Business leaders may be tempted to think they’re entering summertime, but instead should be looking out to the 2022 holiday shopping season. And this time around, with inflation surging, interest rates rising, fuel costs trending upward, and consumers growing increasingly cost-conscious, Black Friday 2022 is going to be unlike any our country has ever seen.  This year eCommerce is going to be even more critical for companies aiming to streamline operations and increase profitability.  

If you want to be ready for Black Friday 2022, here are some key questions to ask yourself right now:

• Are all your potential sales channels and fulfillment systems humming in sync across your enterprise ecosystem: your ERP, your 3PL’s WMS and carrier’s TMS?

• Are your business processes sufficiently digitalized to where you can deliver the expected customer experiences? Ready for buy online, return in-store?

• Can you anticipate, visualize, and respond to supply and demand shocks by maintaining inventory levels in the distributed warehouses? 

• Do you have the 2nd and 3rd groups of carriers ready to tender in case your primary transport options reject your loads due to capacity restraints?

Each of these questions is really about the health of your digital ecosystem. Because before you can answer “yes” to any of them, the critical component of your ecosystem -- your B2B ecosystem integration platform -- needs to be up to the task of governing and controlling the digital interactions of your business in an era where eCommerce is dramatically reshaping the size and scope of your supply chains and fulfillment mechanisms.

The winners this coming holiday season will be those companies that view organizational agility as a strategic advantage. Those who embrace the always-on, elastic, any-device access of cloud computing. And those who take action now. 

Recent research conducted on behalf of Cleo, an ecosystem integration platform vendor, shows that 81 percent of companies are planning to migrate their integration solutions to the cloud in the next year or so. The reasons are clear: Speed. Security. Visibility. Control. Revenue. Profit. Overall better customer experience. Dynamic scalability. 

All true.  Ecommerce is stretching further and faster into the world’s B2B supply chain. Integration technology strategies like ecosystem integration help ensure a company’s eCommerce capabilities are supported by solutions that deliver seamless experiences equally to all your customers and partners.   

So take steps now to digitally enhance supply chain operations to accommodate eCommerce today – and for tomorrow. Enjoy this Memorial Day. But watch the macro trends – inflation, interest rates, fuel costs, consumer spending, carrier capacity, etc. 

These disruptions are outside your control. But with an ecosystem integration platform that’s designed to provide greater agility, you can still empower your business through smart advance planning that will ensure your go-forward success. For more information go to www.cleo.com/watch-demo.