Challenge
A $15 billion global corporation that provides machinery, parts and supplies to the woodworking industry had long relied on an expensive, inefficient call center to take customers’ orders. The company created a B2B eCommerce portal in hopes of tapping the potential efficiencies of online sales, but the portal was plagued with performance issues that drove customers to competitors’ sites.
The supplier has offices throughout the United States, Canada and more than 80 other countries. Traditionally, it serviced its distributor network and client base through phone orders, but it wanted to shift more business to its B2B ecommerce portal.
Unfortunately, the eCommerce platform wasn’t working out as they had hoped. The company was faced with the following challenges:
- Poor performance and user experience: The eCommerce platform was slow and prone to downtime, forcing clientele to abandon their digital shopping carts and head to competitors’ procurement portals. The company desperately needed to stabilize the eCommerce portal and eliminate unforeseen outages while boosting performance, responsiveness and reliability.
- Inefficient sales process: Over time, the company wants to transition its customer base away from a costly call center ordering system and toward a much more cost-efficient online ordering system that is fully integrated into its back-end systems. This would help the sales teams focus on landing net new accounts.
- Lack of eCommerce expertise: The company was working with a small local systems integrator while running web applications and infrastructure in-house with limited resources. It needed a partner who understands the full breadth of the latest eCommerce services.
- Ongoing Management: The supplier wanted to offload the day-to-day management of the eCommerce platform — including the application and the infrastructure it runs on — to a provider that could deliver a successful outcome.
Solution
OnX’s in-depth experience in custom eCommerce solutions helped the company identify the root causes of underperformance, poor functionality and negative user experience on the eCommerce platform. OnX reconfigured the platform, refreshed the operating environment and moved to a cloud-based, software-as-a-service delivery model.
OnX’s solution had three key components:
- Digital consulting: Digital application consulting services from OnX helped the company document problems, understand how to fix them and develop a detailed roadmap for improvements.
- Certified expertise: The redeployed ecommerce platform is now managed by certified industry experts who configured it to meet the company’s exacting standards and designed an outstanding end-user experience.
- Cloud convenience: The managed cloud environment means that the company has a team of experts dedicated to the platform’s performance and availability, without the worry of procuring hardware or managing the infrastructure themselves.
Results
The company’s stable, robust eCommerce environment has increased online sales from just 1% to over 25% in three years and is aiming to double their sales by 2020.
By moving to a fully managed cloud platform, the company does not have to hire and retain hard-to-find specialists to run its ecommerce platform, and it is not distracted by day-to-day management of the platform’s infrastructure. With zero downtime and a reliable eCommerce application configured to meet its customers’ expectations, the company can focus on its core business and strategic competitive advantages.