This article was adapted from our on-demand webinar 5 Ways to Reduce B2B Commerce Complexity, presented in partnership with Kibo. Watch the webinar now and discover how you can streamline your operations and drive business efficiency
As companies, especially distributors, increasingly invest in AI technologies to stay competitive, a recurring challenge has emerged–many organizations already have an AI solution in hand and are now trying to pinpoint the right problem to solve. Instead of reinventing the wheel or purchasing a technology solution in search of a problem, the key is to leverage AI that already exists in their tech stacks to address specific operational challenges and customer experience gaps.
Understanding the AI Opportunity
A common approach when introducing AI into an organization is to start by asking a simple question: “what can AI do for you?” This question helps pinpoint the areas where your organization might be struggling and where AI can deliver the highest ROI. For distributors, the potential applications of AI typically fall into three primary buckets:
- Efficiency
- Growth
- Insights
1. Efficiency: Enhancing Operations Behind the Scenes
AI enhances efficiency by:
- Product Data Enrichment: Improving the quality and consistency of product information. This use case becomes even more compelling as SKU counts and the number of manufacturing partners grows.
- Customer Support: Streamlining interactions with customers through AI-driven chatbots and automated responses. Automatically extract data from customer inputs to train customer support tools.
- Information Consolidation: Aggregating data from various sources for faster and more informed decision-making.
AI serves as an operational partner behind the scenes, automating routine tasks and allowing teams to focus on higher-level strategic initiatives. This efficiency translates directly into cost savings and improved workflows.
2. Growth: Driving Hyper-Personalization and Customer Engagement
AI fuels business growth through:
- Hyper-Personalization: AI analyzes customer behavior and historical data to create tailored experiences, increasing engagement and brand loyalty. This can extend from individual users to the corporate buying groups that are common in distributor commerce channels.
- Enhanced Digital Experience: AI helps optimize digital interfaces, from smarter order management to more intuitive order fulfillment systems, ensuring a seamless and satisfying customer experience.
- Smart Product Search: AI-driven search goes beyond simple product lookups, incorporating order history, inventory levels, browsing behavior, and even regional demand to deliver personalized and relevant results.
- Location-Based Intelligence: AI dynamically adjusts recommendations and search results based on a customer’s location, considering proximity to inventory, regional demand, and fulfillment logistics. A customer in Florida may see different recommendations than one in California, ensuring a more relevant and efficient shopping experience.
3. Insights: Data-Driven Decision Making
For distributors, AI-driven insights provide critical advantages:
- Market Analysis: AI processes large volumes of data to identify market trends and forecast future demand.
- Issue Detection: Early detection of operational issues–such as an unexpected spike in product returns–allows for proactive problem-solving.
- Price Optimization: Analyzing historical data and current market conditions enables AI to recommend optimal pricing strategies that maximize revenue while maintaining competitiveness.
These insights help businesses make proactive, informed decisions that drive growth and efficiency.