They hired 3 SIs and the data was still broken

Episode 25 - They hired 3 SIs and the data was still broken

Matt: Welcome to Data vs. Commerce, where we explore the messy middle between database and doorstep. I'm Matt Johnson.

Floyd: And I'm Floyd Blaikie. Let's dig in.

Floyd: Gentlemen, you are freshly back from Indianapolis, that known vacation destination. I'm a little envious I did not get invited to this event. I'm gearing up for the next one, but I must say that I don't look jet-lagged and beleaguered by travel, so I guess that is the bonus.

You are just at B2B eCommerce World, and I am dying to know, what was it like? What were you hearing on the floor? What did you bring back in your brains from this event? Matt, we'll start with you because your name's on the marquee, so you're allowed.

Matt Johnson: Yeah. Thanks, Floyd. If we appear a little tired or we're tripping over our words, it's because we spent two and a half very packed days talking to industry leaders, practitioners who are in active project mode. And it was a lot going on. And I would say, just overall one of the funnest, most engaged events that I've been to in a very long time.

So really, great job by the leadership at B2BEA. They've put together a really phenomenal community in a very short amount of time, I might add. This is their second B2B eCommerce World Americas event. We didn't go to the last one. It was in Scottsdale last year. But when we talked to peers in the industry and we talked to customers who went, it was obvious, like, why were we not there?

We were missing out big time. So we went and it lived up to the hype, I would say. And very few things do these days. But in terms of the people and the experience, starting from connecting with peers and practitioners online to getting face-to-face, spending quality time with the folks that we work with, it was great time.

So, yeah, lots more to say. A lot. This is an exciting time in B2B commerce in general, and you can definitely feel that energy across the hundreds of people that were in that room.

Floyd: Nice. I thought B2B was boring. Just kidding. Don't kick me off the podcast. I spent my career in B2B. I love it. Don't hurt me. Ryan...

Matt Johnson: Was nothing boring about this conference. They had an IndyCar wrapped up in their logo. I mean, come on, start your engines. Everybody's pumped.

Floyd: Oh, that rules. Ryan, what was your favorite part?

Ryan Smith: Well, I was gonna say, if I'm being honest, the beginning for me was really boring, but that's because I checked into the wrong hotel originally. But once I got that figured out and got to where the actual conference was, it was really exciting to see the setup. From a sales point of view, there was some stuff that I really liked that they did at this conference that was different from other ones.

One was that they had an app that we could connect with people, the practitioners that were going to be there, and try to set up meetings when we were on site. That is fantastic. You could either show interest to somebody and they could reciprocate that, and then you could book a meeting or you could just meeting request.

So from a sales point of view, I really enjoyed that.

Floyd: Wait, is that like Tinder for business? That's what it sounds like.

Ryan Smith: That's exactly what it...

Matt Johnson: 100%, yeah. And the other cool thing about that app, I might say, is that B2B eCommerce Association drinks their own medicine, right? Which is, it was an AI-driven app. So it was doing AI matching based on how you described yourself and your company. And so that was pretty slick.

Floyd: Neat.

Ryan Smith: Another thing that they did differently at this one was typically on our name badges, they also have the company that you represent. They eliminated that, and I heard some mixed feelings about that. A lot of salespeople wanna know what company the other people are for, but this is a networking event, and when you sit down at a lunch table with people that you don't know and you can't see the company they're from, you have no choice but to network with these people.

So I think I give them a big check mark for that. The networking, there was a lot more of it going on at this event. It's also nice if I put my business ownership cap on. If I work for a big company like Uline and Grainger or Micron, when you walk down the aisle with a bunch of salespeople in it, I think sometimes you feel a little bit like fresh meat with everybody running up to you.

So it's nice for them, too, to be a little more incognito, not have to flip their name badge around to walk through there. So I thought that was a really good idea. And the feeling I got from this was much more of a community feel. For whatever reason, the e-commerce peer-to-peer relationships, the partnerships around e-commerce seem to be more abundant, I guess, more natural.

I'm not sure why it's like that, but I don't know, maybe if the Matts wanna chime in on that if they felt that as well too.

Matt Johnson: 'Cause this is hard work and you gotta support each other.

Matt Fowler: Yeah, I would definitely echo a lot of what Ryan said. And then the other thing that struck me was that I've been to a lot of shows, right? We all have. And a lot of times there's a room with a ton of vendors, and then people are trickling through in and out. I felt like this show did a really good job of being almost seeming selective with the vendors that are in the room, making sure that it's only people that leaders would actually wanna talk to.

Making sure that it's companies that kind of have plans, that know what they're doing. And a lot of our partners were there. There were some of our competitors there as well. But it wasn't just random vendors that would write a check, which sometimes you kind of feel like.

And it was a good mix of us solution providers trying to figure out problems, and then actual e-commerce people with challenges that wanted to kind of have those deeper conversations. And since there wasn't a thousand different booths, if you will, to go to, you were actually able to sit down and have a ten, fifteen-minute conversation versus tossing a business card as you run by.

Floyd: Only very top-tier vendors like Pivotree get to go to this event is what you're saying?

Matt Johnson: Well, it was one of those things too where I caught myself saying this a couple times where I was talking to a practitioner and they were describing some of the things they were working on and I said, "It doesn't matter what your roadmap looks like for '27, the right people are in this room to help you."

So whether that was system integrators like us or search console, you had order management companies there, automation. You had AI-driven commerce solutions, PIM, MDM. You had people there who could support you no matter what the next thing was on your...

Floyd: I'm hearing about what you saw, and what you felt, and what you experienced. Tell me about what you heard. What were people talking about on the floor and in the workshops and in the keynotes?

Matt Johnson: I'll let these guys chime in. I'd love to hear their unique perspectives. But one thing I'll just say overall, we had a tremendous amount of traffic to our table. In particular, we had a lot of meetings either pre-scheduled or that just happened on the fly at the event. So we had a lot of attention, and I'll just use that as a preface to kind of say like, well, that might...

There's something to that because there was sort of this combination of what was being talked about by actual practitioners on stage, what the message was from other industry experts, and what we happen to do really well.

Matt Fowler: I think one of the conversations that I kept reoccurring, in a lot of these shows in the past eight months, AI's been talked about. A lot of people were putting up, "Here are the guardrails we're gonna have, and here's how we're not gonna use it, and here's all of these things."

And this was the first time where I was having conversations with people where it was talking about how we're going to use it, what we want it to do, where we can actually take it. It was less of a, "Yeah, we're not really gonna get into that right now," and more of a, "We've gotta get into this yesterday."

And we realize we're behind the eight ball a little bit, and everybody felt that way. It feels a little bit better when everyone feels they're behind because there's not someone like, oh, I'm... You can't find the person you're lagging behind. But also just understanding, once they have these plans, they're realizing they need data and they need it organized because AI's not gonna work without it.

And that was kind of a reoccurring theme that I kept hearing, was that people are getting their data ready so that the AI can actually start using it and making meaningful changes as opposed to just chunking through data that's not any good to begin with.

Ryan Smith: Yeah, I think to Matt's point, and I agree with everything that he said there, earlier in the year, a lot of people were like, "Hey, I'm behind. Do we wanna get AI involved? We're part of this digital transformation journey. We don't even know where to start." So people would say, "Hey, maybe you start here, maybe you start there."

People would try different things. They would buy tools to do things. But now at this, they had started certain parts of their digital transformation and realized that because the data wasn't where it needed to be in terms of quality, that they had to backtrack. Something wasn't working or even, I met a couple practitioners that had hired more than three SIs and they weren't getting to where they needed to be, and it all started because those SIs didn't handle the data part of it, right?

Something that Pivotree does specialize in. But that's definitely the message, that people are now putting shovels in the ground. It's not just, "Hey, where do we start? Let's theorize about this." It's, "We're doing this. We're budgeted. Let's hear some thought leadership on what the best practices are for this."

And that's another reason why I think there was so much more networking going on, 'cause people were saying, "Okay, we're doing this now. Who are you hiring? Where are you starting? What have you seen so far in your journey?" And it's cool to see that trend in the right direction.

Floyd: It sounds like there's a growing body of evidence now, right? We've been to a few events in the last year or so where I think the vibe has been very much, "Oh, we know this thing is coming. We don't know where to put our dollars next. We don't know what to do to get ready. We don't know what to buy, who to talk to."

But it sounds like at this event, people had done some stuff and they were talking about what worked and what didn't. What was the most compelling story, I guess, you heard on the floor from a company that's been doing it right.

Matt Johnson: Yeah, I would say part of the reason why it's a little bit different vibe here is that it really starts with the culture that these companies are creating. And B2B e-commerce has always been one of those things, like it was almost like a luxury, like a nice to have. And we're starting to see a big shift in the way that I think leadership, executive leadership at these businesses are thinking about what needs to happen.

Because to your point, Floyd, we're starting to see the Fastenals of the world doing 60% plus revenue online. And these initiatives that in the past had struggled to gain traction, we're starting to see executive sponsorship.

And so leadership teams are taking things differently, or approaching things differently today. But one of the things that is sort of like this common theme that we consistently came across was the concept of governance and really the people side of data management. Because it all came back to, yes, data is important.

I think that message, things that myself and other people in the industry have been saying for decades, is finally getting across. But the question now turns to, okay, well, data, yes, but I got these tools that are out there. I'm walking through the aisle. I'm like, "Look at these great tools, AI enrichment, data management."

But still the number one problem in organizations is people, and governance, and process, and buy-in. And so whether that is governance and process around something as specific as data management, catalog management, or if it is connecting a legacy sales organization to a digital experience, these are areas where businesses are still struggling to figure it out, and they need the right experts who can help them come in and solve that and at least put together a logical roadmap.

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Ryan Smith: Yeah, I think one thing that I saw from some of the practitioners was a step back in the build versus buy model, where they originally thought, "Hey, we're just gonna do this internally. We'll figure it out. We've got the intelligence." They didn't understand some of the intricacies that are associated with re-platforming or the best way to govern and set up the data, and that was a shift that I saw.

They looked at it, they put this team together, and they realized, "You know what? It didn't work out the way we thought. We need some thought leadership. We need some best practices. We need some understanding to come in." And then you have the different degrees of that. They want, are we arm in arm lockstep with an SI that we've hired that's building this roadmap out for us, and they're gonna do all the work?

Or are we just sort of handholding where they're giving us that thought leadership and telling us how to strategize and what work to do first so that we're not undoing work later on in our digital journey that we set up improperly in phase one, if you will. That was something that was common amongst the people that seemed to be confident in what they were doing now and felt like they were on the right track.

Matt Fowler: And I think we were seeing different people caring about data. Historically, as we've kind of talked to people, data's an IT problem. IT deals with that. We just plug it in, they make it work. And it seems like we're bringing a lot more people into the conversation. We're getting marketing people, we're getting e-com people, we're getting executive leadership that are all of a sudden getting behind the fact that, quote unquote, "the boring data side of it" is actually a company challenge.

And when we all can work together to make sure that it's clean, but then we can use it right. They're getting feedback from more and more departments, if you will. And so more and more people are interested in making sure that the data is correct. And I think that was probably one of the more positive things that I was hearing, was that no one's kind of in the back room anymore, just plugging away.

It's become a company-wide discussion, and I think that's really positive in the things that people are building.

Ryan Smith: And the companies that are doing it right are making somebody own the data internally. That's a big part of it, right? A lot of companies that we speak with, everybody knows the problems they have, but nobody's really taking the lead to say, "Okay, this is gonna fall under me now or our team now. We're gonna own this and we're gonna be able to speak to it." So that was a big change I saw too.

Floyd: I'm excited that more people are getting interested in data. That's great news if you happen to host a podcast that's about data and commerce specifically. That's just... Okay, let's veer away from the important topics for a second. I gotta know, I gotta ask, who had the coolest booth? Give some booth shout-outs.

What'd I miss? Were there puppies? Tell me about it.

Ryan Smith: Well, I can say one thing for sure, that everybody that came by our booth said we had the best giveaway, 'cause we had three large Lego sets to give away. So congratulations to the winners of those. I also wanna say a shout-out to the awards ceremony at the end. The Indiana Roof Ballroom was an incredible venue.

We were sitting in an area that made it look like you were sitting outside. They had twinkling stars and shooting stars on the rooftop, and it was amazing. And a shout-out to all the winners of all the different awards that night too.

Floyd: Knak.com/demo

Matt Johnson: And I can't say who had the best booth, Floyd, other than to mention the fact that 80% of the vendors on that floor broke all of the rules about booths. We had the best giveaway, but we had small banners, and that's because Floyd, you know, played by the rules...

Floyd: I did.

Matt Johnson: The right size banners.

But I would say there were some really good organizations there that we love and respect. Some of our partners, like Akeneo and Oro, who we hosted a really amazing dinner with, by the way. Packed out a big room at Harry & Izzy's, where we actually had so many people they had to pull up chairs at the last minute.

So that was a really fun dinner.

Ryan Smith: Our partners over at Inriver too, and they had a nice dinner that Matt Fowler was able to attend. How did that go, Matt?

Matt Fowler: That was great. They put us in a back room. It felt like I was in an old-timey ballroom with just a... or dining room, I mean, with a giant dining room with a fireplace at the end of it, which was really solid, right there. And we heard from the locals, 'cause we had a couple of people come in that were from Indy, and they were like, "This is brand new. This is so cool." So it was a really solid spot for sure, and some interesting conversations came from that as well.

Ryan Smith: I will say too, as far as the booths are concerned, Floyd, there was one company that brought an espresso machine and put it at their booth.

Floyd: Oh...

Matt Fowler: That was what I was gonna say, was that was the one that caught my eye. It was right by the front door too, so you walk in, you're like, "Ah, my day just got better."

Floyd: Yeah, I would have to defect to that company, I think, for the duration, to get that espresso. Okay, let's look into the future. Sounds like we had a great time at B2B eCommerce World. Big props to the organizers and the association. Sounds like we'll probably go back next year.

So if you could predict what the big topics of conversation are gonna be next year, let's state them into the record, and then we'll check and see how right you were.

Matt Johnson: It's gonna be AI and culture and operationalizing it, right? Because to these guys' point, we're sort of past the pilot phase. We're sort of past the dating phase of AI, and we're gonna have to get married here as an industry, and what does that look like? It's gonna require a heck of a lot of change management, and so I'm excited to continue those kind of conversations.

We oftentimes come in, we work with our clients and we're doing sort of a lot of cleanup work, or we're helping to set up a solution or manage a solution. And the very best clients that we work with bring us into those executive boardrooms and talk about how does this impact the business, and where do we need to go?

Ryan Smith: Yeah, I would say to add to the AI, and I agree with you that I think change management will be a big topic. I think the fall off of tribal knowledge from retirees will be a big topic. I also see a world where, like a lot of these are siloed events, right? This event's about e-commerce, this event's about PIM, this event's about AI, where it starts to be looked at holistically across all platforms, like full digital transformation.

Because the companies that are looking at it that way are the ones that are progressing, I would say, with best practices in mind, where everybody's communicating, the C-suite understands what the business users are looking for, and middle management is aware, and they're fighting for the budget for the business users to re-platform. And they need to understand that whole workflow across the organization and putting them in the right order of change, because to do it all at once would be an absolute nightmare and super costly.

But I think there's a world where that starts to happen a little bit more, where you see instead of just e-commerce being at that event, you've got maybe a data steward, e-commerce, maybe somebody from the PIM department or MDM department. At least maybe, fingers crossed, that's where I hope it goes.

Floyd: Right on.

Matt Fowler: And I think one thing, to take it a step further with all of this, is I don't know that AI itself is gonna be the center of attention. I think that it's gonna become an assumption. I think it's gonna move very quickly from a shiny new thing to a base level feature that everyone has to have, and that's not what we're gonna be talking about.

We're gonna be talking about the results. What is it actually doing? It's not just, "Hey, we've got a machine that, we're using AI," and then you move on from it. I think that people are gonna stop focusing on that and start focusing on what they're actually accomplishing, because it's just gonna be assumed that AI did a bunch of it.

There's a lot of things it's really good at, and there's a lot of things that humans are really good at, and mixing them together. I think that blend is gonna be what people are thinking about, not just saying AI anymore. And I think that's gonna be what we hear in the next year.

Ryan Smith: Yeah, and how did you get more lift from where you started with AI to where you are now? I think that's an excellent point, Matt.

Floyd: The proof. Well, Matt. Ryan, are you willing to change your name to Matt? I feel like that would be a nice gimmick for the booth.

Ryan Smith: Matt cubed? That's heavy. That's a lot. I don't know if...

Floyd: And then we can get a welcome mat and put it in front of the booth?

Ryan Smith: Oh...

Matt Johnson: The question is, Ryan, would you be willing to shave your head?

Ryan Smith: Yeah.

I would do anything for our clients if the clients wanted me...

Floyd: All right. That's a great place to leave it. Thank you all so much, and looking forward to this event next year. Looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta, and we'll talk about that, too. So we'll be back next week with more live event content. Can't wait.

Matt Fowler: Thanks for having us, y'all.

Matt Johnson: Thanks.

Floyd: Bye.

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