Business to Business, or B2B collaboration, is a concept that picked up steam after the internet revolution began and as new, improved, and innovative technology were constantly being added and upgraded to improve business efficiency by leading IT companies. However, a recent study by Aberdeen Research shows that though large organizations invest in the technology and fully utilize its benefits to interact with customers, clients, and partners, small and mid-sized organizations are yet to fully adopt the system.
What is B2B Collaboration?
B2B is an evolving concept, though it is well past its infancy as it has become the buzzword for success on the internet. B2B collaboration, as the name clearly suggests, basically connect a business to other businesses between manufacturers and wholesalers and retailers.
This can happen at two levels:
- Partnership – where two businesses collaborate to create more business
- Customers – where the business is derived from clients and customers
B2B sites began flourishing since the first half of the 21st century as many “e-sites” started flourishing on the internet to connect buyers and sellers for a small fee. The amount charged was negligible when compared with the amount of business that was generated. It took a few hiccups and road blocks to completely evolve to its current stage; however, B2B collaboration is now here to stay.
Interaction without Boundaries
As the internet has the power to connect people from across continents, businesses have surpassed boundaries to reach markets around the world. Today the concept of “glocal”, which is basically a mash up of global and local is applicable to the average businessman’s mindset. Whether your enterprise is small, mid-sized or large, the fastest way for it to grow is by the smart use of the internet. Using the internet for transacting business also helps in cutting transactional costs as all collaboration happens using the internet. Further, the global supply chain complexities and the need for increased interaction with customers are inevitable and unavoidable for most businesses. At such times, having a proper technology in place helps streamline the process and improves the efficiency levels.
B2B Technology Reach
A survey by the Aberdeen group on the importance of B2B collaboration showed that 83% of the industry leaders have adopted B2B collaboration. Further, 18% of the respondents out of the 83% have been using technology to support B2B since the last one and a half years, while 42% have been using it for the last two years. The importance of B2B collaboration is hard to ignore by an organization of this century as it is pervading into every aspect of how we transact business. B2B collaboration via social networking sites is also picking pace as employees collaborate with their colleagues, clients, end customers, and other partner company representatives, using channels such as instant messaging, blogs, posts etc.
Business Intelligence and Data Mining
The greatest advantage of the B2B collaboration technology is the amount of storage and ease in access provided for the data stored by a company. Data mining allows users to access old and new data and generate business intelligence reports to create forecasts. The company that has relevant data to forecast the future trend accurately will any day have an edge over its peers and competitors.
B2B collaboration is not an option, rather it is a must-have business technology that companies who are aiming for growth cannot ignore.
Walt Robertson regularly writes about B2B channel collaboration and how modern day companies can leverage technology to create high performance sales channels. To learn more please download our eBook “A Definitive Guide to External Social Collaboration and Indirect Channel Marketing” completely free from Relayware, Inc
Collaboration is necessary for every business, because when people are working together for a business, if they need any discussion at that time, they can discuss with the team at a single platform.