Despite decades of investment in digital technology, B2B ecommerce maturity varies greatly across businesses of all sizes, according to a survey of more than 100 B2B buyers from Digital Commerce 360 and sponsored by Tradecentric.

Most business organizations describe their digital B2B commerce maturity as “ecommerce 3.0,” or middle of the B2B ecommerce maturity curve, according to the survey.

The survey data reveals there is still much opportunity for companies to invest in advancing their ecommerce maturity – and enhancing their digital offerings.

Advancing B2B ecommerce maturity

The most advanced B2B ecommerce maturity level is connected commerce. It’s a holistic digital commerce strategy that integrates seller ecommerce systems with buyer procurement and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to achieve seamless, automated trade.

Many companies haven’t fully reached connected B2B commerce. The survey found that only 17% of respondents said they offered full end-to-end integration of commerce transactions. That includes procurement software and punchout catalogs and automation of purchase orders and invoices.

Regardless of how a buyer places an order, an integrated commerce system smooths out the transaction for both buyer and seller. Both sides of the transaction benefit from such practices as:

• Purchase order and invoice automation
• Expedited purchases
• Accurate information

These save time, reduce costs, and expand revenue-generating opportunities.

More B2B buyers also are asking for integrations to their e-procurement applications. 61% of respondents said more than a fifth of their customers were requiring the ability for purchasers to directly connect to ecommerce solutions from within their eProcurement application from SAP Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer and others. In addition, 27% of respondents say more than 30% of their customers wanted procurement integration and 12% of respondents reported more than half of their customers were requesting it.

Matt Love contributed to this article.

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