April 11 - Day One: Driving Digital Growth and Innovation

What does the future look like for your sales team? Join us for an open discussion over lunch about how to prepare your sales team for selling with new digitally based business models, and moving them to a more consultative, omni-channel, partner role with clients. 

You know your website isn’t where it needs to be today, but where to start? You’ve come to the right place to tackle this difficult task. First you’ll need to build a team of resilient change makers, and then as a leader you need to set the stage for successful change—deciding when to get buy-in from stakeholders and when to ask for forgiveness. Web transformation at a global scale means constantly iterating on your approach and process, putting user experience at the forefront. Join this presentation to hear GE Healthcare’s web leader Mary Beth Sisti discuss: 

• 4 pillars on which to rebuild and restructure your web strategy team;

• Championing change through iterative Agile design sprints;

• Earning trust and incorporating stakeholder decisions in a site redesign

• Leaning into uncomfortable stakeholder conversations to gain support and buy-in; and

• How to successfully roll out change at global scale. 

Mary Beth Findlay Sisti

Web Content & Strategy Director, MDX
GE Healthcare

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Mary Schneeberger

Head of Marketing Practice
Avionos

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In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, more buyers than ever are turning to online channels to research and purchase products. Loyalty is being challenged in all new ways. Creating hyper-relevant digital experiences for your B2B buyers in this environment is now a matter of survival, with site search and product recommendations at the core of the online journey. In this hard hitting fireside chat session, GroupBy’s CEO, Roland Gossage and Brian Beck, B2B Ecommerce Expert and Author of "Billion Dollar B2B Ecommerce", will discuss ways B2B companies can improve digital experiences through AI (artificial intelligence) powered product discovery technology. Learn how to leverage vast amounts of data and customer intent signals to deliver superior omnichannel experiences at scale while creating competitive advantage for your business.

Attendees will discover:

• Ways that AI-driven search and recommendations can be deployed to directly impact conversion and brand loyalty
• How to understand customer intent to create a customer-centric buying experience
• How modern AI tools can enable one-to-one digital experiences and reinforce relationships across all channels
• The foundational items required for success
• Ways modern product recommendation and search tools can accelerate your digital transformation

Roland Gossage

CEO
GroupBy Inc.

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Brian Beck

Co-Founder
Master B2B

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When it comes to B2B purchases, the big aha moment is the end-to-end view of the customer journey. All companies are complex, and you have to build for that complexity. How can you best optimize the customer journey for the majority of buyers? Panelists will discuss how to: 

• Know the touchpoints necessary to focus on the customer at different parts of the journey, including social media, search and compelling landing pages to increase conversions 
• Understand how the customer is engaging in an omni-channel pricing environment 
• Determine the influence you have at different points along the customer journey 
• Data and privacy rules considerations when enhancing your personalization efforts 
• Leverage points of influence to better meet your customers’ needs 
• Make sure you have touch points post-sale to create brand loyalty

Jas Kaur

Senior Manager – Digital Experiences & Marketing
Ellsworth Adhesives

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Tracie Biggerstaff

Senior Director of Marketing
IBT Industrial Solutions

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Dan Panattoni

Head of Global B2B eCommerce
HP Inc

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Chris Buckler

Sr Customer Success Manager
Liferay Inc.

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Mary Schneeberger

Head of Marketing Practice
Avionos

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RP Fedder Industrial is a regional distributor of premium air and water filters and HVAC equipment to industrial and commercial customers, local governments, and schools. Our traditional customers order via phone, email, and fax. We started developing our online store and marketplaces in August 2020 and completed the first wave of deployment in under 100 days. In this session we’ll share our approach and lessons learned from our first 18 months online, and answer these questions:

• Why does a small distributor need a digital strategy?
• How far can you go with an operating budget under $1000?
• What does it take to sell on marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Google?
• Can you be profitable with “free shipping” and the complexity of selling direct to consumers?
• How do you satisfy B2B requirements like territory restrictions & hidden prices?
• How do you get traditional B2B customers to adopt mobile and online?

Paul Wlodarczyk

Director, Business Transformation
R.P. Fedder Industrial

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Discover how OX helped the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM) seize the opportunity to let a digital transformation inspire organizational change. With a complex digital ecosystem and complicated eCommerce process, the Association for Supply Chain Management approached OX to help them simplify just about everything. Join us for the rousing story of how a site migration project for ASCM turned into an in-depth discovery of brand identity, digital presence, technology, and ultimately, sweeping organizational change.

Sherri Goodlove

VP Marketing
Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM)

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Bryan Jones

Chief Technology Officer
Office of Experience

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The personalization occurring in B2C is shifting the competitive landscape and forcing brands to follow new best practices, within a reasonable range. How do strike the right balance of personalization to effectively serve up the content and options that will drive conversion without it being creepy? How far do you go and how much should you be investing? Panelists will discuss their latest best practices for leveraging marketing automation and personalization to help you: 

• Identify the right level of customer personalization to have in a B2B environment 
• Understand data and privacy rules considerations when enhancing your personalization efforts 
• Define the appropriate buckets for personas to determine the sweet spot for personalization 
• Determine what you can do in-house and knowing when to partner 
• Provide real time personalization across multiple channels 

Bonnie Bergkessel

Director, Digital Marketing & Media
EIS

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Satish NS

Director of eCommerce & CX
Tata Consultancy Services

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Adrienne Hartman

Sr Director of Ecommerce & Campaign Sales
J. J. Keller & Associate

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Ben Quigely

Sr. Director, Pro Digital Experiences
The Home Depot

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A recent survey by the Alterra Group found that 97% of marketing respondents had a stronger ROI with account-based marketing (ABM) than other marketing efforts. As the industry continues to manage economic uncertainty and increased competition, marketers are quickly adopting ABM as a strategy to drive longer-term revenue. Find out how to capitalize on the opportunities of ABM, including: 

• Aligning the collaborative relationship between marketing and sales to ensure ABM success 
• Selecting a platform and approach to meet the needs of your business 
• Complementing traditional short-term lead generation goals with efforts that drive long-term revenue 

Meté Gumus

Managing Director / GM
FoodServiceDirect.com

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Manufacturers and distributors continue to explore new ways to leverage investments in technology to grow. All commerce is e-commerce - maybe not this year, but soon it will be. Increasing revenue, increasing market share, customer adoption, and adding new channels, are often top growth opportunities. In order to thrive, companies must be able to leverage technology to manage all channels, all commerce, and innovate.

Join Rupesh Agrawal and Tom Flierl of Znode as they discuss the e-commerce technology required to grow and expand a business and prepare for all commerce being transacted digitally. 

Rupesh Agrawal

CEO and Chief Product Officer
Znode

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Tom Flierl

VP of Sales and Marketing
Znode

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Marketplaces are now the fastest growing eCommerce channel. The last two years have seen a rise in marketplace activity as businesses adapt to changing customer preferences for more consumer-like purchasing experiences. From the company that set a customer expectation for two-day shipping to smaller, niche marketplaces, B2B buyers have a vast range of choices to make their purchases. Find out how to make the most of this critical channel, including: 

• Leveraging a marketplace strategy to further accelerate digital maturity 
• Creating compelling digital offerings and accessing new levels of customer insight 
• Managing and controlling your customer experience in a marketplace environment  

Andrej Maihorn

VP Go-to-Market, NA
Spryker Systems

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Matt Riley

Director, eCommerce Marketplaces
Performance Health

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Jonathan Toler

Head of Product & Innovation
Kloeckner Metals

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The days of the simple buyer journey are over: Digital self-service can positively impact the B2B go-to-market strategy as professional buyers expect more control over the B2B sales process, which continues to mimic B2C. These expectations are driving e-commerce strategy so it’s important to know about the right capabilities to succeed.  

In this workshop, we’ll discuss the evolution of the B2B online store and how a self-service model will help you meet buyer expectations and drive long-term revenue growth.  

Key Takeaways:  

•       Transaction-based vs. relationship-based B2B e-commerce. What’s the difference?  

•       How to unlock untapped sales potential after the first purchase 

•       Which features will drive the greatest customer value and adoption rate? 

•       How to leverage customer data along the entire customer journey 

•       What technology do you need to join the world of self-service e-commerce? 

Octavio Perales

Vice President of Delivery
Intershop

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Stretch your minds and your networks during this discussion based session. Share lessons learned and best practices with your peers to add to your list of actionable takeaways to implement on your return. Topics of discussion: 

• Defining customer experience in B2B 
• Making the experience more efficient to operate at the speed of the changing customer 

Bonnie Bergkessel

Director, Digital Marketing & Media
EIS

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With the new norm of privacy “opt-in” interfaces and skyrocketing digital ad prices, B2C retailers and Direct-to-Consumer channels are struggling to find customers. On the other hand, the B2B segment, traditionally viewed as a second mover, has aced future-thinking customer experience and engagement without relying on cookies or opt-in diagnostics.

How was this achieved? And, more importantly, how can this knowledge be leveraged in an ecosystem that is seeing a rising demand for improved customer experience and engagement?

Vinny Maurici

Vice President of Strategy & Data Services
Pivotree

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B2B marketers have an opportunity to lead the charge on customer experience to gain wallet share. A seamless customer experience is critical to continued eCommerce success. How do you connect different groups involved in delighting the customer to enhance the overall experience? How are you consistently delivering quality experiences for customer from an execution standpoint? Find out how panelists are leveraging a customer-centric approach to: 

• Prioritize the growing desire for self-service 
• Create multiple options for buyers to get immediate answers to their questions 
• Make it easy for buyers to move forward by anticipating the next queries and steps with more intuitive options 
• Build integrated campaigns that create an emotional connection about your brand 

Mary Schneeberger

Head of Marketing Practice
Avionos

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Steve Grzymkowski

Sr. Director, e-Business
BDI

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Nicole Alboushi

eCommerce Director
Imperial Supplies

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Coburn Flannery

Director, eBusiness
The Granite Group

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Stretch your minds and your networks during this discussion based session. Share lessons learned and best practices with your peers to add to your list of actionable takeaways to implement on your return. Topics of discussion: 

• Effectively handling content hijacking 
• Distributing, updating and managing your content for brand consistency 

A successful growth strategy is the result of a cohesive, integrated partnership that works together to find solutions. Hear how the NetElixir + UPS partnership helped a global leader in bioprocessing and life science solutions optimize their online strategy and grow their revenue 100% YoY. Together, we created a win-win-win strategy for our client, Antalyia Scientific, by:

•            Identifying Antylia Scientific’s high-value customers and their unique behaviors

•            Protecting high-value and time sensitive shipments

•            Creating an integrated brand strategy

•            Understanding the nuances of different global markets

Udayan Bose

Founder & CEO
NetElixir

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Wendy Kubista

Managing Director of Sales
UPS Central Plains

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With the increased adoption of digital and so much information available, crafting an engaging content strategy has never been more critical for B2B businesses. Hear how digital leaders are feeding their content engines, including: 

• What it takes to get the process started, from resources to infrastructure 
• Evaluating the use of content factories, agencies and more for sustainable and repeatable content 
• Leveraging existing materials, videos and social presence to build a large base of content 
• Extracting knowledge across the business to be a more authoritative resource  
• Utilizing a syndication strategy for partners and internal users to push content out for a consistent brand and product experience, regardless of channel 

Sherrie Bloom

Associate Director of Marketing
Curbell Plastics, Inc.

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Molly Hauer

Director of Marketing
Würth Industry North America

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Satish NS

Director of eCommerce & CX
Tata Consultancy Services

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Stretch your minds and your networks during this discussion based session. Share lessons learned and best practices with your peers to add to your list of actionable takeaways to implement on your return. Topics of discussion:

·       Identifying key stakeholders

·       Earning trust incorporating stakeholders into decisions

·       Avoiding internal friction; how to handle when it does occur

Mary Beth Findlay Sisti

Web Content & Strategy Director, MDX
GE Healthcare

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How Do You Execute Digital Success When Faced With Technical Debt, Mass Data Sprawl, And Limited Resources While The World Is Moving At What Feels Like Light Speed? One Byte At A Time.

Learn how Crescent Electric, partnered with Luminos Labs, has engaged an “out and up” technology strategy to take a page out of the farmers handbook by creating positive yields within the sowing, growing, and harvesting stages of a digital growth transformation.

Jacobi Zakrzewski

VP of IT
Crescent Electric

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Matt Wozniak

Head of Sales
Luminos Labs

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“Organizations best able to manage the pandemic were the ones that embraced digital transformation.” – Forbes (From what article?)

What did these organizations do differently?

They embraced process automation which led to greater supply chain visibility. Automation provided organizations with the agility and flow of information they needed to:

·       Respond to fluctuating demand

·       Secure supply as needed

·       Keep customers informed (and happy)

Companies that embraced automation were less impacted by disruptions stemming from supply chain issues and labor shortages, leaving their staff to focus on providing quality customer service regardless of world events.

Join Conexiom for a private workshop to help you identify what strategic moves your organization can make to see supply chain success, and avoid disruption, in 2022.

Sue Fay

Senior Sales Engineer
Conexiom

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Pierce Smith

Senior Content Lead
Conexiom

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