We are very fortunate for living in the golden age of business. We have witnessed rapid innovation and technological advancements which have changed the online business including business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce.
B2C Ecommerce industry has grown to enormous levels in last few decades but same cannot be said about B2B Ecommerce. In B2B ecommerce space, things have moved little slowly as compared to its potential. B2B Ecommerce companies can really explore the possibilities as there is lot of interest and participation expected from clients. There are new innovative and interesting developments every day in this field which need to be taken benefit of. Ecommerce has made things easy, fast and any service can be availed on few clicks sitting at home or office. It’s totally hassle free. There are many interesting features like discounts, referral schemes, easy referring to others, gifting to others which has caught the fancy of clients.
Today we will explore the opportunities and challenges for financial services like Chartered Accountants services, Company Secretaries and lawyer’s services in Online market. We feel lot of efficiencies can be achieved if these services can be offered and availed online. Professionals using B2B ecommerce platforms will undoubtedly have a great advantage over their competitors.
Right now professionals get business on referral basis and word of mouth which is slow & inefficient and may be faulty in some cases. If Trust can be taken care of, online connecting can be boom to this industry. Also these efficiency benefits can be partially transferred to clients as well in form of discounts.
Today businesses connect to professionals through close contacts like friends or business contacts. These contacts themselves have limited knowledge about specialities of professionals. So recommendations are not 100% sure. Data is not easily available. If the data can be made available over some platform, efficiency will increase and large scale redistribution of work will happen. Only issue remains is of Trust, which can be built by many tools available like robust profiles, public rating of professionals.
Opportunities
Let’s start with opportunities first. Let’s understand various aspects of technology which can be utilised with great effect.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial Intelligence was first discovered in 1950s and drives the E-commerce Industry today. It has great impact on how ecommerce is done today. Whether it is automation of routine works or obtaining powerful insights into huge data or quick real time decision making, AI can help. Use of Chatbots, personalised searches, finding fake reviews or profiles are few examples of use of AI in online market. Chatbots is the powerful example of how efficiency and speed is possible in response to customers’ queries. It has reduced support costs in businesses which earlier were huge.
Voice search and visual search is seeing lot of innovations and great use in business. Today everyone is aware of google voice search, Amazon Echo which use voice search so well.
Machine Learning
Machine learning is helping businesses to learn more and quickly about customer behaviours and their needs, making right services available to them and helping businesses to earn more. This data gathering happens in real time and more customised and personal offerings to clients are possible. It gives clients more delight.
Data Analytics
Frankly, we have tremendous opportunities to achieve better intelligence and in turn, provide better services to the clients. Data analytics has made a great progress where machine can find patterns, trends. It will help businesses to get Best quality services at Best Prices. Finding Right Professional Candidates will be far easier. Public opinions can be taken by way of Surveys in Real Time.
Seamless Payment Process
Daily progress is made towards Payments related safety and security and it is making customers get more confidence to do online payments and it is helping businesses to earn more sales online. Concepts of E-wallets and discount coupons, gift cards are adding to user delight, and are driving more and more clients to online portals.
Cloud technology
Cloud technology has made major inroads and it has made integrations with CRMs and company ERP possible giving further boost to use of online portals.
All time online
Customers are getting the services round the clock. Professionals are available 24/7/365. Services are updated faster. Clients can avail almost anything online at any time.
Dashboards
B2B E-commerce companies can build customized dashboards for their clients which will provide much-needed data-points and service recommendations.
With so many innovations, online financial services market can grow manifold in near future. Professionals who understand this and come online will have fantastic growth quickly.
Challenges
B2B Ecommerce has made some progress but there are many challenges which need to be tackled. It has not yet achieved its full potential. If the challenges are handled well, we will see a huge surge in online market for B2B financial services. It has become somewhat difficult for businesses offering services online to keep up with the competition, speed of innovation and needs of contemporary business buyers. Professional service providers are facing following challenges in doing so.
Complex implementations
Online portals need complex implementation and knowhow is still not wide spread and easily available. That customer-specific and complex services information resides not only in the software, but also in the minds of the sales and service representatives, some of whom are retiring. Companies that are working on integrating and making this data more accessible for their team and their clients, will continue to grow in the future.
Change in Mindset
Businessmen in remote places are still in old mindset and they need to be made aware of new technologies. It needs commitment from higher level management and enough investments in future. It goes beyond IT department. Trust needs to be created in their mind by making them aware of safety and security of online portals.
Focus on Clients
Blind focus only on ecommerce platform is wrong, central focus should be creating an environment for clients. One cannot follow competitors for name sake. Just having big technologies without its proper application is not going to help. It’s critical to maintain a unified view of customer data which is a core element of B2B eCommerce success.
Importance of Marketing
The successful businesses which are growing and moving forward with e-commerce are the ones which are using modern marketing tools with data at its core to really learn about who their clients are and how they like to avail financial services.
Technical staff
Online technology is relatively a recent one and not enough technical staff is available. Attracting and retaining the top talent needed to manage an increasingly complex customer experience ecosystem, is a big challenge. Continuous updation of new innovations is required.
Multiple channels
In online marketplace there are multiple channels for service offerings. It is a big struggle to maintain consistency in pricing and ensuring a consistent brand experience across multiple channels. Rapid growth in use of digital channels has complicated how we do business. At the same time no one can avoid it as competitors have adopted it, so to be in competition one has to learn it. There is continuous Struggle to grow market-share for our services. Businesses need to ensure that technologies are seamlessly working together with current systems such as ERP and CRM.
Conclusion
Technology’s role in e-commerce is unavoidable. It is the basis of E-commerce, right from its birth to every development on continuous basis in the industry. In fact, almost 75% of Businesses who currently use a B2B eCommerce platform reported a sales lift of 15-20% or more, and three out of four businesses have seen large increases in order value through the use of their B2B platform.
Large scale of Redistribution of financial professionals work will be a great advantage to business. If trust can be built in online markets, business will be far efficient and effective. If health industry can have online platforms, financial services industry too can come online. If that happens, there will be better utilisation of resources and it will result into better Economy.
About the Author
Nikee Sheth is the Co-Founder and Director- Sales of CA BIZNet. She started her professional journey in a CA firm 5 years back and has worked closely with clients to understand the financial and taxation systems in India. She understands the challenges faced by SMEs and corporates as far as finances and compliances are concerned. Nikee understands their needs in depth. She helps corporates to improve efficiency and effectiveness in their finances. Nikee co-founded, an online platform for businesses to connect to the right professionals for their works. CA BIZNet is improving the efficiency in the system and also redistributing work in the best manner. The company is helping professionals to grow their practice by getting work as per their specialisation and also collaborating with other professionals.
