Enterprise hits and misses - the Vaccine Economy changes online commerce, robots get hired, and the AI debate gets sentient

Jon Reed Profile picture for user jreed June 13, 2022
Summary:
This week - new data on digital commerce in the Vaccine Economy - but are B2B buyers changing? Demand for robots continues to surge in the labor gap. Across the pond, diginomica finds itself part of the story, via our UK governance reporting. As always, your whiffs.

loser-and-winner

Lead story - Online commerce in the Vaccine Economy - is B2B purchasing changing?

I know - an increase is digital commerce is hardly a pandemic surprise. But the B2B side of this is getting interesting. Stuart parsed numbers in Commerce in the Vaccine Economy - more complex, more channels, according to Salesforce global study.

Stuart notes jumps in B2C and B2B:

For B2C organizations, respondents currently report that some 45% of their revenue comes from digital channels, up from 32% two years ago and with an expectation that this figure will rise of 56% in two years time. For B2B organizations, comparable numbers come in at 40%, up from 28% and looking to 52%.

B2B sales of small ticket items have already migrated online - no surprise there. But now, more complex purchases are starting to happen:

90% of B2B commerce respondents predicting large and more complex orders being placed online by business buyers  online over the next two years.

Benefits of online sales? For the sellers:

Benefits for business sellers from digital channels include improved customer satisfaction (cited by 46% of B2B respondents), expansion into new regions, customer base growth and reduced time to deal close, all three coming in at 44%.

The report has data on increased cryptocurrency adoption/acceptance, but what caught my eye was the "headless commerce" bit. Stuart:

Meanwhile headless commerce is found to be gaining momentum as a means of enabling organizations to move into or adapt to new digital channels more easily, cited as a benefit by over two-thirds of respondents (69%). The decoupling of the digital front end from the back end frees up organizations to build digital experiences with more flexibility - cited by 76% of respondents - and increased agility to make changes faster (72%).

Tableau drill-downs add to the info you can derive from the report. As for the biggest takeaway, I'll go with a variation on Stuart's: digital commerce is at the core of things now. Get on top of it or fall behind really does apply here - much moreso than, say, chasing metaverse monetization fantasies. I'll be interested to see how (and when) complex B2B purchases start happening this way. This report indicates we aren't far off.

Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here's my three top choices from our vendor coverage:

A few more vendor picks, without the quotables:

Jon's grab bag - Neil explained why sustainability reporting isn't getting it done in What constitutes a successful sustainability program - and why is it so hard? - Meanwhile, I dissected another way to make events great (or stumble) in How to ensure your customer panel is a world-class yawn festival.

Finally, Chris sparked a bigtime kerfluffle with his intrepid reporting in UK Roadmap for a Digital Future - what lies beneath the fold? I won't spoil the story for you here, as he's updated the text with the fallout - and why it matters.

Best of the enterprise web

Waiter suggesting a bottle of wine to a customer

My top six

Overworked businessman

Whiffs

Ever heard of the 'ol rope-a-dope? Well, I think I am an easy mark for this kind of piece:

Pretty sure it's the second time I'm called a whiff on that same piece... Meanwhile, the supposed "sentient AI chatbot" garnered all the tech buzz this week. I recommend you have a look at the transcript and decide for yourself:

This is a streamlined "Jon has the covid blues" version of hits and misses. Hopefully we'll be back to tasty strikethroughs and bonus rants by next time. If you find an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses - in a good or bad way - let me know in the comments as Clive (almost) always does. Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed.

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