earlier, also losing market share. Who do you see as the ones losing the most market share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, as I said, I think, shopware we are not a partner of them, so I can talk about them, but what we see is also a switch to other systems. We have also seen that they have difficulty to have really something similar like the others, like SaaS systems, so it's not really a cloud solution. So it's still, I think, a bit behind. And Magento the same. As I said, we have a few projects running, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's another sector. I do not have the view on them, but maybe they're also dropping out of the market. That's also a possibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I appreciate that I think it's not the relevant enterprise player. Yeah, both Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I appreciate it. They're not areas where you, uh, you have, you have a focus yourself, but, uh, it's always good just to to hear, kind of hear your opinion and your thoughts, right, because I'm also seeing less of those projects as well and hearing about them less than than other areas. So it's, uh, I find it interesting, cool, okay, so let's put your uh, put your mystic, meg uh crystal ball in front of you and let's talk about what's the next top topic in digital commerce. So, how, how do you see, uh, how do you see things evolving and what do you think is the next hot topic within digital commerce?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, um, ai, of course, everyone, everyone wants to use ai. A few years ago it ago it was we need a marketplace. We need a marketplace. I think this hype has gone, but I think AI is also relevant for us. We see it on vendor side that everybody creates a tool or a possibility to use to enhance images, alt tags or to create content. So we also implemented a project on AI side for, maybe, for document store, to have a search document in a dialogue and really jump to a specific PDF and have a summarize and stuff like that. So really cool project.
Speaker 2:I think AI is on the rise but still you have, if you create content, you also have great translations. It's also important for our B2B customers. If you have 40, 45 countries to maintain, it's always relevant to have these translations available. But I think at the moment, ai can also fail and do wrong things. You have to double check stuff, which also we will see if this is decreasing these positives or call it so. I think in the moment, everybody is not so trusting the AI completely, trusting the ai completely. So it's used for support, for better chatbots, of course, for better, yeah, or what we also do in a project for enhancing product information or bring it in in a better structure. So it's easier to have unstructured data and put it in a chasen which is machine readable and usable. Before before that it was not possible. And then ai can do that really quick and really with really good results. And this, these are things, but it's more or less in the background.
Speaker 2:I think in the in the forefront, um loyalty is is a big thing okay yeah, also loyalty and b2b, because in what we see, loyalty is not really relevant for b2b uh, not as we know it in b2c.
Speaker 2:Loyalty is, of course, relevant for b2B, not as we know it in B2C. Loyalty is, of course, relevant for B2B because they do have they have not that customer base. They have always the same customer base. But the problem is, if you think about manufacturers, typical sales cycle was that the salesperson fly around the world and sell their machines, but they also want to have more growth and growth and growth and that's not longer possible to do like that. So what we see is these customers also want to raise the percentage of the e-commerce systems usage. So they have maybe 10% e-commerce revenue and they want to grow up to 50-60% over the e-commerce platform. So they want to decrease on sales persons directly sales to bring customers and bring new customers on the on that platform and that's a possibility also for loyalty to have, yeah, new customers jumping in and, together with promotions and this in the b2b I, I think this is a new trend or an area where we are just in the beginning in the moment.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a really interesting point. And when I spoke about loyalty, we have a few people on the show. We've had Sam from Talent One on last year, as well as Fiona at Loy uh loyalty line and a number of people as well. That that's has discussed loyalty in general, um, but generally speaking, it's always been with regards to b2c. So I think you make a really good point and actually and it's relevant for b2b as well and uh, something that I certainly haven't done much research into and don't know much about, but uh, if that's kind of where you see things going, then it'll be interesting to see how companies in that space do adopt loyalty programs and and uh and make it work for them. I mean, there's a lot of similarities, right, in terms of uh rewarding a loyal customer base, so it'll be interesting to see yeah, and I think bC.
Speaker 2:It's clear, but it's also getting more and more relevant because you need a prime account, a silver gold account, to get free delivery or free returns and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I think this is the same. But if you think about B2B, you have also these customer-specific pricing, for example, or dynamic pricing. It's also stuff which is not available there and what we see is that the typical B2B customer uses this price information or a specific price for a specific customer using their erp system. But if they want to grow and they are now with 10 percent of the revenue, um on the e-commerce systems and there they do the direct calls to the erp systems and they want to grow to 50 then there will be much, much, much more traffic on these pricing engines and this is also a possibility to you to have a special uh system there which is um who can maintain all these uh traffic and and really specific information. So um and this also combined with loyalty find the best price for the for that customer um a really, yeah, a possibility to grow for for them like it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean I can see the crossover there. Um, I think there's the fact that they'll see both. The relevance of the b2b space shows, kind of where where you're seeing the most demand in the market right now. Obviously, b2b is is clearly behind b2c when it comes to technology, when it comes to customer experience, when it comes to everything. So actually it's uh, yeah, it makes sense for the next top topics from your, in your opinion, to be in that b2B space. I'll be interested to see how they develop, but I certainly agree that there's a lot of opportunity there.
Speaker 1:Obviously, ai, as you said at the start.
Speaker 1:Right, it's hard to have a conversation that doesn't have AI in it somewhere along the lines, and I think we will continue to have far more of those conversations over the next couple of years and I think the rate in which the um what ai can do for both b2b and b2c companies is, uh, it's going to increase exponentially over that time and it's going to be really cool a little bit scary, but really cool to to see how companies adapt it into their, into their infrastructure and their, their everyday uh, dealings with the customer.
Speaker 1:Well, I know you're a little nervous about doing this in English, jochen, but I really appreciate you taking your time out of your day to join me and to have this conversation. There's lots of cool insights shared and, yeah, really interested to see how the future sort of plays out, particularly in some of the areas around B2B that you mentioned. Um, so that, yeah, thanks again for uh for joining me on the show and uh to everyone that's listening. Hope you enjoyed the episode and I'll see you next time thank you very much, travis, see you.
