Sales Automation in B2B: The Secret Sauce to Business Growth

Julian Song, Regional Digital Marketing & Ecommerce Manager, Apmea, Kerry [Lon: Kyga]

Julian Song, Regional Digital Marketing & Ecommerce Manager, Apmea, Kerry [Lon: Kyga]

In Southeast Asia, route-to-market for foodservice has always been a challenge for small-medium operators who could not buy customised solutions, such as a bespoke seasonal burger sauce, directly from suppliers. They are likely to be buying packaged goods from one of the supplier’s distributors or wholesalers. Through these distributors, operators benefit from being able to get supplies from various brands at a one go, while suppliers’ get efficient access to an existing network of foodservice operators in their region.

This mutually beneficial relationship, however, is not without gaps. Suppliers do not know the operators buying their products and are therefore unable to engage them through their marketing channels. Operators in regions without distributor presence may not have access to wider product selections. While distributors may be willing to go digital and serve beyond their geographic region, they may not have the expertise to do so.

The birth of eCommerce at Kerry

B2C eCommerce is common in the region but the pace of buying for B2B has not been as quick. The need for personal payment methods like credit cards, and the lack of payment credit terms are some examples of barriers. Route-to-market has been predominantly done offline as a long industry practice and also due to lack of knowledge and capabilities in digitalisation.

Despite these, there has been some recent break throughs in B2B eCommerce.

Beyond the rise of pureplayers like Shopee and Lazada in Southeast Asia, there has also been an emergence of traditional distributors setting up their own online stores, and startups attempting to aggregate foodservice buyers and sellers onto their platforms. Quick commerce that promises delivery within 30 minutes and social commerce such as livestream sales have also grown in popularity, particularly since the pandemic.

Encouraged by this, the eCommerce pilot for Kerry kickstarted in Malaysia in the third quarter of 2021. In Malaysia, 82.9 percent of its 27.4m Internet users purchase products online every month, and the country’s Internet economy was projected to rise by 47 percent to $21B in the same year. Kerry also has four manufacturing facilities in the country to ensure a swift market entry.

DaVinci Gourmet and Swiss Bear are the Kerry brands catering to foodservice. DaVinci Gourmet is known for its syrups, sauces and powders for beverages while Swiss Bear sauces and dressings are widely used in street food and independent restaurants.Through preliminary studies, we were confident of their potential in eCommerce.

Our manufacturing facilities in Malaysia meant we could keep costs low without additional import tariffs impacting margins. We scraped eCommerce sales data and through our research noticed that distributors and sub-distributors have been selling DaVinci Gourmet and Swiss Bear online with comparable success against our competitors’ brands with much longer histories.

The downside was, we were not getting full data visibility, which we realised was pivotal to the success of our eCommerce pilot.

Laying the groundwork

In July 2021, a core team of cross-functional experts in sales, marketing, finance and operations was assembled.Their mission was simple: Put the DaVinci Gourmet and Swiss Bear brands on Malaysia’s eCommerce and use the channel to reach customers we previously did not serve directly.

With only one member having prior experience in eCommerce, this was unchartered territory to explore and lay down Kerry’s eCommerce foundations for the region. The team had to get up to speed with eCommerce fundamentals internally through crash courses and learn from eCommerce teams in other Kerry regions. The team also learned from external parties through representatives from different eCommerce channels such as pure players, quick and social commerce, and also from Malaysia’s agency for industry digitalisation, MDEC.

Knowing that eCommerce data visibility would be key, we explored the possible operation models and decided on a less disruptive model of collaborating with existing distributors to represent Kerry on eCommerce. After all, they have grown with Kerry and it seemed only right to lend them eCommerce expertise for greater success. The team began speaking with these distributors to assess their capabilities in and willingness towards eCommerce to pick the right partners to operate our flagship stores.

Having figured out the operating model, the team also had to supply the right ammunition to drive traffic and conversions. Ad campaigns were run on the brands’ social media channels to drive demand. Omnichannel assets were developed for seamless user experience, and store campaigns were set up to drive conversions.

Challenging the traditional route-to-market with eCommerce can unlock potentially big gains for the B2B sector.

In October 2021, the team launched their first store in a leading pure player platform, all within 3 months– a remarkable achievement considering the speed it normally takes to steer and effect change in a large organisation like Kerry.

Hitting milestones in record time

Within the first three months of operations, the KPIs and milestones that were set out were achieved by the brands’ online stores:

• Massive upgrades in the clarity and quality of data: From minimal secondary sales data to over 50 columns of usable data in each transaction line item

• Ability to identify and verify operators who are buying our products in regions that previously had no distributor presence

• Visualising unprecedented insights from sales and traffic data to provide clues on where the team should focus for sustainable growth: The team can now see which parts of the conversion funnel should be tweaked for sales and customer growth, and devise campaigns that encourage repeat orders

• Explosive growth in store followership, from 0 to 4,000, against competitors who have had a head start

Sales automation beyond the pilot

The future looks bright for Kerry’s venture into sales automation through eCommerce. We now know a great deal about the previously unknown customer base and can let them self-serve without incurring additional time and resources from the sales force. To amplify the automation, the next steps in the Malaysia pilot involves partnering other marketplace sellers and setting up stores in channels beyond the current flagship stores. Expansion from foodservice brands to retail products are also being reviewed.

With the high quality and volume of data collected, Kerry will be able to segment and engage these operators with regularity through automated nurturing and tactical campaigns. Through sales automation, these virtual self-service channels are expected to generate over 15 Percent of the brands’ traditionally offline revenues in Malaysia over the next 5 years. Beyond Malaysia, there are also plans to lift and shift the pilot’s best practices to expand into eCommerce channels across Southeast Asia.

No doubt, with strong support and good strategy planning guided by clear objectives, and a bit of courage, B2B businesses can tap on the prospective power of eCommerce to boost their growth and expansion plans, and succeed.