How to Manage Complex B2B Product Portfolios with Guided Selling

B2B companies often have thousands of products in their portfolio. For example, manufacturers of connection technology offer products from multiple categories, such as screws, bolts, dowels, clamps, and adhesive technology. The challenge here is to display all products in a way that ensures every customer finds what they need. At the same time, an excessively large selection can also be overwhelming and lead to what is known as "Choice Overload."

B2B products are often consultative due to their complexity and technical specifications. For example, when selecting an industrial robot, parameters such as load capacity, reach, and control are crucial. A logistics company would benefit from a fast and precise picking robot, while an automobile manufacturer would require a high-performance welding robot. This results in more consultation efforts on the part of the sales representatives.

Configurable products rarely come off the shelf; they are typically customized to meet specific customer requirements. The challenge here is to make all product variants visible. For example, a product may come in different sizes, colors, and materials. In the B2B sector, additional equipment is also considered, which must meet varying requirements depending on the use case.

Special use cases require specialized solutions, which often consist of multiple products or components. In this case, dependencies between the individual components must be taken into account, as not all products and components can be easily combined. Creating a functional solution usually requires expert knowledge. Additionally, customers need bill of materials with exact prices for cost calculation, which vary depending on the product set and solution.

The application scenarios and the associated product requirements can vary greatly depending on the customer. For example, let's consider a filling system for the food industry. Specifications such as filling volumes, throughput rates, nozzle types, and material properties are crucial.

For instance, a machine for fine food production would need to have high precision for filling viscous liquids into glass bottles. However, a machine for large-scale industrial production would need to offer high throughput and be equipped with large tanks. Therefore, customers need a product that meets all the requirements for the specific application.

Sales representatives in the B2B sector face a high level of consultation effort. Additionally, it is often challenging for them to keep track of all the products. They would need to know thousands of products, understand technical specifications, and have all possible combinations in mind to provide optimal advice. A common consequence of this is that creating quotes takes a lot of time and is prone to errors.

Guided Selling is a method that enables digital customer consultation. In short, customers are guided through the product selection process via digital consulting and receive personalized product recommendations. The customer is supported in finding the right product and can more easily make a purchase decision.

Below, we present various digital consulting solutions and show which challenges they solve.

A digital product finder asks simple yet industry-specific questions that the customer can answer step by step. For example, a product finder for bearings might ask: *“What would you like to move?”* *“What does your work environment look like?”* or *“What types of loads are involved?”*

Through these questions, the product finder determines the customer's specific requirements and matches them with all relevant product data. This helps identify the product that is the best fit for the customer's application.

The customer is thus quickly and easily guided through the consultation and receives a perfectly fitting shortlist of products.

A product configurator is used when products are customizable and available in different configurations. The configurator provides the ability to display all configuration options and visually represent them. 3D images are often used to better visualize the products.

In addition, a product configurator, like the product finder, can provide consultation by first determining the customer's requirements. This is especially useful when the customer isn't sure which product they want to configure at the beginning.

In the next step, the configurator helps fine-tune the selected product. For example, a milling machine for the medical field would be configured with small and precise components, whereas a milling machine for the automotive industry would be configured with large and robust workpieces.

When the challenge is to create solutions made up of multiple products and components, a set builder is the optimal support. It not only understands all dependencies between products but also performs complex calculations. This allows, for example, the generation of custom bills of materials and dynamic cost calculations.

In the B2B sector, the range spans from smaller product sets to large industrial solutions that require detailed planning. For instance, if the customer wants to build a whole factory for cheese production, it's crucial to determine both which machines are needed and how many. The set builder first determines what the customer wants to produce and in what quantity, and then provides an accurate bill of materials with corresponding costs. This simplifies the planning and quoting of complex industrial solutions.

Digital consulting solutions are a great support for sales representatives. They provide the salesperson with important questions and explanatory content for the consultation, ensuring high-quality advice.

Depending on the product portfolio, sales representatives are equipped with a digital assistant that allows them to either find products, configure them, or build sets. A major advantage is that even new employees can start customer consultations right away. Additionally, the process of creating quotes is significantly sped up and simplified.

To decide which consulting solution is right for your company, it is helpful to first identify the specific challenges you are facing. The following table shows which solution matches which challenges.

Digital consulting solutions are a great support for managing complex product portfolios in B2B sales. They bring high-quality consulting aspects into digital channels, make the entire product range visible, and help both customers and sales representatives find the exact right solution for each application.