Challenge: A major security solutions and products provider with a strong distribution network experienced eCommerce sales growth at over 30% year-over-year and wanted to know if they were beating, keeping up with, or behind the growth now experienced in the eCommerce market. They wanted to understand the true market potential of the online channel (key market segments, the opportunity they offer, and the purchase occasions) and establish a strategy that proactively grows the eCommerce business, while protecting the business they have through their traditional channel.

Assessment: Utilizing a disruption diagnostic framework methodology and market analysis, Blue Canyon discovered that the client had not been keeping up with market growth and, in fact, had lost 11% share in one of its divisions. When we expanded the analysis, and dug deeper into the data, we realized that business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce in the security solutions market was growing faster than expected. eCommerce sales were expected to grow to 50% of the overall security solutions market by 2020, and more than 70% of the growth in eCommerce sales would result in a shift of sales from traditional channels.

Then, Blue Canyon examined the customer buying process and gained a deeper understanding of B2B buyers. A key finding revealed that more and more B2B customers are going online to discover and evaluate products and services, and that online content introduces new issues and influences customer purchase decisions in several ways. One of the issues is the ability for end customers to compare prices, which then inspires them to have price discussions and negotiate concessions with offline dealers and wholesalers.

Strategic Solution: Recognizing the potential risk and opportunity inherent in the expected growth of eCommerce, Blue Canyon proposed a three-part strategy that focused on creating processes and capabilities needed to better facilitate information flow and create world-class customer experiences across offline and online channels, while protecting margins and mitigating channel conflict. The strategy was presented in tandem with a portrait of success, an implementation framework and timeline that outlines five critical steps needed to execute the strategy, and a framework for benchmarking the steps and setting internal targets.

Result: With the implementation of Blue Canyon’s action plans, the client team is expected to realize $500MM+ in annual revenue from the eCommerce channel. Blue Canyon estimates 15-25% of the revenue will result from incremental new sales, not just a shift between channels.