Business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior is now aligned with consumer buying behavior, indicated by an increased demand for B2B sales and interactions to be conducted digitally, a report found. "Many B2B buyers are now digital natives and expect the same level of speed, personalization, and intuitiveness they’ve become accustomed to when making purchases for themselves," said the authors.

The report was based on a recent survey conducted by WBR Insights for sponsors Pivotree and Spryker. Entitled “Driving Digital Growth in the B2B Customer Journey,” the report found that 90% of responders said the demand for digital B2B buying experiences has increased over the last two years — 54% noting the demand had increased "somewhat" and 36% saying it had increased "substantially."

A third of participants said they are not very satisfied with their company’s ability to provide customers with an excellent digital buying experience. Another 41% said they’re only somewhat satisfied with their organization’s digital buying experiences.

Responders also claim their customers can’t find products easily, with 40% of those surveyed saying their consumers run into problems when looking for what B2B e-commerce purchase to make. Amongst this group, 60% said limited search functionality was the biggest problem they ran into while another 60% said a lack of personalization was their biggest issue.

Respondents believe new technology can improve the state of the industry with 72% of participants claiming AI will make their work more accurate in the future. An additional 63% of those questioned said that AI will speed up their productivity.

“B2B companies expect to be more customer-centric over the next few years,” the report’s authors wrote. “Overall, B2B distributors and manufacturers will implement a mixture of internal and customer-facing solutions to increase digitization, produce insights and optimize their supply networks for the next phase of B2B e-commerce.”

Pivotree surveyed 100 leaders from B2B companies in the U.S. and Canada for this study. About 33% of those who participated in the report were B2B manufacturers, B2B distributors or both. Forty-seven percent of the companies in the study make over $10 billion in annual revenues. Another 40% make between $1 billion and $10 billion.