When B2B portals were launched, the focus was for business customers to place and track their orders easily, hence they were very transaction focused. Over the years, the B2B portals have evolved to provide a one stop shop for B2B customers.

However, some B2B partners frequently highlighted challenges like:

• Lack of self service capabilities, any requests for information or orders needed to go through customer service or needed to be mailed or faxed in, resulting in delays and data entry issues
• Frequent handoffs between various departments through the customer lifecycle resulting in a less than ideal experience
• Limited visibility to contracts and performance against them, leading to frequent disputed regarding charges and penalties
• Lack of transparency for order and associated tracking information
• Infrequent updates on status of service requests, requiring frequent follow-ups

To address these challenges, B2B portals needed to evolve to provide end-to-end capabilities for their customers. Figure 1 details the key capabilities provided by B2B portals across their interaction lifecycle:

The above capabilities help B2B interactions to:

• Improve customer experience: Drive a better customer experience by providing one place to go for their customers. E.g. customers are not only able to place and look up their orders, but are also able to look up and track commitments against their contracts, request product samples, collaborate on new product designs and track their service requests, all through personalized dashboards. Also portals are presented in a seamless manner, through any form factors (tablets, phone, computers), making it easier for customer resources on the move to find relevant information.
• Enable revenue growth: Provide innovative online channels to drive up revenue. Take the examples of a steel company that is using a B2B portal to dispose their excess products through auctions and ‘buy now’ offers; medical equipment manufacturers that are finding an avenue to sell high quality second hand equipment to hospitals and colleges; or automotive companies that are setting up marketplaces where their dealers can interact with the end customer and ensure OEM sales.
• Improve employee customer collaboration: Enable employees to serve their customers better by making all customer information and interactions available at one place. For instance, R&D is able to collaborate with customers to design new products and use insights from customer interactions in new product design. The sales team is able to use guest information to track leads and provide a seamless onboarding process for new customers. Similarly, department stores buyers can look at 3D models of apparel or shoe samples online instead of requesting physical samples, thus saving costs, and reducing lead times for product design.
• Drive operational efficiency: Drive operational efficiency by moving some of the manual, error prone, repetitive tasks online in a self-serve model. For example, customer service can focus on tracking and solving high priority issues, instead of spending time entering and tracking orders.

The 4 key success factors in enabling B2B portals include:

• Driving adoption of customer portal: Each customer segment has a different motivation to adopt and use the portal. Large customers who typically use EDI and interact with several business entities, will be motivated to use the portal if the available information makes life easier for their users or if there are specific incentives like promotions to use them. Small to medium sized customers look for ease of use to drive efficiency and get inputs on product insights while distributors look for easy access to order information so they can provide better updates to their customers.
• Data management: A customer portal exposes data online. This means its critical to have accurate product description, customer ‘sold to-ship to’ information, and near real time supply chain information available to keep customers keep coming back to the portal.
• Organizational change management:The customer portal has significant impact on internal functions like customer service, supply chain, R&D, sales, and other functions. Hence, preparing and training the different departments’ users on how to use and drive value out of the portal is a key aspect.
• Technology: There are number of technology choices available to set up a portal. Usually companies choose technology solutions that align with their existing technology stack and most critical features. For manufacturing and CPG companies, this means choosing a product that integrates well with their backend ERP or CRM systems since these two systems have heavy integration to the portal.

Wipro has worked with some of the leading enterprises to provide advisory and implementation services for enabling customer portals. We work with customers across different segments like automotive companies, telecom, ingredient manufacturers, health & beauty companies, and other consumer product companies to evaluate their customer portal needs. We also have strong technology expertise and resources available to implement the required solutions.