What Makes Salesforce a Leader in B2B E-Commerce: Key Takeaways from the Forrester Wave Q2 2024
Michael Affronti, Executive VP & GM of Commerce Cloud at Salesforce, recently expressed his excitement on LinkedIn about Salesforce being named a Leader in the Forrester Wave: Commerce Solutions for B2B, Q2 2024 report. This achievement highlights Salesforce’s reputation as a driving force in the B2B commerce industry, centered around innovative approach, robust platform, and customer-centric vision.
In his LinkedIn post, Michael proudly mentioned that Salesforce earned an impressive 5 out of 5 in all 14 evaluation criteria assessed by Forrester, pushing them to the top of the leaderboard.
Aren’t you eager to explore what made Salesforce achieve this ranking in the B2B commerce landscape?
So, where shall we begin?
Let’s start by getting to know the Forrester wave report!
Understanding The Forrester Wave™ Report
The Forrester Wave™ report is a trusted evaluation of leading vendors in various technology sectors.
Salesforce’s position as a leader in this report reflects its current offerings, robust strategy, and strong market influence.
For the B2B commerce space, Forrester ranks platforms based on three primary criteria:
1. Current Offering:
This looks at the capabilities, performance, and flexibility of the platform.
2. Strategy:
Forrester evaluates the vendor’s long-term vision, innovation roadmap, and ability to address future market needs.
3. Market Presence:
This measures the vendor’s customer base, revenue, and influence in the industry.
Image Source: Forrester Wave Leader 2024
Now, with the understanding of Forrester wave report components & ranking strategy, let’s dive deeper into Salesforce b2b e-commerce platform’s core capabilities, innovations, strategy & market presence.
Salesforce’s B2B E-Commerce Offerings and latest innovations:
Salesforce Commerce Cloud stands out for its core B2B e-commerce capabilities that include:
- B2B-Specific Features: The platform offers robust B2B features such as account-based pricing, complex order management, and self-service portals. These capabilities allow businesses to cater to the unique needs of their B2B customers, driving higher engagement and loyalty.
- Composable Commerce: Salesforce supports a composable commerce model, allowing businesses to select best-of-breed solutions and integrate them seamlessly with their existing stack. This flexibility is crucial for enterprises needing custom solutions.
- AI-Driven Commerce: Leveraging Salesforce Einstein, the platform provides powerful AI-driven personalization, helping businesses deliver relevant recommendations and experiences at scale.
- Advanced Security and Compliance: Salesforce’s commitment to security and compliance ensures that businesses can operate safely in an increasingly complex digital environment
Apart from its core capabilities, Salesforce continues to push the boundaries of digital commerce particularly with the recent innovations that Michael Affronti mentioned in his LinkedIn post which includes:
Einstein Copilot for Buyers
Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot is an AI-driven assistant designed to guide buyers throughout their purchasing journey. In the B2B e-commerce landscape, where buyers often deal with complex product catalogs, ordering processes, and negotiations, having an AI-powered copilot can streamline decision-making and enhance the overall buying experience. Einstein Copilot helps buyers navigate product options, suggest relevant products, and answer questions in real time, making the process smoother and more efficient.
For B2B companies, this means improved customer satisfaction and faster purchasing cycles, as buyers are supported every step of the way by intelligent recommendations.
AI-Driven Goal Setting and Recommendations
AI-driven goal setting allows businesses to define specific objectives—such as increasing average order value or improving customer retention—and leverage Salesforce’s AI capabilities to receive tailored recommendations on how to achieve these goals. This innovation is particularly relevant for B2B e-commerce, where businesses often have complex, multi-faceted goals that require advanced analytics and strategic insights.
By automating the goal-setting process and providing actionable recommendations, Salesforce empowers B2B enterprises to make data-driven decisions that drive growth and optimize their digital commerce operations.
Generative SEO Metadata Optimization
SEO remains a critical component of digital success, even in the B2B e-commerce space. Salesforce’s generative SEO metadata optimization leverages AI to automatically generate SEO-friendly metadata, such as title tags, meta descriptions, and keywords, ensuring that product pages are optimized for search engines. This innovation can significantly enhance the visibility of B2B e-commerce websites, driving organic traffic and improving rankings.
For B2B businesses, this is a game-changer, as it allows them to keep up with SEO best practices without requiring extensive manual input, leading to better search visibility and higher lead generation.
Enterprise Scale Carts and Split Shipments
In B2B e-commerce, large orders and complex shipping requirements are common. Salesforce’s new enterprise-scale cart capabilities enable businesses to handle large, complex orders with ease, including features like bulk ordering and split shipments. This is particularly valuable for B2B companies that manage large transactions and need to ship products to multiple locations or across various timelines.
This innovation provides flexibility and scalability, ensuring that B2B e-commerce platforms can handle the demands of large enterprises without compromising on efficiency or customer experience.
Native Merchant Services
Salesforce’s native merchant services provide seamless payment processing capabilities directly within the platform. By offering an integrated payment solution, Salesforce eliminates the need for third-party payment processors, streamlining the payment experience for both businesses and their customers.
For B2B companies, this means faster, more secure transactions, and reduced friction during the purchasing process. Native merchant services help B2B businesses manage payments more efficiently, improving cash flow and reducing operational complexity.
Salesforce’s Perfect Score in Strategy and Market Presence
Michael proudly mentioned that Salesforce achieved 5 out of 5 scores in all 14 evaluation criteria in the Forrester report. These criteria cover a wide range of critical areas for B2B commerce, including:
- Commerce Capabilities: Salesforce’s ability to deliver personalized experiences, complex order management, and multi-channel support has been key to their high rating.
- Customer Success: Salesforce’s focus on enabling businesses to achieve their goals through robust support, training, and ongoing guidance
- Scalability and Performance: Salesforce has demonstrated its capacity to scale with businesses, ensuring that performance remains high even as customer demands increase.
- Integration and Ecosystem: Salesforce’s seamless integration with its broader ecosystem, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, makes it a powerful choice for businesses seeking a unified digital experience.
These scores validate Salesforce’s excellence in delivering B2B commerce solutions that meet the demands of modern enterprises.
Salesforce’s strategy centers on innovation, flexibility, and customer success. The company continuously invests in enhancing its B2B commerce platform, keeping it at the forefront of technological advancements.
Forrester recognized Salesforce’s strong strategic vision, which focuses on enabling businesses to stay competitive by leveraging AI, omnichannel capabilities, and a unified approach to customer experience.
In terms of market presence, Salesforce’s extensive partner network, large customer base, and global reach contribute to its dominance in the B2B commerce space. Salesforce’s ability to support businesses of all sizes, from small enterprises to large multinational corporations, makes it a versatile and appealing choice for a wide range of B2B companies
The Final Note: Staying Ahead in Strategy, But Room for Growth in Current Offerings
While Salesforce’s strategy and market presence are clear strengths, Forrester’s report suggests that there is room for improvement in the current offerings category.
Forrester noted that
- Salesforce could enhance its platform’s flexibility and configurability, as some businesses might require more tailored solutions out-of-the-box.
- Additionally, certain advanced features may need further development to meet the specific needs of highly complex B2B operations.
Nevertheless, Salesforce’s focus on innovation and its ability to execute its strategic vision ensure that it remains a leader in the B2B commerce space. As the digital commerce landscape continues to evolve, Salesforce is well-positioned to adapt and deliver value to businesses, helping them succeed in the fast-paced world of B2B commerce.
Conclusion
Data Source: Salesforce – Awards & Recognition
If you’re looking to build a user-friendly, scalable B2B commerce site that leverages the latest in AI-driven personalization, enterprise-scale transactions, and seamless integrations, reach out to Perficient.
Our team of experts can help you unlock the full potential of Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud and build a platform that can deliver a connected experience at every interaction thus retaining loyal buyers.
