CommerceTomorrow CommerceTomorrow

Imagine a world where everyone uses AR enabled by AI—what will shopping look like? Will we all have our own AI shopping assistants? Back again by popular demand, Dirk and Kelly find time in between their travels to explore "The Future of Shopping." With AI rapidly evolving into mainstream use, they discuss its significant impact on digital commerce, retail shopping and consumer behavior.

01:10: Anecdotes from the road
02:38: Reviewing ContentCon & going deeper on content management
08:38: Future of Shopping - how end-customers will be shopping digitally in the future
09:35: Digital commerce penetration as a % of overall retail
16:50: Staggering timeline of commerce revenue numbers
18:50: Technology changing consumer behavior - who wants a digital assistant?
21:30: “Headless” and its future Listing out some exciting heads in the coming future:
Desktop (21:38), Social Media (22:39), Super apps (24:38), AR/VR (31:10)
35:30: AI & how it will change shopping
41:20: How will our kids be shopping in 10 years?
44:20: Movies/books, a technology predictor - envision how things will change once everyone simultaneously has access to and sees through AR and enabled by AI

Back by popular demand, we are back with another 1:1 episode where we're going deep on the topic of simplification. Dirk starts by talking through the founding of the commercetools product and original architecture goals, why MACH is mistakenly labeled as "complex" (hint: selection bias at play), how the buyers of commercetools have changed over the years, opinionated vs. unopinionated, the many ways we at commercetools are making our product and composable more generally easier, and where commercetools is positioned in the market.

Timestamps:
00:48: Founding principles of the commercetools product
08:42: Selection bias - why MACH is sometimes labeled as “complex”
10:42: How have the buyers of commercetools changed over time
14:12: Opinionated vs. unopinionated
21:00: How are we as commercetools making enterprise commerce even easier?
28:02: How is Dirk feeling about the position commercetools is in the market right now?

Dirk and Kelly dive into all things B2B commerce with Andy Hoar, one of the world’s foremost experts in B2B commerce. From a modern definition of B2B, to the state of B2B commerce, this episode covers composability in the B2B context, what’s next from Paradigm B2B and a sneak peek into an upcoming digital maturity report from commercetools and Master B2B.

https://www.paradigmb2b.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyhoar/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkhoerig/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellygoetsch/

01:00
Welcome back for a second time Andy Hoar! Personal background/Paradigm B2B Consulting intro

02:28
How does your combine process differ from a traditional Gartner MQ or Wave?

03:45
How Andy evaluates commerce platforms

07:11
“B2B” is a pretty broad term. Define its taxonomy and distinct needs for each?

09:15
What differentiates digitally mature B2B’s from immature B2B’s?

14:15
What's the state of B2B today vs. B2C? What holds back B2Bs as they build out new direct to consumer channels or attempt to modernize?

20:53
Distribution: is connecting distributors w/ the consumer a future model?

23:16
At Elevate you mentioned that all 18 of the 18 vendors you evaluated claimed to be composable. What in your mind equals true composability (in B2B context)?

29:18
What hires do B2B’s need to make (by profile, skills, and temperament) in order to succeed in digital commerce?

35:35
Tell us about your Master B2B classes?

38:47
You work with vendors all the time. What could we do better? Give us your top recommendations

Recorded live and in-person from commercetools’ Elevate - The Global Commerce Summit in Miami Beach, FL, we welcome Paul Hornby, Director of Digital Commerce Experience at The Very Group which boasts a heritage dating back to the late 1800s. Paul speaks of his journey towards composable commerce.

Step inside commercetools with Dirk and Kelly as they sit down with commercetools’ own CFO, Dan Murphy. This is an enlightening discussion around company efficiencies, key metrics to judge the health of a SaaS business, and what metrics to look for at various stages of company growth. Are your customers renewing? What does it cost to acquire a customer? Are the company goals aligned with its employees? How efficient is the sales organization? Is revenue growth the end all be all? Tune in to gain a CFO's perspective on this and more.

00:50: Introduction to commercetools, CFO, Dan Murphy
01:52: What does a CFO do?
04:14: Defining key metrics use to judge the health of a SaaS business (NRR, GRR, CAC + CAC payback, LTV, ARR/employee, Quick ratio, Magic number)
10:42: What is the rule of 40 as a metric and is it outdated?
16:04: Key metrics to look for at various stages of growth - Seed round, IPO, pre-revenue...
20:25: The market for enterprise SaaS has dramatically changed. Dan summarizes the market from ~2020 -> present day. What is valued today vs. a few years ago
26:35: At what point should VC-backed enterprise B2B SaaS aim for profitability?
35:44: When/why do you IPO? Tell us about that process

From a technology-standpoint, MACH is fantastic. However, the commercial-side of MACH can be cumbersome. Live from MACH Haus in New York, Kelly and Piyush Patel (Chief Strategic Business Development Officer of Algolia) go deep on the various industry initiatives to simplify the commercial-side of MACH. We discuss white labeling, BPO, cloud marketplaces, what the MACH Alliance has/can do, and more.

00:35 Welcome to NRF 2024, MACH Haus
02:17 What is NRF?
03:03 How does NRF differ from Shoptalk?
03:50 More about Algolia
04:55 Why the market is adopting MACH
10:03 Making the commercial side of MACH easier
11:45 Vendors and organizational boundaries within an enterprise - tech, business, finance, procurement, legal, etc
12:30 Defining Terms: SI/GSI, ISV, Order Form, MSA, DPA, NDA, SLA
16:00 Straight up purchase: What is it, how it works, when it makes sense, drawbacks
17:35 How do accelerators work?
19:25 AWS & GCP present/sponsoring at MACH Haus. Discussing their marketplaces
21:40 MACH Alliance and streamlining the commercial & legal side
24:25 What can individual vendors do to simplify resell
25:53 ISVs embedding other ISVs
26:31 Vendor consolidation
28:24 Let's say you're a retailer and you use an SI. Does that make it easier? BPO
31:35 What's the hope for the future?
34:50 Kelly’s challenge to the MACH Alliance