Page 12 - Food&Drink magazine April 2022

SMART BUSINESS
Delivering the goods
In post-pandemic times, providing a top notch customer experience will be imperative for businesses to meet the needs of food and beverage industry buyers. Head of APAC for Sana Commerce Marcus McNamara writes.
ordering from them, even if the terms and conditions
were less attractive than those from a cheaper but less cheerful competitor.
That’s food for thought for those who believe sharpening their pencil is the best way to capture and keep customers.
UNCLEAR PRIORITIES
AND MISPLACED SPEND No one said digital transformation was easy. Food and beverage manufacturers know they need to elevate their customer experience and they are willing to dedicate resources to do so. However, all too often progress is stymied by poor planning and a failure to prioritise. Web store and data management issues are an impediment for some, while others struggle with complex order-to-cash management processes.
Strong leadership and a clear high tech roadmap are needed to ensure programs and projects maintain momentum and address genuine customer pain points.
THE RIGHT TOOLS
Delivering a consistent, stand-out online experience is a big ask without the right tools.
An ERP-integrated ecommerce solution can help .
Making this technology a cornerstone of your digital transformation program will help ensure your efforts result in improved service and regular, repeat orders.
As food and beverage businesses take a hard look at the vendors they deal with on the daily, it’s an investment in customer satisfaction and retention that’s likely to stand your organisation in extremely goodstead. ✷
✷ ABOUTTHEAUTHOR
WE ask our food and beverage clients very early on, is your organisation trying to use digital transformation to meet the changing needs of your customers? Many say yes.
While Covid prompted many businesses to digitise sales and communication channels, we recently completed a study that found despite the best intentions, the majority of food and beverage companies in the B2B sector have lost touch with
IT’S COMPLICATED
Unlike their counterparts in many other industries, food and beverage customers buy frequently, and from multiple suppliers. On average they place a whopping 428 business critical orders a day and almost half of all buyers do so online. The big issue is, few report a trouble- free run when they do.
Useability, misinformation, a lack of – or inaccurate – data, and unduly complicated
IMPATIENCE ABOUNDS
Meanwhile, just as with ecommerce in the consumer sphere, business buyers are becoming increasingly demanding and impatient.
Internet behemoths like Amazon and eBay have raised the customer experience bar extraordinarily high.
Today’s food and beverage buyers want their online experiences to be as convenient and straightforward as those served up as standard by Amazon.
Our results found more than a quarter are prepared to switch suppliers, if frustration from order errors becomes too much.
That is cause for alarm for producers and distributors across the land, even more so given only five per cent of buyers told us they had no notable issues with existing procurement processes.
Conversely, more than 80 per cent of business buyers told us that if they had a good working relationship with a supplier or manufacturer they would keep
“...food and beverage customers buy frequently, and from multiple suppliers. On average they place a whopping 428 business critical orders a day and almost half do so online.”
what makes their customers tick. As a result, buyer-supplier relationships are souring, customer loyalty is eroding, and revenue is walking out the door.
So, why is the gulf between the two parties so wide and what can suppliers do differently to reduce or eliminate it?
re-ordering and check-out processes abound. Times that by 400 and you start to understand the issue.
It is little wonder that less than half (48 per cent) of food and beverage buyers say their expectations of suppliers’ web sites are being met.
Marcus McNamara is the head of APAC for Sana Commerce, an ecommerce platform for manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers. Marcus has helped SaaS companies grow and
scale internationally across Europe, Australia, North America, Africa and Asia.
12 | Food&Drink business | April 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au