Modern cars bristle with smart technology. From technology to manage the driver’s braking, steering, and acceleration to infotainment systems to rival anything in the home, today’s cars are designed to allure and flatter the most discerning motorists. 

Behind all this desirable product, however, is a B2B buying journey in need of modernization. While 71% of people during the car buying journey use digital video and 97% of car owners check out brands and models online before buying, parts manufacturers and distributors are yet to experience a digitized buying experience.

In this post, David Blaseby, Chief Growth Officer at VML Enterprise Solutions, and Mark Bartlett, Chief Strategy Officer at Fēnom Digital (part of the VML group), highlight a new accelerator for automotive ecommerce launched in partnership with Contentful and SAP.

David and Mark explain how brands that prioritize the digital-first experience in both the B2B and B2C buying journeys will win in a global automotive industry that is increasingly finding growth through ecommerce.

The road to progress

The distributor slaps the 1,000-page auto parts catalog on the desk, wets his finger, and starts flicking through the index to find the right part. A few minutes later, he puts a call through to a grumpy salesperson and runs through a few basic questions, waiting for a slow response. 

It’s not a great look in a global automotive ecommerce industry that accounted for $38.7 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $176.2 billion by 2031. Yet it poses one of the greatest opportunities for the sector in the form of digital transformation. 

It’s a change that cannot come sooner. The automotive sector is already undergoing enormous transitions, most obviously from fossil fuels to battery power and the automation of factories. Other challenges faced by the entire automotive industry include supply chain challenges and new disruptors entering the market. 

These transitions and challenges become easier to navigate for brands that are digitally transformed. So, for the first time, VML, the composable content platform Contentful, and SAP have partnered to launch a dedicated automotive ecommerce program. The Automotive Accelerator is a purpose-built solution, designed to drive forward the ecommerce transition of the industry.

Launched in the U.K., U.S., Germany and other global markets, the Automotive Accelerator offers a seamless, end-to-end digital commerce solution. 

By integrating VML’s customer experience and technical expertise, Contentful’s intelligent content management system, and SAP’s robust commerce capabilities, players in the automotive sector are empowered to deliver personalized, content-rich experiences across multiple digital touch points. This enables companies to expand their customer reach and deliver a better buyer experience that ultimately drives more sales and revenue. 

In the U.S. alone, auto and parts sales made up 6.8% of online retail sales in 2023. That is a rise of 2% since 2021. One way to ensure brands can take a larger slice of the sales and revenue growth this pattern forecasts is to transform the purchasing journey: to ensure dealerships, service centers, and end consumers have a more efficient, easier, and quicker process when ordering parts.

In other words, a B2B buying experience that mirrors their B2C buying experience; the fully digitized buying journey they have become accustomed to in other spheres of their lives. With this in mind, the Automotive Accelerator is geared to delivering a sophisticated, cohesive user experience for the B2B buyer.

Navigating hazardous conditions

One of the grand ambitions of every company in its digital transformation has been to design a seamlessly integrated experience with the customer at its heart. Here’s a watch out: many industries have discovered this is not achieved by digitizing existing legacy processes, structures, and customer journeys. 

The same is true for automotive companies. Digitizing traditional automotive purchasing journeys will likely fail. Those journeys are typically disjointed due to the multitude of operating models and processes across OEMs, dealers and retailers. 

The key is for companies to build a digital-first, connected experience. 

An Automotive Accelerator goes a long way to simplifying the B2B buying experience. Even for users. Business users are, for example, in control of the customer experience with an easy-to-use toolset and workflow, without the need for DevOps deployments. Users can easily syndicate and distribute content and assets. That applies to all channels, from marketing and brand to dealer portals and commerce to sales and service.

This approach ensures that automotive manufacturers and parts retailers can manage their inventory more effectively. Not only that, but they can also streamline operations, and more efficiently deliver targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with their audience. 

The Contentful Composable Content Platform enables content creation, publishing, and syndication in areas such as new product introductions with easy-to-use tools. As a result, business users are empowered to deliver personalized, content-rich experiences across new digital touch points. 

Revving up automotive ecommerce

The ecommerce advantages delivered by our Automotive Accelerator will be significant. Brands gain access to a modern SAP Commerce Cloud Architecture, a robust product catalog and an industry-leading B2B commerce logic that supports all transactional use cases. Other features include a componentized, API-first architecture and a next-generation front end that powers an engaging customer experience.

Contentful features enable the user to author, edit, and schedule content with a robust workflow and to create rich brand experiences that go well beyond populating pre-defined boxes. This adds up to a range of powerful benefits. Business users can use the Automotive Accelerator to innovate and increase the speed of business without technical bottlenecks. And having invested time and money in standing up their SAP Commerce Cloud platform, users can maximize the value of this existing investment and retain the existing platform.

Manufacturers and suppliers with complex omnichannel needs can streamline their content publishing and syndication workflow for both transactional and non-transactional experiences. 

B2B sellers will be empowered to enable a next-generation digital experience for their customers, enabling them to outperform the competition.     

All the while, the end customer experiences unify brand, marketing, sales, service, technical, and commerce content through an efficient omnichannel authoring and publishing platform.  

The partners behind the Automotive Accelerator

This Automotive Accelerator has been developed to help companies in the automotive sector to transform and meet rising customer expectations. Such an extensive task has required collaboration between three market-leading partners. 

VML is a leading creative and technology company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. Underpinning all of this is VML Enterprise Solutions, a single operating unit that brings together consulting, technology, data, and innovation capabilities. VML is celebrated for our innovative and award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy’s.

The Contentful® Composable Content Platform transforms content management. After choosing the right technologies and plugging them into your stack, the platform offers a flexible foundation to deliver your content with speed and precision wherever it’s needed — that’s the beauty of composability. And the entire platform is backed by SAP Commerce Cloud Architecture. 

With this Automotive Accelerator, the auto sector can achieve the customer-centered, digital-first transformation it needs. Only one question remains: Will you be onboard to take advantage of the business benefits it delivers?

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