The first Industrial Distribution Summit 2019 (IDS 2019), the eCommerce conference held exclusively for the Industrial Distributors, came to a close in Cleveland on Tuesday (March 26) evening after a day full of inspiring keynote presentations, informative breakout sessions, and engaging networking opportunities. Thank you for joining us and making IDS 2019 a special experience.
We had always wanted to host a conference domestically to build the DCKAP ecosystem. In the last 3+ years or so, we had talked about it many times and even took initiatives, but despite our grand intentions, we never went about executing it. And finally, our dream came true with IDS in 2019.
IDS 2019, held at Hilton Cleveland Downtown, brought together eCommerce and Industrial Distribution’s leading thought leaders, executives, and solution providers to help advance digital capability and it was a great success.
Now that it’s all over let’s take a look back at some of the highlights!
Bill Boronkay was the official Master of Ceremony, and he helped to represent the conference as a whole while keeping the event on schedule and keeping the audience engaged.
A Quick Glimpse of IDS 2019
The Keynote – Why Industrial Distribution Summit?
IDS 2019 featured a number of speakers who shared their insights and best practices for leading the charge in B2B eCommerce, with particular reference to Industrial Distributors. Karthik Chidambaram, Founder & CEO of DCKAP, shared his vision for driving deeper engagement between Industrial Distributors and their customers through digital. The keynote provided a peek into DCKAP’s service and product (Productimize, DCKAP Integrator, and QA Touch) offerings. The launch of DCKAP PIM, the Product Information System, was also announced in the keynote address. Supported by data and statistics, the keynote provided deep insights into B2B eCommerce like how industrial distributors are sourcing vendors, leveraging data to launch new products, providing customers the low effort experience, and a more pragmatic approach to staying on top of the online business.
Post the keynote, Karthik had a one-to-one conversation with the owner of Technico to discuss the common challenges faced by Industrial distributors, using websites as a lead generation channel, and how Technico leveraged eCommerce and ERP systems to improve their business and compete with Amazon.
Grow Revenue at Every Customer Touchpoint
There was a session by Adam Ellis, CEO of Bezlio. The essence of the session was that if mobile and non-desk teams were empowered with ERP data in real-time, on a mobile device, they would be enabled to grow revenue at every customer touchpoint.
After this session, we had a much needed 30-minute networking break.
Exceeding B2B customers’ eCommerce needs
Next, we had a BigCommerce session by Sachin Wadhawan, Director of Technology Partnerships at BigCommerce. It was an engaging presentation on the growth of B2B eCommerce and what is driving this growth, as well as the B2B buying behavior, key elements critical for eCommerce success, eCommerce technology spectrum, the ecosystem of partner solutions, and how BigCommerce serves all stages of merchant growth, B2B mobiles.
Marketing Insights for Digital Distributors
The session on Marketing Insights was presented by Tamizh Selvan, Director of Marketing at DCKAP. The gist of the session was to inform and educate distributors on the drivers of online marketing – Website, SEO, Content, Email Marketing, Landing Pages, and Google Analytics. This session was informative and well received.
A mixture of mouth-watering food is enough to make someone’s day.
Digital Transformation of Distributors
A sumptuous lunch break and a quick group picture (for memory’s sake) was followed by Praveen Venugopal’s session on the challenges faced by the distributors in this day and age, and the key drivers to overcome this challenge. Praveen, eCommerce technologist at DCKAP, also highlighted the importance of integrating back end and front end solutions, the integration touch points, and how DCKAP Integrator (Cloras) as a fully integrated eCommerce middleware connects any application to any ERP. After the session, there was an in-flow of questions on DCKAP Integrator.
Following this was a session by Brady Behrman, CEO and Founding Partner of PunchOut2Go, on eProcurement – its evolution and providers, B2B eProcurement market overview, punchout catalogs, and how PunchOut2Go gateway simplifies the PunchOut conversation between the seller’s store and the buyer’s eProcurement system. Brady was a natural presenter, and the message was informative and well-received by the distributor community.
The final session was a panel discussion on eCommerce Growth strategy, where Sachin Wadhawan, Brady Behrman and Spenser Staschiak, Sr. Manager of Digital Marketing and Web at The Oneida Group, participated and Karthik Chidambaram moderated.
Afterwards, it was a cocktail hour, and it was great to see the community hanging around, networking, and generally having a good time.
This is a first step forward to building an ecosystem or community. Thank you to our Platinum Sponsors – BigCommerce, Bezlio, and Gold Sponsors – Punchout2Go and Content4Commerce.
We could not have reached this level of success without participation from the Industrial Distribution community.
And that’s a wrap! The session presentations and videos are available at IDS.
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