Kubiec has selected Sana Commerce as its B2B e-commerce platform to boost sales and increase innovation and collaboration.
Kubiec, a leading Ecuadorian company producing products for the construction and metalworking industries using environmentally friendly processes, has selected Sana Commerce, an e-commerce platform integrated with SAP ERP and Microsoft Dynamics, as its B2B e-commerce platform – breaking paradigms by demonstrating that its B2B customers can buy online.
Implementing online sales in a market dominated by traditional channels
Kubiec is known to be an innovative company that implements modern processes to meet the needs of its customers.
However, many changes occurred at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, challenging companies to continue operations.
The biggest drawback that Kubiec faced was a very complicated one because the company is part of a sector in which customers are used to traditional purchasing processes and physically verifying the products to make a decision.
Kubiec had product lines in its catalog that could not be virtualized and faced the challenge of breaking with different paradigms to demonstrate that its B2B could buy online. At first, Kubiec had to launch online sales with a reduced catalog, which consisted of products with the highest rotation and sales.
All this implies challenges for the company, such as resistance to the unknown on the part of its customers. A solution that lived up to the commitment was necessary. Therefore, they decided to implement the Sana Commerce e-commerce platform integrated with Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP.
Alexander Sampedro, Digital Commerce Leader, Kubiec, said: “We had to break with this paradigm and be disruptive, demonstrating with facts that B2B customers, from sectors like ours, can buy online.”
As with any project, there were other internal and external challenges that Kubiec faced when using B2B e-commerce in 2021, such as:
- Resistance from the sales teams thinking that, with this strategy, they would be replaced by prioritizing online systems
- Customers were skeptical about the advantages that this new online sales channel could offer them
- There was a need to change how customers and the sales force thought about the need to see and touch the products to choose in the purchasing process
Innovation and collaboration between the areas involved
The company combined the philosophy of innovation with the need to continue to serve the construction industry and offer a digital shopping channel for customers, thus being a pioneer in the steel industry.
For the project to be successful, it decided to hold a preliminary study to find out the expectations of customers and identify opportunities to support them in their purchasing processes, detecting, for example, that visits made by sales consultants did not always happen at the most suitable times.
System methodologies and multidisciplinary teams achieving objectives came with another challenge – the capability of integrating with the ERP customized to suit the needs of Kubiec.
“The pandemic made us start our online sales empirically, coming up with a minimum viable product based on the products with the highest turnover and sales. To adapt to change on time and give our clients options, including in customer service channels, we decided to use the Sana Commerce e-commerce platform integrated into Microsoft Dynamics AX,” said Sampedro.
Kubiec quickly implemented Sana Commerce and integrated it with its custom ERP. Various providers were considered from the implementation phase until the start of the e-commerce strategy, Sana was chosen for its ability to integrate.
Among other advantages that Sana offered Kubiec were reliability, costs, implementation time, customer service, the ability to incorporate and adapt to the complexity of the company processes and a highly trained team to quickly respond to project needs.
Great benefits for internal and external customers
Among the most substantial advantages is the availability of shopping hours, with Sundays or nights as the ideal spaces for customers to make purchases, unlike in the past when it was impossible to take advantage of these timeframes because there were no vendors available.
“Today it is possible for our customers to buy whenever they want and can count on a store being open 24/7,” said Sampedro.
The brand has always stood out in the construction sector. However, the online store has given it freshness and supported better positioning due to the benefits it has provided internally and externally.
The internal impact was also evident since the sellers saw the short-term benefits of e-commerce by facilitating their daily work, having all the information directly in the ERP and reducing the workload.
Many vendors have been relieved of the operational burden and now only focus on following up orders that customers manage online.
A smart investment in technology to maintain leadership in digital commerce
For Kubiec, success lies in investing intelligently in technology, with which it is possible to maintain leadership in digital commerce.
“The selection of the best technology is essential and having a solution that can integrate with ERP achieving a transparent connection between both systems makes the strategy easier. In this sense, Sana Commerce was the best option,” said Sampedro.
Working with Sana saw Kubiec boost sales
“We are very pleased with the results because today we also have a tool to quote and quickly respond to our clients. Undoubtedly, this implementation strengthens our position as pioneers in the sector. It has been a great experience at the hands of Sana Commerce, which is why we undoubtedly encourage industries as traditional as ours to break that paradigm and take a solid step toward Digital Transformation,” said Sampedro.
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