B2B Commerce Isn’t Broken - It’s Complicated with Tom Williams, UNRVLD

B2B commerce complexity isn’t just technical. It’s organisational, behavioural and cultural.

On this week’s episode of The FODcast, James sits down with Tom Williams, Head of Commerce at UNRVLD to unpack why B2B transformations stall…and what actually gets them moving.

We cover a whole host of topics including:

• Complex pricing + org structures: different users, permissions and hierarchies; and why it needs uncovering early
• Legacy order channels (email, punchout, OCR and more): you often can’t “switch it off” even if it’s inefficient
• Customer-first vs tech-first: most businesses start with a feature tick list, not customer behaviour
• Digital maturity reality checks: why teams think they’re further along than they are
• Integration first: a robust middleware approach that lets you change systems without breaking everything else

If you’re modernising B2B, this is a practical conversation: start with the “as is”, map the “to be”, then make progress iteratively - without forcing a big bang.

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Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.

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Transcript

James 0:05

Hello, and welcome back to the forcast The Future of All Things Digital Commerce. Today, we're diving into the B2B space. The complexity isn't just technical, it's organizational, it's behavioral, and it's cultural. Legacy processes, complex pricing models, resistant sales teams, and fragmented data, the list is endless. And yet, the opportunity is massive for the companies that get it right. To help us unpack all of that, I'm joined by someone who's been in the trenches of B2B transformations for years. Tom Williams from Unrivaled. Welcome to the show, Tom.

Tom 0:37

Thanks, James. Good to be here.

James 0:39

Thank you for joining me. Looking forward to this one. So across this episode, we're going to dig into kind of three key themes the real complexities of B2B commerce, why the customer must drive your transformation. And are we seeing the return of the monolith? Now great to have you on the show, Tom. Before we jump in, do you want to give a quick summary on your background?

Tom 1:00

Yeah, thanks very much. So I've been working in e-commerce now since 2006. I've worked across multiple platforms and also been very much linked and worked with ERP systems and the data transformation of the information between the website and all your legacy ERP systems and the effort it takes to get it right. And when you do get it right, the rewards that you can take as a business are huge. So hopefully my learnings today will help other people make those informed decisions going forward.

Complex Pricing And Org Hierarchies

James 1:36

I'm sure they will. I mean, yeah, like you said, that's just one aspect, right? I mean, there's there's there's plenty more than that. Would you say pricing is probably the most complex?

Tom 3:18

I think it is one of the most complex. And the other aspect of that is um organizational structure. Businesses have to think about how they're going to engage with all the different organizations, the different branches they have within these organizations, and the level of users they have in all of these organizations. Some people can add to baskets, some people can buy, some people can see order history, some can't see order history. And it's about making sure you understand your customers and what your customers are looking for within that organizational structure and hierarchy so that you aren't showing sensitive orders to the wrong people in your client's organization. So there's a lot to be considered around that. Um, and it's not that it's complex necessarily, it just needs to be unearthed early on in the process so that you can make sure it is built into the solution that goes live at the end of the project.

James 4:15

Okay, certainly lots to uh sort of be considered then, I guess, from the uh the customer's point of view. Um how important then is the partner that they're working with at the start of the process and ensuring you go through a really rigid requirements gathering phase to educate them on this?

Tom 4:34

Absolutely. Um I think choosing the right agency and an agency who has experience of delivering transformation, especially within a similar space to yourself, means you're not having to do all that learning on each project over and over again. Um, every agency will bring um that experience with them. And I think it is about understanding the technology landscape. So, what is the as is now? Where are you now versus where you want to be? And drawing that out is a very hard job, and a lot of businesses don't want to do it. Um, and what we find is we come in and we start drawing this information architecture out with them, and then you see quick wins, you see other bits which scare the life out of you and go, God, how are we going to change that? Um, so there's a lot of aspects. But once you have a clear vision of the as is now and where you want to get to, then you can think about well, how do we make this more customer-centric? What elements can we bring into this conversation to elevate the buy-in experience and making life generally easier for your end user or your customer?

James 5:46

Okay, so when uh I last spoke to somebody about B2B transformation, uh, if I remember correctly, it was a chap called Aidan from OroCommerce, probably familiar with the platform. Um, he uh he said they hosted an event around about the time we recorded the podcast, and uh in the event was a group of leaders within the B2B space, a variety of different backgrounds, manufacturing, etc. And if I remember correctly, about half of the room, so approximately 15 to 20 people, um still use fax machines as part of their sales process in in their businesses. I found this was amazing, and I think it speaks volumes for the challenges you face when dealing with that sector because they're like 15 years behind. Um first question for you is is that a statement that you would agree with from the conversation that you have with similar types of people, Tom?

Offline Orders, Fax, And OCR Reality

Tom 6:45

Um, I wouldn't say it's 50%, and a number of the organizations that we talk to have probably taken those fax machines and turned them into OCR documents and they consume them digitally these days. But yeah, they a lot of our customers we deal with have multiple touch points outside of the website where they have to consume orders, whether it's via email, whether it's via ADI, whether it's via punch out or OCR, which is the data transformation of like a fax order coming in. Um, but you want to consume it into the ERP system like an order. Um, there is an awful lot that of that going out there. And for some B2B organizations, that channel is significant enough that it's difficult to move away from it. It could be a multi-million pound channel, um, like you say, which comes through on fax. And someone's going, well, we kids can't turn it off. Um, but it's about how do we sort of educate our customers to move away from it? Because there's um a much higher propensity for people to want to buy online these days. They want to self-serve. Um, and the younger generation coming through a lot of these B2B businesses are hitting ceilings, going, well, why can't I do this? So, as much as the buyer is enforcing this on the organization who's selling to them, both organizations have this younger generation go through, well, how do we make this better? How do we make this more efficient? How do I make it that I can manage my orders myself in the evening or during the day without having to pick the phone up or send an email to someone? That it's it is gonna it's getting more and more traction, and it is getting more and more prevalent for people to place orders online. Um, it's just a matter of time, but there is a big chunk of people who just aren't moving forward.

Nudging Customers Toward Digital

James 8:31

That's the thing. That's that's um what I found really interesting, is because I guess I'm part of the generation that is I kind of sat between both, being I'm not quite digital first, but equally, I think I just missed the fax machine in terms of kind of when that was um being the one of the key uh sales channels for businesses or whatever you want to say. So um everyone that's been born after me is gonna be a digital native, and they probably don't even know how to use it. I don't know how to use a fax machine, so if I don't, I'm sure someone five years younger than me doesn't. Yeah. When you're speaking to these businesses that still take such a large uh percentage of their sales through um sort of sources that are not the website, fax machine as an example, or one of the other similar ones that you mentioned. How do you how do you encourage the client then to to make that decision? Because, like you said, you can't just switch it off. It could be a channel that takes multi-millions of payments. Um, so it's tendency high risk to the customer and lots of change, particularly cultural change, as I touched upon in the intro.

Tom 9:37

Yeah, and I I think that's it. It it's about progression over time and not introducing something as a full stop. I think you are you have to understand why is the customer still purchasing through that method? And I think that comes back to understanding who your customers are and how they engage with you. Um, do you have reps on the ground? Yes or no? If you have yes, are they engaging with that customer base to go right? This is what we now have available. Are you coaching those people through a transition to a more digital world? You know, or is it just someone in finance is archaic? I've always done it like this, I'm not going to change. And sometimes businesses are just waiting for those people to leave. And when they leave, they've got this whole transition plan in place. But it's really hard to do when there is a big blocker within those other channels. Um, but some people just don't understand what is available to them on the website. They don't know that they could get special and uh preferential pricing, they don't know that they can manage their order history. They they don't they've never had it explained to them in that, like I said, by a sales rep who was on the road doing this. And that's what we're, I think we'll talk about later on. It's about how do we how do businesses manage that cannibalization of people on the road versus the website? And the salesperson on the road is essential to all businesses still, I think, because they're introducing your product ranges, they're coaching your customers to make them more digitally first in their approach and making you more digitally first in how you can then respond. Um, so it's just hand in glove over time, educating over different available processes which are there for them.

James 11:19

I'd imagine you have very similar conversations on a weekly basis with potential customers given the amount of work that you guys do in the B2B space. Would you say there, how would you say the conversation has evolved over the last couple of years, or is it still very much the same in terms of having to coach, like you said, hand in hand?

Tom 11:38

It really does depend on the business. Some businesses are much more digitally mature and savvy than others. And I think as much as any, it comes down to who your customers are. If your customers are more agile, you have to be more agile to keep up. If you have a customer base that isn't agile, they do draw, pull you backwards as well. And it depends what governance and processes you have within your organization. Um, so we have two very large B2B organizations. One is very agile in how they approach, and another one is moving towards the agile approach, but their customers are pulling them backwards because of their processes, not by the client's processes. So it's it's a really challenging process because everyone in the business goes, yeah, I really want to do it. I do want to do it, Tom, but I just can't. These this set of customers are just too vast. Um, so then we sit down and go, well, okay, what's our tactic to migrate them? What what promotions, what other benefits do you offer which they don't have access to, which they would have access to on the web? And it is just making some people go back and think about it, well, we have got all these things, and maybe they've forgotten that that's what they have. So, yeah, re-education constantly.

James 12:56

And the tough bit there is you're you're having to make, and we go say we're gonna come onto this shortly about the cut about why the customer is so important, but but I guess you're having to uh speak to your customer whose decisions are influenced massively by their customers and possibly even their customers' customers, given that obviously it's it's business to business. And we know that when we're looking at business to consumer, for example, almost every generation now that is the generation that shops online, give given and give or take a small a small percentage, whereas that's just not the same in B2B, and there's far more complexities around why businesses serve to different channels based on the sectors that they serve into, um, which must make it tough and and possibly pretty frustrating as well, because it's like your your client could be up for going through this change and they see all of the benefits, but actually they have got a small percentage of their customers that are going to stop them from making that decision to modernize their systems.

Tom 13:59

Yeah. And I think it is legacy systems, especially in the B2B space, because a lot of them are custom designed for that vertical up that business is working in. So therefore, they can't move away from those older systems necessarily. And the APIs to talk into those systems, they're getting better, but they're not necessarily always there from the outset. Um, but if I come back to that as is state and future state, you then can look at, well, what can we do now? What can we do for the Pareto law perspective of it? 80% of my customers can use this channel. Let's make sure we make that as easy as possible. And for that 20%, how much do we want to invest and spend and making their lives and our lives easier? And sometimes I was, well, let's park that for another day and leave that working in a system that is already in place and we don't touch it. And then it's a gradual migration, and that system quietly just erodes away. It and I think that's the way you have to look at it. It's like, oh, what is the majority rule and focus on that? Um, but always have a plan for all of your customers because you can't be dropping large vasts of revenue because they'll just go to your competitors. So you've got to make something available for all ones, but focus on the many.

Integrations And Middleware First

James 15:18

Yeah, okay. 80-20, like you said. I mean, that's uh the general rule for the majority of things in life, right? It is. Quickly before we move on, then the platforms available in the B2B space uh certainly increased substantially. Um and take Shopify as an example. Obviously, it's it has taken the B2C scene by storm over the last five years. It is now pushing itself in the B2B space. You've also got a number of platforms that are native B2B platforms, like Oro as an example I mentioned earlier. In your opinion, for a B2B organization, again, this might be quite hard to answer given they're so different. Is there a general kind of one size fits all approach available or or or not?

Tom 16:08

No, I don't believe there is a one size fits all. You can get close to it. Um, but every B2B organization thinks they're special, and they are. Um, but the way they do things is always nuanced um on how they deliver their pricing, how they deliver their catalogue, and how they deliver um their organizational structures and promotions. What we need to understand is how how accommodating that business is to change their processes internally to fit a new platform. And the more further they're prepared to go down that route, it opens up more consistency of functionality across the platforms which are out there. Um, and as a Shopify B2B partner, we know that it will do an awful lot of things for an awful lot of people. And it does give you a lot of scalability to customize actually within the platform. I know it's SAS, but it does give you a layering approach where you can customize and make things work and adapt for those different markets. However, there are some things where you just have to go, that's not the right fit today. What is the best solution for you? And that's why you have full design and build options for those organizations which do need that something special, or as we're going to touch on later, a fully composable approach where you are going best of breed across different touch points. But again, it's making sure you understand what you're getting into when you go down whichever route you choose. Uh you don't be boxed in either way at the end of it.

Stop Leading With Tech; Start With Customers

James 17:42

Yeah, no, I think that's a really fair point. And I guess is it fair to assume then that given a lot of these businesses are on legacy technology that's tens of years old in many cases, however they modernize their systems, there's going to be quite a bit of change in terms of daily processes, in terms of the the way the systems work, buttons they've got to click, all that kind of stuff.

Tom 18:07

Yes. Can we just go over that question again?

James 18:12

Alright, yes. That's right. Hold on one second. Yeah, that's fine. Um I said, is it is it fair to assume then that given a lot of how a lot of the businesses um are on legacy technology, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of a lot of change and a lot of internal process change regardless. Um, give like from ordering through to but clicking buttons on the on the feed, whatever.

Tom 18:37

Yeah, so absolutely. There's always a lot of legacy systems. Yeah, you're lucky if there's one, um, but most of the time there is more than one. Um, and I think it comes down to having a clear strategy of how you're going to make them talk to each other. Whether you're going monolith, whether you're going SaaS, whether you're going composable, you have to be able to have a robust, scalable middleware which enables you to change systems independently of impacting the system on the other side. So, what we class of a loosely coupled integration enables you to switch off different systems without taking an impact, a massive impact on the systems on the other side of that middleware. And I think if you go down that approach and think about integration first, when you have legacy systems, it starts to make your life easier. You can transform the data, you can present it in different ways for different channels, but at the same time, your old legacy piece of software still does what it's always done. The people who are working on it, it still does what it's always done, but we're being clever with the data on the other side of it. So it's coming down to making sure you understand that landscape again and putting in the solution that fits best across all of your platforms.

James 19:54

Cool. Makes sense. All right, thank you. So look, we spoke a lot, or you spoke a lot about the importance of. The customer in the first few minutes of the podcast, and I think the majority of answers referred back to the customer at one point or another. So it's clear the customer is key to driving your transformation. Something I hear too often is how technology drives transformation, though, and uh companies will decide on technology based on the technology itself, its name, or the person that sold it to them. How many of your conversations are genuine generally start with the customer at uh at first, Tom?

Tom 20:35

Oh, minimal. Minimal. It's all about um will the technology do what I need it to do? I've always done it like this, and I need to do it. Can you replicate what I do? Whereas if they were customer-centric, they would go through an analysis process of understanding what their customers use on their website. Do I need to replicate that piece of functionality in the new world? Yes or no. Um, and that would be a customer-centric approach to it. Um, but no, they they go straight to a vendor and go, can you do complex pricing? Can you do complex promotions? Have you got this? Have you got that? Um, which isn't necessarily the right approach because all platforms these days are comparable in the features and functions they have. They just um invoke them in a slightly different way. So you don't understand whether a platform is right for you until you actually get into the nuance of how the site is going to work anyway. Um, so they should always start with the customer and work backwards to right. I know what my I know what I want, I know what I need to deliver for my customers. Now, does the technology fit what I'm prepared to deliver? But that it's expensive to do it that way. Uh, it is more expensive. So a lot of businesses are going, right? I want to be live fast, I want a quick return on investment, um, faster time to market. So they think technology, my competitors use this technology. I know I can use it, I'm just going to do that.

James 22:04

Yeah, it's funny you say that because even just thinking listening through your answer, I look at when we've upgraded some of our tech in the business. It's always like uh tick sheet. Does it do this, this, this, this, and this? And you always it's always tech first. Does the technology do these 10 key things it needs to do? Yes, it does. Cool. Okay, that could be good. Um, that trap, don't we?

Tom 22:24

We we do, and some businesses are more progressive around how they approach it as well. So, whereas we work with um DiAgio as a client, and what Diagio have done from the they're more direct to consumer, um, which is where we're working. But the approach, I think, still stands. They worked out what it is they wanted to deliver to their end users. So they knew they wanted a headless approach, so they knew they and they wanted a really rich um content experience, so they needed um a strong CMS, and they needed a robust commerce platform that would work across the globe. So they said at the very start, we know we want to go contemptful, we know we want to go with Shopify, we're going to build it in a headless approach, and we want to be able to create replica versions of the site with a completely different look and feel, but with using commonality within the code structures which are there. By delivering something like that, you have a much faster time to market, you have a consistent support model, and you know that it works once you've built the first one. Um so having that vision from the outset really does go, right? I know where I'm trying to get to, and that something like that works.

James 23:40

Yeah, okay. So how do you though that's a really interesting example? Um, obviously, Diageo, clearly doing something right there. How with the customers that engage with you with a technology first mindset, how would you then get them back on track to be thinking about customer centricity?

Tom 23:58

Well, uh what we try and look to do is start a digital maturity um spider chart type thing. We ask them a bunch of questions and we see where it comes out at the end of it and go, right, okay. And we then walk that back through them and see, well, you're not doing so well here or there. Um, alongside that, we will work with industry known technologies. So their new relics, their application insights, their hot jars, their content squad, depending on who they have available. We'll use ours if they haven't got them. And what we'll do is analyze their website for a period of time and go, right, no one's touching this part of your website. Why have you got it? Everyone's overloaded in this area, but it seems poor and you've got high drop out. So what we then do is go, right, okay, we'll take that customer experience insights that we've just created, we'll map that over their digital maturity, and then we go, right, this is the approach we'd recommend. And then we'd use our experience designers to go, well, look at this. How about this aspect? Shall we change this up without? And then it's a case of just taking them on that journey. Um, but again, a client has to be open to changing, and I think it's that open to change. Um, everyone says they are until you put change in front of them. So they're they're, you know, proper dinkies. Um, it's like not in my backyard. It's it's that kind of thing. They're fine when it's marketing's problem, but when it's IT's problem, I'm not changing. It's too big to change our system. It it's quite we do come across that quite often.

James 25:33

Yeah, it and it is so true. Uh I think we can all get set in our ways, can't we? Which I which is why I think on a side note, it's really important to constantly be bringing through like fresh talent into your business, because there's gonna be different ways to approach things and different ways to think through things. And if you if you've hired new younger talent in different areas, they're gonna they're gonna come into your organization with cool ideas that are new and they're relevant and they're gonna understand some of this change a bit more. Um, when I I I go back to kind of season four, and we were talking that almost every conversation was about composable commerce and some of the challenges that businesses faced as they went on that journey. And I I I think in every conversation, the biggest challenge companies faced was adapting to business change, and whether that was bringing the whole business on the journey or having all the stakeholders aligned, or just the different processes involved, like everyone said the same thing, and it's business change. And I think it's just human nature, right? We don't we don't like change, do we? We get stuck in our ways, and we're used to doing things in certain ways. And if you've been doing it for five years, then someone says, right, actually, you've got to click this button, this button, this button, and go down that channel. Well, hang on a minute, I'm used to doing that way now, and it just takes time to overcome.

Tom 26:48

It does. Um, and I that sort of um I've just forgotten the word completely. That digital transformation approach has to start from the very, very outset because people are either supporters or blockers at the end of the day. And you can't have blockers in a successful project. You everyone has to be on board at some level. They don't have to be involved on a day-to-day, but they have to be supportive that this is the approach to change. Um, and it all starts with people. And I think that's where when you bring an external agency in, yes, a lot of businesses have been burnt by different agencies, but other agencies do fabulous jobs like Unrivaled, where it's about making sure that you do go through that process with managing the people, you give them visual prompts to go, this is how it's going to affect you, this is how we're going to mitigate it. And you do take that step-by-step process. Again, it always takes time and it's always longer than you think. And people say, Why does it take two years to do a B2B project? And you go, Well, by the time you've made the decision you're going to do the project, and then you've done your research into the project, and then you think about when I'm going to start, you've usually lost my months before you've even spoken to an agency. And then the agency's got to deliver everything in like 13 months. It's um it is quite interesting, but it's about breaking it down from the big, big build, I think. So, okay, how do we find out what needs to be changed now to make the most of your solution? It doesn't always have to be a big bang approach. It's about iterative change. How do we understand your customer to drive more ROI through the checkout? How do we improve a better conversion on a landing page? What are the top tips? And I think you know, there's so many tools out there to help these different businesses achieve that, whether it's through I'm going to use experimentation to go, right? How do I improve this journey? How do I improve that journey? And understanding why isn't that journey working and putting a good hypothesis down to then improve that overall um whether it's a success, it's always a success in experimentation, whether it improves revenue or you lose revenue, you at least you know through experimentation that it's a good or bad piece of development that you're going to be undertaking. So I think you've got to start looking at your websites from that perspective.

James 29:23

Okay, so who historically is the the hardest stakeholder to bring on to bring on board for the journey, Tom?

Monolith Versus Composable Nuance

Tom 29:30

Oh um I'd say it's two. There's two two key key key departments usually. One is finance for two reasons. One, the outlay of building these new new sites, and the second is financial prices are quite structured and rigid. And if they haven't done something in a certain way, they do find it challenging. But it is getting more and more progressive in that area. And the other areas is warehouse warehousing. How do we get the order into the warehouse to be shipped and out the door and back up to the website in a full cycle and not having to disrupt warehouse processes? It all comes down to how progressive the business is. Some warehousing organizations are quite rigid and structured in how they work, and you can't change them for love and money because they're so big, but um they're not working in an optimum way, and you can see efficiencies all the way through, and you just have to sort of bite your tongue. You you can give ideas and prompts, but you know they're not going to go anywhere because it's too much like hard work sometimes for the business to take on a big project and take on challenging departments who are so set in their ways. Yeah, you've got to pick your battles, right? One at a time. You have, absolutely.

James 30:50

But sometimes I do think that's the joy of working with external partners, is they can come in and you almost look at processes naively. You don't have any internal business awareness on anything. So you're looking at processes and thinking, okay, it seems that this could be done a lot easier. Um sometimes it sometimes it's the case, sometimes it isn't. But uh yeah, okay, interesting. So finance and warehousing are generally speaking the two uh two hardest stakeholders to bring on board.

Tom 31:18

Yeah. Oh, with a little bit of um drizzle of IT, because IT look after all the middle stuff. Um, and it depends on how there's there's totally different types of IT departments. There's the ones which I made it here, so they have to build it all, they have to own it all, it's a gated community, you're not allowed in. Um and that gets quite difficult because they have everything from the business falling into that IT department, and that's where you can go, well, we need this change or we need that, and they'll just go, Well, it's in the back of the queue. And you're going, well, we are trying to build something to a timeline here, and they just don't quite get it. And you've got then on the flip side, you've got other IT departments go, right, okay, we're using this partner for this, we're using that partner for that, we've got this in place over there, and it they've already gone through that big transformation. So you come to them, you go, right, okay. Then they go, Well, here's an API for this. You're going to be talking to this partner for that, and it is bing bang bosh, and you just go, that is so smooth.

James 32:18

Nice, yeah.

Tom 32:18

Yeah, yeah. And but it is just where a business is on that digital maturity scale. And everyone thinks they're way up here on the whole. And when you because they because they trade online already and they're making good revenue, so they think they're digitally mature, but they're actually not. All they're doing is jumping on the bandwagon of something which is working well because someone will persevere because they have to buy it through you because they're on contract, uh, and they can't get it any sooner unless they buy it through you. Um, so there is those things where if you could make that life and that journey so much more efficient for that end user, they'll buy more often, they'll talk about you to other organizations, and you your footprint grows. So there's definitely ways of saying, right, this is where you are on that digital maturity scale, but you could be here. And it's quite a quick step from get from there to here because you've got a loyal customer base.

James 33:15

I find that fascinating. The amount of companies you speak to that believe they're it at the upper end of the digital maturity sector scale, but actually, when they've gone through your kind of consultation, they're they're nowhere near. Um, yeah, I I bet a lot of uh I can imagine a lot of businesses fall into that level because you you you don't know what you don't know, right? And like you said, if you you believe you're digitally mature because you do X, Y, and Z, but it's if you don't know you're not doing something, then you obviously don't know, right? So it's uh It's interesting. Um final question then on this, then those ones that believe they're higher than they are on that scale, are they are they normally quite receptive to the feedback and the change or or not?

Tom 33:55

If they've knocked on your door already, they know something isn't quite right. Um, so you will have pockets of people within that business who um are ripe for change, and it depends where that person sits within the business on how quickly that's going to filter through to the rest of the business. If you get the MD, the FD, and an ops director all on board singing from the same same hint sheet, it will cascade down quite quickly and things will move faster than I've got an MD on board, but he's still battling in the boardroom about whether this is the right decision due to investment in platform upheaval of operations potentially. Um, is there an orchestration piece of software which sits around the warehouse in ERP, which would make this easier? And someone's going, well, I wanted to do my project. Why are we doing your project above my project? There is still that in every business. Um, because there are so many things to run at these days. Um, it's not just about replacing the website.

James 34:58

Yeah, uh, should have expected that answer for you far more complex than uh maybe I was uh suggesting it could have been. But uh okay. All right, so we um we also spoke a bit earlier about how composable commerce has been a trend, let's say, for the last three or four years, maybe a bit longer. We'll see the Mac Alliance did a great job in promoting it. Hearing less about composable commerce now, particularly um fully best of breed. Well, don't get me wrong, they're still we're still seeing um composable components um and businesses uh having the varying degrees of complexity, but I think the full best of breed across all areas is isn't uh spoken about anyone as much as what it once was. We're also hearing more about the return of the monolith, and it's a phrase I've heard quite a bit this year. What's your what's your thoughts on that, Tom? You also have these conversations on a weekly basis.

Tom 35:55

Yeah, and I I I think you're absolutely right. Composable is still very much in play, um, and the monolith is still very much in play as well. I don't think the monolith actually went away. I think it actually did quite well in this period. However, it didn't do the marketing like the Mac alliance to take over the the whole space. Um, and I think where we're finding ourselves now is people have realized that it's not one or the other. I think you you, if you're on a monolith, you can quite comfortably swap elements out. So, for example, what's the heart of a website? It's the search recommendations, merchandising, landing pages that are delivered. And a lot of those are delivered through a best of breed search and merch provider or search and recommendations provider. And even whether you're in that monolith or whether you're composable, that's what you're going to be looking for. Um, but I think what a lot of B2B businesses quite like is what, for want of a better word, one throat to choke. Um, they don't want to have, oh, it's with the search provider, oh, it's with the CMS provider, oh, it's with the commerce provider, oh, it's with the integrations provider. You know, that noise in a boardroom just is frustrating. And I think sometimes with a composable model, if it's not managed correctly by the client, it gets out of hand. And you think, oh, yeah, I can plug this and I can plug that in, and they got too overwhelmed. Whereas they quite like a fixed monthly fee where they're at, it's one platform, or they can go, well, it's mostly one platform, and I can swap out little bits here and there. Um, so I think that's sort of where it's at at the moment. Um, and again, it's horses of courses, isn't it? Yeah, depending on where you are on that digital maturity level, composable could easily be the right thing for you as a business. You've just got to understand that is um where you are on that journey.

James 37:55

Uh what I find most ironic about it is we've been doing this for years anyway, right? So it's almost it's almost like there's this big marketing fad, drew a lot of attention to it. And obviously, off the back of that, we've had some awesome innovation within those specific areas around like PIMS, CMSs, search functions, etc. Some great businesses that have come off the back of it. Um, but reality is we've been we've been using best of breed components for CMS or for search for years. Um so sort of a bit of a fad, and we're about to go on.

Tom 38:29

It is, and but I think one of the big things with with all of the systems, whether you go monolith or composable, you need to make sure your ER or your back end systems are fit for purpose to meet the needs of your customers on the front end. So you touched on it then. Uh you people need a pin. In the past, people have managed all their products and their product data within an ERP system. And that is not a PIM. Um, when you put a PIM into the mix and make and allow it to work with a good ERP system, the output on the end, on the user interface side is so much stronger. You've got richer data, that it's enriched by channel, you can present information so much more flexibility, flexibly, and it's usually multilingual. So it just gives you that next step to sort of engage users more efficiently than that old school, I have an ERP system, so I'm fine type thing.

James 39:26

We are we we're also seeing like uh take a couple of say one size fits all approaches with Shopify. So you've got scale as well, which is obviously very uh well suited to uh B2C. We are seeing the I guess the monoliths um offer far better services across the board as well, right? If you look at like you said, going back a few years, the um maybe you might not have a PMU do your ERP for the product information management, whereas some of the the more modern platforms now they have much uh stronger capability in the specific areas. Do we need the complexity of going composable, right? If if we know it make you you mentioned having multiple different contacts, not one not one person to point their finger at, you've got different pricing models. There's surely there can't be very many businesses out there that genuinely need that level of complexity versus what some of the newer platforms can offer out the box.

Avoid Replatform Hell With Middleware

Tom 40:23

Correct. I I can't disagree with that. And also the monoliths, um, as you class them so optimizely, they have turned themselves into the marketeer's first port of call for everything you want to do on your website, whether that's a CMS website, uh Commerce website. It's about integrating all of the different touch points, whether it's experimentation, it's content management. Um it's about understanding your customer through a data platform. It's all within one natively integrated solution. So that ticks so many boxes for a lot of organizations. So they have actually gone away and go, well, we are losing out to the composable market because they are offering all of these different things in a messaging. And now they've gone away and come back and go, Yeah, look, we can do it all, but you don't have to integrate us. Um, you don't have to have multiple licensing agreements, and we just work. So it is a different and a very compelling argument these days.

James 41:28

So me being the non-techy that I am, I'm gonna this may well sound naive, but I'm interested to hear your take on this. Because I also see that as very compelling. But then you speak to someone um in one of these businesses, and and then they would compare a legacy monolith like a Salesforce or an SAP, who now would also classify their platforms as composable. Yet the modern vendors would argue that they aren't because they were never built with composability in mind at first. If I'm being honest, I find it slightly confusing. Um but I'd be keen for you to kind of I guess break that down for me if you can.

Quick Wins: Test PDP, PLP, Checkout

Tom 42:11

Um, so I'd say on that front, anything which is built in the last five years is going to be uh more efficient in how it has been written to accommodate APIs, working with different other systems. So you now know if you're building in the Mac Alliance, for example, you have to be able to talk to all the other systems within it to make it easier and make it a faster approach. So if you take Shopify, for example, it you know Shopify can talk to pretty much anything out there in the way it's been built and written. However, with more of a legacy oracle or a SAP out there, they have grown through acquisition and have bought systems and plumbed them in, shall we say, to differing degrees of success. And you could say that, yes, they have search, or yes, I have this element within my stack, but is it right for the business and will it talk to other systems as efficiently as they want? So yes, you're very right. Depending on the size of that monolith, it depends where they are on that journey and when they have bought those platforms to supplement their offering to go to market. Um, for example, something which was bought 10, 15 years ago and then built upon, unless that's had a very clear roadmap on how it's going to be become more extensible to working with other parties, it might not be where you need it to be to talk to one of these modern platforms. Does that help?

James 43:42

Yeah, that yeah, that does make sense, definitely. Um, yeah, I mean you look at Salesforce, right? What they acquired demand 15 years ago, maybe. Maybe not quite 15 years ago, but a long, a long time ago. And obviously, the the code base that was written with then is uh very different to what it would be written with now if it was if it was uh a fresh platform.

Tom 44:03

Absolutely, and you've got to these platforms have to be iterative, they have to keep moving forward, they have to keep moving their code bases with technology and with the landscape that's going forward, otherwise it's getting too hard to host, it's vulnerable for from a security perspective. You really do have to keep up to date and be fast and agile. And some of these big organizations where it isn't priority for them, they want to sell you this part over here, but they're using that as the hook to get you into the door. So get the foot in the door, and then they'll pull you in. So it depends on the tactics of that different organization.

James 44:44

Yeah, okay. So in in looking at the composable versus monolith conversation, when you're speaking to your customers, and what what would you say is like the generally speaking, the the most important reason that drives change? We speak a lot at the minute about lowering TCO. Previously, there's been a lot about kind of the agility and flexibility and speed. What would you say is driving the conversation at the minute, Tom?

Wrap-Up And Social Share

Tom 45:12

It always comes down to cost. Um, cost and speed are the big things. And also how people can leverage the future. Um, you know, if we were talking about building a website three years ago, four years ago, you won't be talking about agentic AI driving a lot of the functions and features on a website per se. But you as an agency, we've got to make sure that what we build is future-proofed. So that the client doesn't have to keep replatforming because there's huge costs in that and disruption to the business. So, what they challenge you on, so they go, well, first they want to know how much it's going to cost without telling you what they want. Um, so then you have to go go through, okay, let's work out what you want when you need it, and do we have to do everything all in one go? Then we'll come back to the cost and the time perspective. Because there's no point us giving a client a cost for what we have to deliver, but it doesn't take into account the additional costs they have around the business. Do they need to upgrade their middleware to support it? Is their ERP fit for purpose? Do they think, oh, actually, we are going to put a PIM in place to support future growth? So we need to consider that as part of our build process. There's so many variables around each direct conversation we have with every organization, as uh as we chatted about before we came online. Different businesses come at you with a massive brief. You give them a fantastic pitch. They're blown away by it. They take it to the board, and the board goes, Oh, actually, we're doing some restructuring, but everything's on hold. Um, we're not gonna do it now. You spent three, four months on a pitch, you go all deflated. Uh, you keep talking to them, and then they come back with, oh, we'll do this bit now. We're not gonna do all of it, but we'll we really like what you had to offer. So let's do it. Can you give us a revised quote to deliver A, B, and D of the proposal and not the other bits? And then it's like, okay, let's go through that process. So again, this it is the market's very volatile right now, and I think it's making sure as an agency we are flexible to accommodate that.

James 47:30

Yeah, I think you're certainly not alone in those conversations. We've seen a lot happen over the last sort of 24 months where uh there's been really promising conversations. Maybe you're starting to be optimistic that the the client might sign and you might get started very soon, and then suddenly it's like, oh, we need to put this on hold for three months or six months, or in some cases indefinitely, and then it does come back around, but it is uh a fraction of the size of what it was. Um, or it's the same size, but they want to negotiate to a fraction of the cost, and it's like it doesn't quite work that way, unfortunately. It was that price for a reason, right? Yes, but uh it's all it's all part of the part of the fun. Do you given what you were saying about the platforms evolving and the businesses not wanting to or shouldn't be replatform and what have you, one of the perks about Garn Composable was that essentially you would never need to replatform fully because you could just pull one out and put one back in, right? Correct. But do we see a do we see a point in the future um where there will just be an e-commerce platform? Take Shopify as an example, maybe, that you would just be able to upgrade easy being SaaS-based, and event essentially remove the need to replatform even though you're not composable? Is that do you see that as a possibility or not?

Tom 48:48

Uh always. So we have some we have a client, um, SMEG, who have taken Shopify for their B2B, their B2C, and their POS, and that's going to scale for them for a good long time, and that's going to tick all the boxes. Then, as I mentioned Diageo before, they've gone a contemptful and Shopify because they had different business needs and they had to address those business needs. I think the ability to achieve that holy grail has been around 20 years. Um, it's about a very, very strong, robust integrational middleware approach to how you build. If you use a service bus to manage the touch points between your different systems, the whole idea is you can remove different elements from that service bus and put a new piece in without disrupting all the other elements. So if you as a business look at the longevity of where you want to get to and invest in that middleware as the heartbeat of your business, you will achieve that utopia of going either monolith composable all the way through based on a very, very strong um middleware or integration layer approach.

James 50:03

That's gonna be a snippet. That is a great piece of advice. Thank you. Um cool, right? So we're gonna we're gonna bring this towards an end and we're just gonna end with a couple of quick fire questions, Tom. Um try and keep the answers precise if you can, please. I will. So um what's the one area that, in your opinion, the majority of B2B businesses can improve and see ROI quickly?

Tom 50:30

So I think it's through continuous improvement, through experimentation, iterative changing on a broader technical landscape without going big full in. Got to change everything.

James 50:41

Okay. And is there is there one specific area that you feel as though most businesses can change quite quickly?

Tom 50:50

Depending on how the system's built, most people should be able to change interactions on listing pages, PDP pages, and the checkout to streamline that flow to accommodate their business needs. But if they've done it via testing, they know it works, so it's worth the investment. It's not a gut feel.

James 51:08

Okay. All right. What's one mind shift? Well, sorry, what's one mind shift? Sorry, say that again. What's one mindset shift B2B leaders need to make for 2026?

Tom 51:21

Um, what I thought about is we need they need to be trusting the data quality or the quality of the data they have within their business so they can make informed decisions. So a lot of businesses have rafts and rafts of data that they don't know which is correct data they're looking at. They need to really focus on what is the data, what do they need from that data, and that will give them the insights that they're looking for.

James 51:47

Straight back to data. Data is gold at the minute, that's for sure. Every conversation. Cool. And then final one from me then. What will happen to B2B businesses that don't modernize their tech stack over 2026?

Tom 51:59

Well, uh, as we discussed on the chat earlier, it's more than 12 months when implementing your platform. Um, uh so it's okay, coming back to understanding the as is and the future and going, right, that's a good chunk of work to do because that makes all informed decisions going forward. Um, and then you can cherry pick aspects of your website that you want to improve, like search and merch. It can really have a dramatic effect on the conversion of your website, especially with the use of AI, driving that sort of intelligent behavior based on how a customer uses your website. Those are the type of things you need to be looking at. Short term, understand the as is, medium term, do I need to swap anything out? Long term, it's time to swap the platform. But it all starts from that knowing where you are now.

James 52:51

Okay. And for those businesses that refuse to adapt to change and refuse to listen to that advice, what will happen to them?

Tom 52:58

Well, like the internet's never going to catch on. Um AI is here to stay. Yes, there will be a bubble burst at some point, but it is still going to be leveraged. We've used machine learning for years in our businesses. It's just that next evolution. So it might not go as far as people are talking about as quickly as people are talking about, but AI is going to be here to stay and it is going to revolutionize how we all work. And I think that has to be taken on board by these B2B business leaders. If they're not at the forefront, there'll be a competitor they've never heard of taking their their slice of pie quite quickly. They're more efficient to work with, they can turn things around faster. Their website delivers on a daily basis. They're gonna be that's where people are gonna watch their backs.

James 53:46

All right, thank you. I think that's a good place to wrap this up. Not bad for your first podcast, eh, Tom? Say again? Not bad for your first podcast, eh?

Tom 53:56

Well, I know, I have to hear it back first.

James 54:01

Thank you very much for joining me. I really enjoyed that conversation. And I hope all of you at home listened, all of you at home that were listening as well enjoyed it too. Please do like and share on socials, and I'll see you next time. Thank you.