Today’s market demands real-time service, which requires real-time, on-demand data. When looking to make buying decisions, 75% of B2B buyers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations. With uncertainty in supply chains and inventory counts, the need for information transparency has only increased.

To understand how 118-year-old Dana Incorporated partners with its global customers, we connected with Bill Nunnery, Senior Director, Sales & Marketing, Global Aftermarket. Bill joined Dana in 2017 and has used his 30 years of experience to drive aftermarket sales and strategy. (He’s also a member of the Manufacturers Alliance Sales Council.)

Dana’s e-commerce platform, is a showcase of how long-standing manufacturing companies can transform to become leaders in digital customer experience. The real-time, API connected, online portal processes over 470,000 customers who enter purchase order lines annually, freeing up customer service representatives to focus on customer needs rather than order entries. Bill discussed the program’s success and what is next for Dana.

Since Dana Aftermarket’s creation, share the results on Dana’s B2B business.

Launched in 2017, DanaAftermarket undertook a digital transformation to create a better buying experience by improving our ability to leverage agile development methodology. Today, we have expanded our DanaAftermarket in South America and Europe and are in the middle of onboarding the remainder of our distribution centers for a comprehensive global customer experience.

We are seeing steady growth in our B2B e-commerce channel driven by customer migration to more digital purchasing channels. Plus, we can track KPIs, proving the increases in order dollars, analytics page views, API calls, and active users.

More than 40% of our sales orders are placed through DanaAftermarket. This percentage continues to grow through expansion of capabilities and increasing customer adoption rates. The complete lifecycle of pricing, availability, and order status are supported through DanaAftermarket. So, if you were to order a part today, you could track when and where your product is traveling with up-to-the-minute information related to inventory, processing, and shipping, like other large e-commerce sites.

Why did you decide to invest in aftermarket services for your customers?

One of the main benefits of DanaAftermarket is 24/7 availability. Customers can access the site any place with connectivity. In fact, the usage of the site has grown significantly due to the transition of remote and home-based workers.

Dana continues to look internally at how to drive operational efficiency and enhance customer experience. Earlier this year, Dana hosted a seminar for the aftermarket team to better understand the trends, as well as a vision and framework for continued growth.

We learned that 70% of end users are using digital channels for research prior to purchase, which further cements our business case to place customer experience at the forefront, even if a buyer does not make the call today. The platform APIs also allow for direct integration with distributor e-commerce sites, enabling an affordable transfer of data. This way customers receive the benefit of real-time data feeds with our inventory status and part number specifications.

Another consideration we put in place offers visitors the ability to check inventory status, attain technical information, view product videos, and see three-dimensional views of products, all without logging in. Those with login access can place orders and track products, but this public access helps customers research before they buy, or just look and see all the products that we offer.

What enhancements have you made since launch?

Something that I am proud of with DanaAftermarket is that we have added a request-for-quote (RFQ) marketplace, which enables individual customers to build a wish list of products that are sent to Dana’s distributor partners for quote and fulfillment. We have also implemented a cross-selling, purchase-recommendation engine along with virtual inventory. This combination provides real-time access to inventory levels and intentionally supports our customers' ordering patterns, catering to what may help them in their purchasing journey.

What can you tell us what’s on the horizon?

Going forward, we expect even more convergence in the customer experience and the e-commerce environment. Dana is looking to build on its capability in data analytics to deliver an efficient customer buying journey and reduce the complexity of doing business.

Our thanks to Bill and the Dana team for sharing their insights with us.