MarTech Interview with Carsten Storm, Head of Digital Marketplace at SAP

Carsten Storm, Head of Digital Marketplace at SAP comments on the future of digital marketplaces and how they will evolve down the line in this catch-up:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Carsten, tell us about yourself and more about your role at SAP? 

My official title at SAP is Head of Digital Marketplace. In my role, I build and leverage SAP’s e-commerce capabilities for B2B sales, alongside defining and prioritizing our sales roadmap, and driving revenue through SAP and partner solutions. I joined SAP in 2005, starting out as a Marketing Demand Manager, and have also held various roles as operations manager, including COO – Corporate IT.

SAP recently released research around the challenges surrounding B2B enterprise software procurement, we’d love to hear about some of the key takeaways from you.

The survey, which serves as a follow-up to our 2019 Buyers’ Journey Survey,  highlights how the B2B landscape has shifted in the past few years towards digital marketplaces and procurement and serves as a litmus test for pandemic-related procurement evolution.

Our survey found that 54% of procurement professionals aim to purchase online by 2024, and 44% of respondents emphasized the importance of a one-stop shop for multiple vendors, demonstrating the need for a shift to digital sales and marketplaces that are more efficient than traditional sales methods.

Looking into the reasons for that, it seems that procurement teams are increasingly more (geographically) distributed while facing staffing issues.

On top of that, as a result of global uncertainties, customers are buying in smaller chunks but more often, resulting in an increased number of procurements. In addition, procurement timeframes have become significantly shorter. 67% of respondents said that it’s frequently or always more difficult to procure the solutions they need in a timely manner.

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How can enterprise/B2B teams optimize their software and tech procurement process, given today’s market dynamics?

In my opinion, there are two main levers for companies to streamline their procurement processes and address those challenges:

• a) They can increasingly leverage vendors that offer a diverse portfolio of products. By doing so, the set-up time (vendor set-up, legal review, due diligence, etc.) for the single purchase can be significantly reduced, as existing financial and legal terms can be leveraged.
• b) They can leverage multi-vendor marketplaces and digital commerce platforms to compare offerings, leverage suggestions (based on other buyer’s choices), and get pre-filtered options based on their own profile. Also, as buyers get used to the vendor’s digital commerce sites and capabilities, they become more confident and efficient and can process smaller requests (add-on purchases, POCs, …) entirely in a self-service manner, eliminating wait time and iterations in the quote process.

When it comes to enterprise buying decision makers and decisions made at the procurement side, what should sellers know more about so that they can sell better to those brands/teams?

From a seller’s perspective, it is very important to understand the composition of the “buying center” of the customer. We know that in the B2B environment, purchase decisions usually involve multiple people in different roles.

Clarity about the individuals holding these roles, their preferences, personality and history is our biggest lever for efficient selling. On the flip side, providing that information to the seller is also a great lever for the buyer to ensure reduced processing time and minimal approval rounds. Online marketplaces provide a good way for the buyer to maintain involved personnel in self-service, and the seller to serve those individuals the information they need, which is a win-win.

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What do you feel about the future of the B2B tech industry, some key predictions for 2023?

Broadly speaking, digital marketplaces will become more streamlined and efficient in 2023. The pandemic’s e-commerce boom intensified expectations of an easy, efficient marketplace, and buyers are searching not only for modern software solutions, but a modern, updated, easy-to-use marketplace from which to purchase solutions.

To meet expectations, marketplaces will invest in strategies to retain value by advancing personalization and efficient experiences. Procurement teams will become more involved in purchasing processes, and businesses will look to change their core business models.