B2B Software Defined: How is it Different from other Software?

In general, B2B software is large-scale software that aims to solve the problems of an entire business.   Therefore, the focus is not on the individual user, but on the entire enterprise organization.  

What is a B2B company?

B2B companies are enterprises that sell things that other businesses need.  This is in contrast to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. They sell directly to individual customers.  Furthermore, B2B is in contrast to consumer-to-business (C2B) business. C2B is when consumers sell things to business.

B2B companies have an entirely different target audience. Notably, they offer materials, goods, services that other businesses need to operate.

B2B buying scenarios are complex and customized

In B2C, the customer experience is one too many. One consumer making a decision based on many different choices. Most consumers buy in the same way and follow the same types of processes.

However, the B2B buying experience is complex. Moreover, it varies widely by industry, product, company size, and operation.

The B2B buyer is often not really the buyer at all, but a procurement expert hired to execute a previously negotiated contract. Those contracts contain specific pricing and promotion agreements for each business customer.

Therefore, in B2B, the relationship is many to many; many people, many channels, many products, and many different contractual agreements.

Now that we understand the B2B enterprise, we can look at the B2B software side.   B2B companies are large scale organizations, so it follows that B2B software is large-scale software.   However, beyond just the size of the software, B2B software typically refers to software that provides mission critical solutions to the entire or majority of the business organization.

This large-scale software allows for several different user roles, and the roles

In his book Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, software developer and Martin Fowler divides the major activities of B2B software into two sections:

• The display, manipulation, and storage of large amounts of complex data.
• The support and/or automation of business processes that rely on this data.

Characteristics of B2B Software

Although there is no single, widely accepted list of B2B software characteristics, generally they include performance, scalability, and robustness. Furthermore, B2B software typically has interfaces to other enterprise software and is centrally managed (a single admin page, for example).

Examples of B2B software provide business-oriented tools, such as online shopping, and online payment processing, interactive product catalogue, automated billing systems, security, Business Process Management, enterprise content management, IT Service Management, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, project management, collaboration, human resource management, manufacturing, occupational health and safety, enterprise application integration, and enterprise forms automation.

Categories of B2B software

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a product domain-focused software solution that manages and integrates all facets of business. SAP AG (SAP), Salesforce.com (CRM), Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Workday (WDAY), and NetSuite (N) are the leading players in ERP space.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a customer domain focused software solution. It aids better understanding of the customer, leading to customer retention and excellent customer service. CRM increases the organization’s profits. The CRM market is highly concentrated. The top five vendors accounted for 50% of CRM software revenue in 2013.

Supply chain management (SCM) enables a firm to manage various aspects of its value chain. It starts from the flow of raw materials into the firm to the delivery of finished products and services. Organizations use SCM to drive inventory optimization and enhance the speed of transactions. SCM leads to increased revenues by satisfying customer demands.

Order management software (OMS) manage sales order processing. An OMS application typically manages processes that involve order entry, customer credit validation, pricing, promotions, inventory allocation, invoice generation, sales commissions, and sales history.

An example of OMS software is OrderJump.