The use of data for demand sensing and shaping, already well-advanced in the B2C world, is now being adopted in B2B as well, says Sujit Singh, chief operating officer of Arkieva.

Demand shaping is catching on the B2B world for two main reasons, Singh says. First, it’s creating new opportunities for B2B sellers to sense mismatches between supply and demand, caused by investments during the COVID-19 pandemic in extra capacity that ultimately wasn’t needed. And second, it helps to mitigate the risk of such incidents in advance of them happening, through the use of analytics that can equip sellers with “levers” for shaping demand.

Demand shaping is well-ensconced in B2C, but has been slower to migrate to B2B because the latter’s approach to the customer is different. “It’s difficult to [say] ‘Buy one, get one free’ in the chemical world,” Singh points out. But with the advent of big data — generating more information about the market than ever before — sellers are able to create views that are meaningful to the B2B sector. “They can begin to exercise that, and turn it into execution steps to generate more demand.”

B2B sellers are learning from the examples set by big B2C merchandisers like Amazon.com and Walmart, Singh says. Data makes visible opportunities for demand shaping, although in the case of B2B, the execution of that process is still carried out by people in the field, such as customer service representatives and inside sales personnel. They might follow up with suggestions for how the customer can take advantage of deals being enjoyed by others in their industry. And while analytics are key to making that approach possible, “a little bit of nudging is still needed.”

Modern-day demand shaping employs predictive analytics at a scale that was previously impossible when attempted by humans. But people still need to be part of the process, Singh says.