Every business should embrace digital improvements. So says Forrester, and you can find similar views from other analyst heavyweights such as Gartner, IDC and McKinsey. Reasons include survival in a competitive marketplace, more revenue streams, new business models and greater speed and efficiency. The 'why' will depend on a business's circumstances.
But the necessity is universal, especially in the technology channel – the people who present these ideas and their supporting products to the market. Their customers expect them to walk the talk. You won't buy a sports car from a salesperson who shows up on a moped, and you're unlikely to support technology providers that don't demonstrate digital's benefits in their businesses.
Still, easier said than done, right? Channel companies can't wave a wand and transform. They need transitions that are stable and strategic. This is one of the motivations behind the Axiz Marketplace.
"Axiz isn't immune to the demands of digital transformation," says Rory Twort, Managing Executive of Sales at Axiz. "Several years ago, we decided to create an end-to-end environment that better exposed our different business areas to channel customers. The Axiz Marketplace is a crucial part of this: it extends our well-established distribution business into a multi-faceted portal that integrates with our other areas. Our customers enjoy more access with greater simplicity and more options to help guide their digital transformation agendas."
The game-changing B2B channel portal
The Marketplace is a B2B portal that combines the virtues of e-commerce with Axiz's emphasis on relationships. Rather than replace what Axiz does well, it deliberately built a service that supports sales relationships and enhances their value.
"Relationships are very important and the foundation of our business, so we designed the Marketplace to complement that culture," says Andrew Moodley, Axiz's Chief Digital Officer. "For example, if you want to pick up the phone and talk to your account manager, you can still do that – we encourage it. But you now also have 24/7 access to a marketplace that shows stock, services and prices based on your profile. You can track orders, generate and download price lists specific to your profile, and do even more as we add new features, such as additional payment options."
The Axiz Marketplace is a B2B e-commerce portal with significant added value. Do you prefer looking at stock options after hours? Want to find prices while in a sales meeting, or sit with a customer and browse their choices? Need to combine different products and services for new solutions? Go right ahead. The Marketplace delivers a one-stop, always-available service that integrates with our other offerings, with a single shopping cart where everything comes together – all using one account.
"Research shows that first purchases are often through a person, but that most follow-up purchases can happen through automated tools. That concept helped influence how we designed the Marketplace," says Wikus Smit, Product Owner of the Axiz Marketplace. "We looked at how we can improve access to information that our customers and sales reps use, and so our customers can use the Marketplace to improve how they work with their customers. We provide APIs with discrete functions to integrate with customer sales and procurement systems. Our customers can even have a rebranded marketplace version as their e-commerce front. But we don't sideline our humans. Our Marketplace helps you do better business without changing the rules."
Helping your channel business transform
Axiz's Marketplace provides the tools to decide how channel companies can develop their digital strategy. It can be as simple as consolidated price lists that include key vendors or using the portal for updates on partner status and discounts. The Marketplace provides the information channel companies use to conduct sales and answer their customers' questions anytime, day or night.
Crucially, the Marketplace integrates with the rest of Axiz, giving channel customers a one-stop experience across all the business units – from hardware products to licence management to cloud services – with one cart and one login.
"We didn't cobble together different systems with a multitude of logins or slap on an e-commerce storefront, expecting you to do it all yourself," says Twort. "The Axiz Marketplace and our other units, such as the Axiz Cloud Microsoft CSP, are built from the ground up to create one coherent and consistent space for our customers. The Marketplace emphasises business relationships but gives our customers more choice and flexibility to serve their customers."
The Axiz Marketplace can help transform channel businesses. It enables Axiz to participate in their digital transformation, providing an ecosystem of services companies can pick and use as their plans require. The Axiz Marketplace is part of a business strategy to bring all of Axiz to customers. Contact the Axiz Salesdesk today and find out how you can access this new game-changing tool and secure your channel company in the new era where digital and humans meet to create new possibilities for business.
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