Bringing water-focused products and solutions to merchants globally via eCommerce proved to be a significant achievement for Orbia Building & Infrastructure (Wavin), a leading manufacturer specializing in products and solutions for safer drinking water supply, sanitation and urban water resilience. At the helm of this evolution is composable commerce, the modern technology that empowered the manufacturer to digitize commerce for the first time and rapidly expand online purchasing across 35 countries.
Back in the 1950s in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Orbia Wavin’s company founder Johan Keller devised a groundbreaking solution to combat iron pipe corrosion and loss of water: The world’s first plastic pressure pipes designed for potable water. Initially focused on plastic pipe production, the manufacturer cultivated an unrivaled reputation for continuous innovation and the highest standards. This commitment led to a remarkable series of world’s firsts, ranging from low-noise plumbing solutions to pioneering plastic push-fit systems for potable water. Unsurprisingly, the company expanded fast across Europe and beyond.
Since the 1970s, the manufacturer has gone through multiple waves of mergers and acquisitions, ultimately being acquired by Orbia in 2012 to become Orbia Wavin, a company driven to advance life around the world by expanding access to health and wellness, reinventing the future of cities and homes, and more.
Catering to wholesalers, distributors and merchant retailers, Orbia Wavin has grown globally and now serves more than 80 countries. Similar to many decades-long B2B organizations, the company’s success has traditionally stemmed from highly personalized one-to-one relationships between field salespeople and long-term customers. As valuable as this model continues to be, Orbia Wavin recognizes that moving toward digital commerce has become paramount to meeting the ever-rising expectations of B2B buyers.
While the manufacturer had formulated a digital strategy before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the prolonged lockdowns, along with the hire of a Digital Director, acted as catalysts to accelerate the digitization process. Moreover, it became imperative for the company to standardize product information and alleviate the complexities associated with highly customized pricing negotiated by sales representatives, which put additional strains on internal efficiency and scalability. Plus, meeting buyer expectations for online product discovery and purchasing was critical for the company’s growth ambitions.
Venturing into digitizing commerce for the first time, selecting a vendor with modern and flexible technology was crucial for Orbia Wavin to undertake commerce digitization at its own pace. This was particularly relevant given the company’s organizational and technological complexity — a result of not only its many mergers and acquisitions but also of the company’s growth — as well as the need to tackle internal change management in a gradual and thoughtful manner.
This is how Orbia Wavin’s journey into eCommerce with composable technology began.
Turning the tap on eCommerce: A digital purchasing flow for merchants
One of the advantages of embarking on a digitization process for the first time is the ability to choose modern technology instead of being bogged down by legacy systems. This is exactly the path Orbia Wavin decided to take: By requiring the most modern commerce tech available today, composable commerce, the manufacturer selected commercetools for its core commerce platform. Thanks to the inherently modular, easy-to-integrate and cloud-native nature of composable technology, the company was able to build an eCommerce system in a step-by-step fashion, by first creating a pilot webshop for one of its most important markets.
Following a successful proof-of-concept (POC) project, Orbia Wavin digitized its extensive product catalog and implemented a cart and checkout solution using commercetools’ APIs, and built a dedicated webshop for merchants, such as retailers selling home improvement products and solutions. Upon completing this first milestone, which took about eight months, the company proceeded to localize webshops to serve 35 markets across Europe, Latin America and APAC, delivering an average of 1.5 localized webshops per month over the course of two years.
We’ve grown from one webshop to 35 in a short period of time, especially considering that the company was a first-timer in eCommerce. Once we got the core webshop in place, it was a much easier process to get them localized and ready to be used by our customers.
Global Product Manager - Digital Ordering, Orbia Building & Infrastructure (Wavin)
The significance of standardizing product information cannot be emphasized enough. With an extensive catalog boasting multiple variants, sizes and configurations, the very nature of Orbia Wavin’s products posed a challenge in transitioning to the digital world. With commercetools’ Product Catalog, the company was able to create one source of truth for all product information. This standardization of product information was particularly crucial given the necessity to interface with seven SAP ERP systems.
We currently have seven ERP systems from SAP inherited from our history of mergers and acquisitions. While we plan to unify these systems in the long run, right now this is the reality we have to deal with, and this has an impact on systems and operations. As a first step, having product information standardized was a critical milestone in digitizing commerce. With commercetools, the integration was very straightforward, which helped us to not only integrate with our ERP landscape but also enabled us to pursue our global and digital growth strategy.
Global Product Manager - Digital Ordering, Orbia Building & Infrastructure (Wavin)
In addition to commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B, the company also leveraged Contentstack’s CMS and is currently in the process of implementing Akeneo’s PIM (product information management) system. All of these best-of-breed components operate within a cloud-native architecture powered by Google Cloud.
As regionally based merchant webshops around the world become more sophisticated, the manufacturer has received positive customer feedback on its digital capabilities, with the ability to autonomously order products 24/7 being a notable improvement. Reordering has also become highly popular among customers, thanks to its speed and simplicity. Additionally, parts of the order flow have been made transparent, allowing Orbia Wavin’s teams to visualize order information in real-time and ensure a smooth post-order process.
Change management in the pipeline
Orbia Wavin’s leadership took the route of a phased change management approach given the complexity of its organizational structure and the nuances of regional processes. One notable area where the company has witnessed improvement since implementing eCommerce for merchants is a standardized, digitized and self-service presence. Not only does this increase operational efficiencies, such as cutting down on ordering errors, but it also frees up time for sales reps to act as consultants and advisors for clients.
Harnessing digital commerce has also become more streamlined as different roles across the organization have clearer responsibilities and enhanced collaboration. Business users, such as marketers and content managers, currently use the CMS system independently from developers. The eCommerce team focuses on the core commerce platform powered by commercetools while product managers are primarily responsible for using the PIM.
Teams collaborate across functions, each empowered in their respective area, making it easier for teams in a global company with over 12,000 employees to work together. Plus, the seamlessness of integration among these systems means that it’s not only easier to collaborate with all the relevant departments but also ensures that the right people have the right information in the right tools as well as avoiding data silos.
Waves of growth: New markets, new customer groups, new channels
Since implementation, Orbia Wavin has proven that selling via digital commerce channels works for merchants. A reliable, secure, scalable and cost-effective foundation for B2B commerce has enabled the company to not only deliver a basic purchasing flow but also to provide more sophisticated buyer journeys online. As a result, the company has expanded its online presence and increased its share of revenue generated through digital channels, amassing a 9-digit turnover for 2023 alone, which helped prove the value of eCommerce for the entire organization.
Today, the company is looking ahead: In addition to expanding its digital footprint beyond merchants, Orbia Wavin is setting its sights on other customer groups, including wholesalers and distributors. Moreover, the manufacturer aims to leverage the hyper-personalization that makes it stand apart from competitors and replicate this approach in the digital space.
The manufacturer also plans to leverage its multiple digital channels and consolidate them into a unified commerce platform. For instance, the company supports EDI (electronic data interchange) and OCR (optical character recognition). For instance, the company is considering WhatsApp, a popular chat app in Latin America, as a way to deliver PDF files for automated ordering using OCR technology. What’s more, the company’s team is leveraging its existing relationship with Google by experimenting with AI tools to standardize and map product codes, potentially optimizing the efficiency of digital channels in the years to come.
As we plan to have 60% of global sales being digital, Orbia Wavin is now poised to keep up with the pace of change thanks to composable commerce. From creating personalized journeys and integrating with a multitude of systems to rolling out eCommerce internationally, we now have the flexibility and scalability our business needs.
Global Product Manager - Digital Ordering, Orbia Building & Infrastructure (Wavin)
Showing an unwavering commitment to a digital future while being mindful of the organizational intricacies is a top priority for Orbia Wavin. After all, buyer expectations continue to rise and internal efficiencies are crucial for success. With the innovative spirit that has defined the manufacturer since its inception, in addition to the flexible digital foundation of composability, the company is now poised for the next phases of its digital transformation.
Dive deeper into how B2B organizations are leveraging composable commerce with the white paper Pivotal Trends and Predictions in B2B Digital Commerce in 2024.
Manuela Marques Tchoe is a Content Writer at commercetools. She was a Content and Product Marketing Director at conversational commerce provider tyntec. She has written content in partnership with Facebook, Rakuten Viber and other social media platforms.