Where B2B needs automation most — and how to get it right

The B2B sector is at a critical inflection point: Rising operating costs, unpredictable supply chains and increasingly complex buying cycles. At the same time, B2B buyers expect more precision, personalization and responsiveness. 

In this challenging environment, automation is the difference between businesses that scale and businesses that stall. But automation is not a single button to press or a “set-it-and-forget-it” solution. Done poorly, it can create new inefficiencies and rigidities. Done well, it unlocks agility, speed and resilience.

The key challenge for B2B leaders is not deciding whether to automate — that much is clear. The challenge is defining what to automate and how to architect automation for enterprise scale and longevity.

B2B workflows have always been complex. Unlike B2C transactions, where the path to purchase is relatively standardized, B2B commerce involves multi-layered processes: Approvals, negotiated contracts, recurring orders, specialized fulfillment and cross-functional collaboration.

These processes often live across fragmented systems:

• ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for finance and operations.

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for sales and service.

• CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) for complex quoting. 

• OMS (Order Management System) for order processing.

• WMS (Warehouse Management System) for supply chain and fulfillment. 

While each of these tools is valuable, they create silos. Manual handoffs between them, such as rekeying data or exporting files, may slow down growth and introduce costly errors.

Historically, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) was the automation solution used by manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors. In this solution, they exchanged CSV files or batch uploads overnight to synchronize data. But in today’s environment, where buyers expect real-time responses and personalized experiences, this type of static, one-directional automation no longer scales.

B2B buyers themselves are driving the urgency. According to McKinsey, over 70% of B2B decision-makers now expect digital self-service or remote interactions for ordering and reordering. They want personalized pricing, contract terms tailored to their accounts, and inventory visibility on demand. To deliver this level of precision at scale, B2B organizations must automate intelligently.

The most impactful automation initiatives directly connect to revenue, customer experience and operational scalability. Here are the areas where B2B automation delivers the greatest return — and how commercetools helps:

1. Quote-to-cash workflows

Few processes are as central to B2B growth as quote-to-cash. From pricing approvals to invoice reconciliation, every delay in this chain impacts revenue realization.

Automation can:

• Generate quotes automatically based on customer history and configured product rules.

• Route approvals instantly to the right decision-makers with pre-set thresholds.

• Reconcile invoices with ERP data to reduce errors and disputes.

When integrated with CRM and ERP systems, automated quote-to-cash reduces cycle time, increases win rates, and frees up sales teams to focus on strategic selling rather than administrative tasks.

commercetools’ Quote Management supports the automation of the dynamic quoting process between buyers and sellers without friction, including creating, editing and renegotiating quotes from start to finish. 

2. Catalog and product data management

B2B sellers often manage vast catalogs with thousands of SKUs, each with unique specifications, compliance requirements and channel variations. Keeping this data accurate and synchronized is a massive challenge.

Automation enables:

• Real-time synchronization of SKUs, attributes and documentation across multiple sales channels.

• Auto-enrichment of product data from centralized product information management (PIM) systems.

• Faster onboarding of new products without bottlenecks in data entry.

The result: Fewer errors, less manual rework and a more consistent buyer experience.

commercetools’ product catalog and discovery capabilities enable you to seamlessly access and manage all of your product data through a versatile, dynamic interface that easily handles even the most complex catalogs. You can also configure custom views of product lists and product details and verify, edit, approve or reject pending changes on products. In a nutshell, you can easily manage your product information with just a few clicks. 

3. Customer-specific pricing and contract management

Unlike B2C, where prices are generally fixed, B2B pricing is fluid — influenced by volumes, long-term agreements and negotiated terms. Manual management of these complexities is both risky and inefficient.

Automation can:

• Apply customer-specific pricing rules dynamically during the ordering process.

• Trigger alerts for contract renewals and automate renewal workflows.

• Support tiered pricing and discounting logic based on account history and volumes.

This reduces revenue leakage and ensures that buyers always receive accurate and consistent pricing without manual intervention.

With commercetools, you can manage customer-specific product catalogs, pricing and promotions by configuring dedicated product catalogs, pricing, promotions and entitlements for each Business Unit (BU) based on pre-negotiated contracts or customer-specific terms. That means a single company can have hundreds of tailored catalogs, all managed centrally, with each associate seeing only what they’re authorized to see.

commercetools offers B2B companies, no matter their size or complexity, enterprise-scale customization at top-notch performance and scalability guaranteed through SLAs.

4. Recurring orders 

For many B2B buyers, recurring procurement is the norm. They need to restock parts, materials and supplies on a predictable basis. The smoother this process, the stickier the customer relationship.

Automation empowers buyers to:

• Set up reordering rules based on inventory thresholds.

• Schedule recurring orders aligned with production cycles.

• Receive automated notifications for approvals or fulfillment milestones.

For B2B buyers, scheduled reorders provide continuity, reduce manual effort, and give them greater control over inventory planning. For sellers, enabling customers to place orders at predefined intervals not only strengthens relationships and streamlines operations but also drives more predictable revenue.

With recurring orders, an out-of-the-box (OOTB) commercetools feature, B2B enterprises can easily automate repeat order scheduling for their buyers. This feature is especially valuable for organizations with regular replenishment or procurement cycles, helping cut down on administrative overhead while improving efficiency across the supply chain.

5. Inventory management at scale

In today’s supply chain environment, inventory visibility is both a customer expectation and a competitive differentiator. Manual stock checks and siloed warehouse systems cannot deliver.

Automation makes it possible to:

• Set minimum stock thresholds and trigger restocking workflows automatically.

• Monitor multi-warehouse visibility and generate low-stock alerts.

• Dynamically rebalance inventory across regions or fulfillment centers to meet demand efficiently.

commercetools provides enterprise-grade inventory management to handle the complexities of large-scale purchasing, including real-time inventory reservation at scale, advanced inventory transparency, configurable thresholds and quantity controls, and more. 

Knowing where to automate is only half the equation. The real challenge lies in how automation is designed and delivered.

Composable infrastructure is essential

Legacy commerce suites were built for monolithic workflows. They offer limited flexibility and make every change expensive. In contrast, a composable architecture enables modular, API-driven automation. Businesses can add, upgrade or replace components without reengineering their entire stack.

This flexibility ensures that automation efforts are not only effective today but also adaptable to future needs.

Integration and interoperability are non-negotiable

Automation is only as good as the data it runs on. Disconnected systems mean incomplete insights and broken workflows. To achieve enterprise-grade scalability and automation, businesses need real-time interoperability across their commerce stack.

That means:

• Open APIs to connect commerce with ERP, CRM, PIM, and so on.

• Event-driven architectures that allow data to flow instantly across systems.

• A unified commerce platform to serve as the backbone for automation logic.

Without this integration layer, automation efforts remain siloed and brittle.

Governance and enterprise scalability

Automation is powerful only when governed responsibly. Organizations need to establish rules and safeguards that ensure both efficiency and compliance.

This requires:

• Granular permissions and buyer approval flows that align with business structures.

• Centralized logic for consistency, paired with decentralized execution for agility.

• Clear accountability for maintaining and evolving automated processes.

Governance not only reduces risk but also builds confidence across teams, enabling broader adoption.

As organizations move toward automation, several missteps can undermine results:

• Automating broken processes: Standardize and clean up data before layering in automation, or you risk scaling inefficiencies.

• Choosing rigid, one-size-fits-all platforms: These cannot support the complexity of modern B2B commerce.

• Leaving business stakeholders out of the design: Automation must serve the people using it — both customers and employees.

• Overlooking the user experience: Automation should simplify, not obscure, the buying journey.

• Stopping at quick wins: While tactical automations deliver short-term benefits, long-term value comes from a strategic, scalable approach.

B2B organizations that automate intelligently build resilience into their foundations. Automation creates space for sales and service teams to focus on relationships, enables real-time adaptability to market shifts, and ensures customers receive the precision and responsiveness they now demand.

We are already seeing the next frontier: Agentic commerce, where AI-powered agents take on increasingly complex tasks in real time. While this is still emerging, the foundation is clear. The winners will be those who:

• Think modularly and build with scale in mind.

• Leverage AI where it meaningfully improves outcomes.

• Prioritize governance and customer experience alongside efficiency.

Automation is an investment in adaptability, precision and long-term growth. Done right, it transforms B2B commerce from a tangle of processes into a platform for sustained advantage.