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Returning to Long Beach, the sunny space hub of California, on May 14 â 15 for its 12th edition, Space Tech Expo USA View the full article

B2C e-commerce businesses have set the customer experience bar high for B2B e-commerce business. They are struggling with cost-of-living increases, supply chain shortages, and current economic uncertainties but now the pressure is on them to deliver more Amazon-like experiences as customers expect their physical and digital interactions to be more personalized. B2B businesses must have a reactive CX outlook and the technology to match these new expectations. B2B e-commerce is now the most effective sales channel for B2B companies according to a recent McKinsey & Company Global B2B Pulse survey. The survey finds that "B2B companies winning market share have not only digital self-serve channels such as their own websites, but also broader e-commerce offerings.” B2B companies must make sure their digital e-commerce strategies have a much broader reach than just a website. The key to success is improved buyer engagement, a unified commerce approach, and a flexible Content Management System (CMS). 1. Personalized digital experiences will engage customers When a website features more than 5,000 products, many with similar functions, customers require guidance to locate their desired items. Let’s say a customer only engages with 20% of a company’s products, and that 20% only shows half of the feasible options for meeting their requirements. The customer would miss out on a wide range of options, and the retailer would miss out on opportunities to upsell, offer more expensive options, or simply secure the sale. In many cases, this issue is exacerbated by a lack of data integration between new and old platforms, making it more difficult to provide customers with accurate, up-to-date information, and offer tailored buying experiences. Enhancing buyer engagement is pivotal for businesses. This engagement often leads to increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which represents the total value a customer brings over time. Crucial contributors to a higher CLV include efficient marketing and sales strategies, fostering repeat business, and cultivating a strong brand reputation through positive reviews. As satisfied customers share their commendable buying experiences, it promotes customer retention and drives growth. To solve issues with low engagement and to increase CLV, product merchandising and analytics are critical. These allow B2B e-commerce businesses to make their entire product range browsable and searchable, and offers buyers the widest range of products to meet their needs. For this reason, many e-commerce businesses now leverage AI technologies for real-time updates, customized recommendations, and personalized content. 2. Outsourcing is outdated – flexible CMS allows for quicker reaction to market changes Many companies outsource website design and website optimization to third parties – but herein lies the problem. Delays can occur when e-commerce businesses choose to use a third-party as even the smallest changes can take time and financial resources to enact, let alone account for web-page redesigns or content optimization. E-commerce businesses need a CMS that is flexible to deliver improvements over time, and is responsive to market changes. If a product suddenly surges in popularity across the market, or its function changes, businesses need to be able to prioritize it in their product search engines accordingly. Having to wait for developers to complete changes alongside their other competing priorities, and footing the associated costs can all be bypassed by investing in a high-quality CMS. 3. Fulfil customer preferences by embracing a unified commerce experience To create truly unified commerce and improve digital customer experiences, e-commerce businesses need to optimize their website for smartphone use, or even consider launching an app. Harnessing smartphone-friendly buying features via a well-designed website and mobile application should be a top priority for many retail businesses. This is especially important as the McKinsey Global B2B Pulse survey found the number of buyers using mobile apps to look for detailed specifications, samples, and pricing, more than quadrupled from 2019 to 2022. Additionally, a unified commerce strategy allows e-commerce businesses to understand customer needs across different channels and tailor experiences accordingly. Businesses that improve usability and standardize appearance across all devices will help transition in-store customers to online customers, and even create omnichannel customers. But some e-commerce businesses have a disparate unified commerce strategy, often caused by a lack of smartphone-friendly browsing. Businesses need the professionals and software to seamlessly commit to investment in smartphone optimization. E-commerce businesses can bolster their brand with quality digital transformation Digital transformation strategies that incorporate a flexible CMS will personalize digital customer experiences and improve buyer journeys. E-commerce businesses that work with a digital consultancy will also be able to own their content, adopt customer centric experiences, and fulfil customer demands. Thus, giving them the tools to deliver on customer expectations and alleviate pressures on in-house IT systems. We've listed the best small business website builders. This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro View the full article

AWS B2B Data Interchange now supports an expanded set of X12 transaction sets for finance, transportation, and supply chain use cases. These transaction sets add to the service’s existing support for dozens of other X12 transactions and extend the benefits of B2B Data Interchange’s fully automated, event-driven EDI transformation capabilities to new industry use cases. View the full article

Editor’s note: The post is part of a series highlighting our partners, and their solutions, that are Built with BigQuery. To fully leverage the data that’s critical for modern businesses, it must be accurate, complete, and up to date. Since 2007, ZoomInfo has provided B2B teams with the accurate firmographic, technographic, contact, and intent data they need to hit their marketing, sales, and revenue targets. While smart-analytics teams have used ZoomInfo data sets in Google BigQuery to integrate them with other sources to deliver reliable and actionable insights powered by machine learning, Google Cloud and ZoomInfo recently have partnered to give organizations even richer data sets and more powerful analytics tools. Today, customers now have instant access to ZoomInfo data and intelligence directly within Google BigQuery. ZoomInfo is available as a virtual view in BigQuery, so analysts can explore the data there even before importing it. Once ZoomInfo data has been imported into BigQuery, data and operations teams will be able to use it in their workflows quickly and easily, saving their sales and marketing teams time, money, and resources. ZoomInfo data sets include: Contact and company. Capture essential prospect and customer data — from verified email addresses and direct-dial business phone and mobile numbers, to job responsibilities and web mentions. Get B2B company insights, including organizational charts, employee and revenue growth rates, and look-alike companies. Technographics and scoops. Uncover the technologies that prospects use — and how they use them — to inform your marketing and sales efforts. Discover trends to shape the right outreach messaging and determine a buyer’s needs before making the first touch. Buyer intent. ZoomInfo’s buyer intent engine captures real-time buying signals from companies researching relevant topics and keywords related to your business solution across the web. Website IP traffic. Enrich data around traffic from your digital properties, so your customer-facing teams can take immediate action and turn traffic into sales opportunities. In the future, ZoomInfo data sets will be available in the Google Cloud Marketplace as well as Google Cloud Analytics Hub (now in preview) alongside popular Google and third-party data sets including Google Trends, Google Analytics, and Census Bureau data. The new features will help ZoomInfo and Google Cloud customers such as Wayfair Professional, one of the world’s largest home retailers. Wayfair Professional is a long-time user of ZoomInfo’s Company Data Brick, API, and enrichment services. Wayfair Professional has historically accessed ZoomInfo data through file transfer, which involved shuffling encrypted CSVs back and forth over SFTP and manual file processing to ingest it into Google BigQuery. Ryan Sigurdson, senior analytics manager at Wayfair Professional, shared that moving their monthly offline company enrichment workflow to BigQuery could save them weeks of manual work and maintenance every month. Built with BigQuery ZoomInfo is one of over 700 tech companies powering their products and businesses using data cloud products from Google, such as BigQuery, Looker, Spanner, and Vertex AI. Recently at the Data Cloud Summit, Google Cloud announced Built with BigQuery, which helps ISVs like ZoomInfo get started building applications using data and machine learning products. By providing dedicated access to technology, expertise, and go to market programs, this initiative can help tech companies to accelerate, optimize, and amplify their success. ZoomInfo’s SaaS solutions have been built on Google Cloud for years. By partnering with Google Cloud, ZoomInfo can leverage an all-in-one cloud platform to develop its data collection, data processing, data storage, and data analytics solutions. “Enabling customers to gain superior insights and intelligence from data is core to the ZoomInfo strategy. We are excited about the innovation Google Cloud is bringing to market and how it is creating a differentiated ecosystem that allows customers to gain insights from their data securely, at scale, and without having to move data around,” says Henry Schuck, ZoomInfo’s chief executive officer. “Working with the Built with BigQuery team enables us to rapidly gain deep insight into the opportunities available and accelerate our speed to market.” Google Cloud provides a platform for building data-driven applications like ZoomInfo, from simplified data ingestion, processing, and storage to powerful analytics, AI/ML, and data sharing capabilities, all integrated with the open, secure, and sustainable Google Cloud platform. With a diverse partner ecosystem and support for multicloud, open source tools, and APIs, Google Cloud provides technology companies the portability and extensibility they need to avoid data lock-in. To learn more about ZoomInfo on Google Cloud, visit https://www.zoominfo.com/offers/google-bigquery. To learn more about Built with BigQuery, visit https://cloud.google.com/solutions/data-cloud-isvs Related Article Get value from data quickly with Informatica Data Loader for BigQuery With Informatica’s Data Loader on Google Cloud, accelerate data uploads and keep data flowing to get insights and answers faster. Read Article