Executive Q&A: TrueCommerce on B2B market pressures for unified commerce, retail-like experience

If the B2B world is expected to provide a retail-like experience, they are now getting a lesson in commerce that the B2C world has been learning for the last decade.

Companies have long used Dynamics ERP solutions to trade with and distribute to vendors, but as communication and integration demands grow in volume and complexity, manufacturers and distributors want commerce to become scalable and more manageable. In this installment of our Executive Q&A series, we speak with Nicholas Manolis, president of EDI and commerce network provider TrueCommerce, about the demands that he sees clients in the Dynamics ERP space facing today, and the technology and business trends that are shaping the future.

MSDynamicsWorld: On what business challenges is your team focused as it relates to Dynamics customers?

Nick Manolis: Three things happening in the market are affecting the Dynamics user base. One is the growth of B2B commerce. The recent B2C investments many companies had to make to handle omni-channel sales created a lot of market confusion, and a realization that the complexities are so great, that many companies need partners. That includes resellers of Microsoft Dynamics ERPs.

We found this enormous pressure has moved to the B2B e-commerce side. The Dynamics users we talk to are struggling to deliver the same buying experience and profitability metrics when they sell their products and services through e-commerce that they achieved in other channels.

I think the second area is globalization. The Dynamics community has to be able ...