The industrial gases business is still very traditional in how it operates, based upon strong cultural and organisational paradigms. It’s still very customer-facing and local in nature. As a result, e-commerce essentially changes that business model, that culture, within our industry. It’s essentially a paradigm shift, something which can in turn create confusion and even a sense of fear.
This has been a thought process in the US market in the last few years, for example, as distributors grappled with rapidly changing sales and marketing platforms in hardgoods channels – and for some time considered Amazon a threat to their business. However, these thought processes recently accelerated in the height of the pandemic with various lockdowns and traditional customer facing business no longer being so simple.
Such transformation to a digital world, and particularly ecommerce platforms, were recently discussed on a ES Tech Group’s inaugural “Distributor Pubcast” webinar, featuring Matt Christensen, President of Distributor Data Solutions (DDS). Within a one-hour discussion, multiple topics related to B2B e-commerce and how certain aspects can help to both build and business and support it stand the test of time were explored.
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