Lessons from 10 B2B leaders
A behind-the-scenes look at our recent roundtable, and why inaction on B2B ecommerce is quickly becoming the most expensive choice.
If you put ten senior B2B leaders in a room, give them coffee, and a guessing game, you learn a lot very quickly.
That is how we opened our recent “Now or Never: Securing buy-in for B2B ecommerce” roundtable in London. Before anyone shared war stories, we asked the group to guess a few numbers.
- What percentage of B2B companies already offer some form of ecommerce channel?
- How many B2B buyers are comfortable placing orders over 50k online?
- How many distinct channels does a typical B2B buyer use across their journey?
- And what percentage would quietly turn to a competitor if a supplier’s digital channels could not keep up?
When we revealed the actual figures, there was a noticeable pause.
- 71 percent
- 73 percent
- 10 channels
- 90 percent.
For many boards, that is still a surprise. For their customers, it is already normal.
From there, our conversation focused on three themes: how to secure leadership approval, how to avoid implementation traps, and how to drive real adoption with customers and Sales.
1. Securing leadership approval: it is not just about the numbers
Most people around the table had at least one story of a great ecommerce idea that stalled at the board level. The pattern was remarkably consistent.
On paper, the business case made sense.
In practice, it struggled because:
- There were too many competing priorities and no shared focus across regions or business units
- Time to value was vague, so it was easy to push the project into “next year”
- The long-term cost of ownership, including optimisation and people, was missing
- Operational readiness had not been considered in detail
- There was no executive sponsor prepared to fight for it.
We also talked about how boards often underestimate the strategic nature of ecommerce. They still look for short-term, campaign-style ROI, when in reality this is an infrastructure investment that pays back over the years.
The leaders who are getting approvals through their boards are doing a few things differently:
- Framing ecommerce in board language. Every aspect of the business case connects back to making money, saving money or reducing risk. Brand factors, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and resilience are also front and centre, not in an appendix.
- Being honest about phases. They describe a "phased roadmap" and set expectations that investment will be ongoing and will come in waves. The first release is deliberately focused, but it is made extremely clear that there is more to come.
- Showing the full cost of ownership. They include the resources needed to run, optimise and extend the channel after launch, not just the build.
- Treating change management as a core workstream. Change is not a slide at the end. It has to be integral to the plan from day one.
When these elements are in place, the conversation in the boardroom changes from “why should we do this” to “how quickly can we do this well”.
2. Implementation and scaling: getting beyond the pilot trap
Our second theme was implementation mistakes and how to scale beyond a pilot. Everyone had scars.
Some teams tried to do too much in one go. Scope ballooned as senior stakeholders became involved, delaying the launch and increasing risk. Others went too small, with pilots so limited they could never prove the initiative's true value.
A few common traps emerged:
- Vague scope and shifting requirements
- No clear definition of what the “V” in MVP stands for: viable or valuable
- Weak risk management and no plan to “fail fast” in a controlled way
- Underestimating the importance of data foundations and interoperability
- Teams that were comfortable with the status quo and nervous about change.
The leaders who had successfully scaled beyond pilots emphasised clarity and honesty. They defined success upfront, including the metrics that would trigger further investment. They were explicit about what was out of scope for the first phase. They secured a sponsor who genuinely believed in iterative delivery, not secret big bang. And they treated data as a product in its own right, not a technical task.
A useful question we kept coming back to was this:
“If the pilot works, are we confident this exact approach can scale to more markets, more segments and more complexity?”
If the honest answer is “no”, you have work to do before you launch.
3. Customer adoption and Sales alignment: earning the right to be the default channel
The third theme was where things became very practical. Even when the platform is live and stable, customer adoption and Sales alignment are often the real bottlenecks.
On the customer side, several points came up:
- Channel switching works best when you segment customers by value and cost to serve
- Low-value, high-cost-to-serve segments are prime candidates for digital self-service
- Pricing accuracy online is non-negotiable, especially where contracts and personalised pricing are involved
- You need a clear rollout plan, not a vague “if we build it, they will come” mindset
- Customers need a specific reason to try the new channel for the first time.
On the Sales side, trust is often the missing piece.
Sales teams can be understandably protective of their relationships unless leadership show them what the future mix of in-person and digital looks like. It is easy for ecommerce to feel like a threat rather than an upgrade.
The most encouraging stories were where organisations:
- Split the Sales function into “new business” and “customer success” roles
- Used digital channels to reduce low-value admin, freeing time for higher-value work
- Showed salespeople the positive impact on their pipeline and commission when customers self-serve for the basics
Again, it comes back to making it clear how ecommerce will help Sales be more successful, not less relevant.
Now or never: why the window is closing
If there was a single takeaway from the morning, it was this: inaction is now the most expensive choice.
Customer expectations are already high, and they are shaped by the best digital experiences in their personal lives, not the slowest in their industry. Many are comfortable buying large, complex orders online. More than half now prefer a rep-free experience across many stages of their journey, and Gartner itself predicts that by 2028, 75% of B2B organisations will complete their highest-revenue deals via digital channels.
At the same time, the next wave of technology, including agentic AI, will only widen the gap between digitally mature and digitally immature organisations. Early examples in B2B ecommerce show AI agents supporting procurement, pricing and personalisation, but they all rely on solid digital foundations.
If your competitors are building those foundations now, they will be in a position to let AI quietly improve experiences and efficiency in a few years. If you are not, you risk being permanently behind.
With 90% of B2B buyers saying they would move to a competitor if a supplier’s digital channels could not keep up with their needs, waiting for “the right moment” is becoming a risky strategy.
The good news is that you do not need a perfect blueprint to start.
You need a clear business case, a realistic phased roadmap and the willingness to treat ecommerce as a strategic capability, not a side project.
From there, every release is a step away from fragile legacy and a step towards the kind of modern, composable, data-driven commerce that your customers increasingly expect.
