Digital transformation is the fundamental driver for innovation and disruption in almost all the industry sectors including e-commerce. E-commerce space has grown beyond leaps and bounds with the widespread adoption of digital technologies and digital transformation trends. Apparently, the growth of e-commerce has impacted the way organizations do business and people consume it. E-commerce empowers customers through convenience and a wider choice of products. For retailers, it is bringing in exciting business opportunities beyond the geographical constraints. However, to thrive in the increasingly competitive space, the e-commerce players have to embrace the technology advancements and new concepts along with a mindset for changing the existing culture, strategy and operational ways. This includes integrating new systems into the existing IT infrastructure and establishing new business processes in line with their digital transformation strategies. Supplier on-boarding is also one of the major aspects in the e-commerce sector which demands digital modernization. Let’s have a look on the need for digital transformation and modernization in e-commerce supplier on boarding and the opportunities associated with it.
Significance of digital modernization in supplier on-boarding?
In this age of increasing relevance of e-commerce, diversified set of products and portfolio are significant for satisfying the increasing demands of a millennial consumer. For getting this flavor of diversity in their products, e-commerce players have to on-board more suppliers in this space, which results in maximizing the probability to attract a customer. In today’s highly competitive e- commerce landscape, online retailers which fail to digitize their supplier on-boarding process lag behind as time taken to onboard the same supplier is more vis-à -vis a competitor. Launching a new product also gets delayed which results in loss of sales.
For small and medium enterprises, it is difficult to comprehend all the checks for compliance for onboarding and loose interest in some instances.
Apart from this, in the on boarding activities, both the supplier and the ecommerce retailer have to put in a lot of manual effort in administrative activities and needs to manage a lot of data which can lead to disengagement. Most of the on-boarding time is spent on managing the supplier data as it is handled in silos and is fragmented. Â In some instances even though the e-commerce players put in a lot of effort for vendor onboarding with training sessions using various artifacts, it ends up in confusions in comprehending the standards and procedures.
How to address the seller onboarding challenges in the e-commerce space?
A self-service supplier portal can largely address the challenges associated with the seller on boarding in e-commerce. It automates a largely paper intensive activity, which helps in accelerating the on-boarding process. . It also enables the suppliers to manage their product catalogue on their own and get insights on how they appear to their target audience. This would help in analyzing their current strategies and implement newer strategies to attracting more consumers including uploading more products thereby increasing the number of options they provide on the ecommerce site. With more the number of product options available more consumers will browse and buy from the respective e- commerce portal.
Real time validation for seller verification & compliance checking options available in the self- service portal fastens the on-boarding process and decreases the number of forms the supplier might need to maintain otherwise. This has helped a lot of ecommerce retailers increase the number of suppliers on boarded per month.
The option for seamless communication with suppliers using online surveys, mails etc. make it easy to coordinate leading to a better final delivery. Tracking and monitoring of issues online lead to a faster resolution of issues if any.
As we said earlier, managing the supplier data is a tough challenge that the ecommerce players face due to fragmented data collection and the amount of paperwork involved in seller on-boarding. However, digital modernization of the process helps store information in a centralized location which leads to seamless supplier data management.
Apart from all these, consistency in on-boarding and having a supplier 360 view helps ecommerce retailers save time and money. This will help them in focusing more on their end consumers and their requirements.
is a Senior Business Analyst, Digital Business Services & Analytics at Happiest Minds. With a total experience of 8 years in Business Analysis he specialises in Presales Solutioning & Product Management for Insurance, Investment Banking, CPG, eCommerce, and Market Research clients. He has a keen interest in Data & Analytics solutions and has worked on several Data engineering (DWH, MDM) & Data Science (Chatbot, NLP, Augmented Search, Visualization) related projects. He practices design thinking techniques for better problem solving
In his free time, he likes playing tennis, attending food & music festivals and watching news.
