Tools for Success: How Stanley Black & Decker Modernized B2B Commerce
How Stanley Black & Decker upgraded its B2B operations for industrial manufacturing clients with VTEX.
Company
Stanley Black & Decker (“SBD”) has been a leading provider of industrial tools and household hardware since 1843. In addition to its beloved tool brands, SBD has a growing B2B business among industrial manufacturers in industries such as automotive, aerospace, and construction.
Industry
B2B industrial manufacturing
Solutions used
14
Country-specific trade policies
90%
Sessions leveraging quick order
2
Regional ERPs integrated
Challenge
B2B Modernization
The journey to modernizing Stanley Black & Decker’s digital commerce strategy was not without its hurdles. As a large, global organization with complex business processes, SBD encountered several challenges along the way:
- Global ERP Integration: Harmonizing disparate ERP systems (JD Edwards in North America, SAP in Europe) while managing 14 region-specific trade policies required complex configurations and localized solutions.
- Streamlining Procurement Workflows: Customers relied on demand-planning systems, necessitating seamless integrations to reduce friction in order placement and approval processes.
- Balancing Customization and Simplicity: SBD needed advanced B2B features like bulk ordering and tailored account hierarchies while avoiding the complexity of a fully best-of-breed architecture.
- Legacy System Migration: Transitioning from legacy platforms to VTEX’s scalable SaaS architecture required careful planning to ensure minimal disruption.
- User Education and Engagement: Training users and re-engaging less active customers was crucial to ensuring the new system’s adoption and long-term success.
These challenges underscored the need for a strategic approach to balance customization, scalability, and seamless integration across SBD's global operations.
If we want to keep on being the best at what we do, we need to constantly look for ways to disrupt ourselves and make sure that we push ourselves harder than any competitor would ever do.
Solution
To overcome the challenges in their digital commerce transformation, Stanley Black & Decker implemented a series of strategic solutions with VTEX and implementation partner Clouda:
Adoption of a Composable Architecture
Instead of opting for a fully best-of-breed solution, SBD selected VTEX's composable and complete commerce architecture. This approach allowed them to utilize a decoupled front-end for flexibility while maintaining a cohesive backend that reduces complexity and ensures scalability. The composable nature of the VTEX platform facilitated the integration of new, best-of-breed components as needed, without overwhelming the internal teams.
Unified Global Platform
Leveraging VTEX’s robust, API-driven platform, SBD successfully integrated their two ERP systems across different regions. This unified platform approach allowed them to manage international ecommerce operations more effectively, with specific customizations for regional requirements, thereby ensuring a seamless experience for users irrespective of location.
Custom B2B Functionality with VTEX IO
To cater to the specific needs of B2B transactions, such as bulk ordering and complex shipping preferences, SBD used VTEX IO to develop custom interfaces and functionalities. This included a unique checkout experience that supports large volume orders, scheduled deliveries, and integration with SBD’s internal systems for real-time data on pricing and availability.
Seamless Procurement Integration Using Punchout2Go
SBD implemented Trade Centric’s Punchout2Go, enabling seamless integration between Stanley’s ecommerce platform and their customers' procurement systems. This integration allowed buyers to easily transfer cart data back and forth between systems, reducing manual data entry and streamlining the purchasing process.
Engagement and Continuous Improvement
To ensure the successful adoption of the new system, Stanley Black & Decker launched an educational campaign targeting both highly engaged and less-active B2B customers. The campaign focused on gathering user feedback for continuous improvement and encouraging the adoption of the new tools and features.
Migration to VTEX’s B2B Suite
Recognizing the need for a solution that could scale globally, SBD began migrating from their custom-built solutions to VTEX’s out-of-the-box B2B Suite. This suite offers comprehensive B2B functionalities, such as intuitive admin interfaces for product collection management and advanced quoting and customer service tools, which are essential for supporting Stanley’s diverse and global customer base.
You can see the building blocks of everything we’re doing neatly stacking on top of each other. Because of VTEX’s flexibility and the team’s creativity and foresight, we’re able to make these adjustments without much pain at all on the customer’s side, and that feeds innovation
Results
Built for global expansion
Stanley's implementation on VTEX now allows for customers throughout North America and the entire European Union to access real-time, customized order information. Using trade policies to direct order processing through the correct ERP system, SBD can ensure that checkout, pricing, and logistics information is accurate and localized to the customer.
Procurement integrations
Stanley Black & Decker has gone above and beyond industry standards with their implementation of Punchout2Go's Connected Commerce system. The system allows SBD customers to place orders directly from their own demand-planning systems, adding all relevant SKUs to the cart with no manual importing or exporting. From the checkout page, users can easily transmit the order back into their own system for approval or purchase.
Deep B2B functionality
Through VTEX’s B2B Suite, SBD has access to comprehensive B2B functionality. This includes a more intuitive admin interface for assigning product collections to different buyer accounts, separate account hierarchies, and streamlined quoting and customer service.
The VTEX and Clouda project teams also recognized the value of VTEX’s Quick Order tool. Its ease of use and efficiency make it a popular choice for users, and it is now used in over 90% of sessions on the Stanley Black & Decker site.
Finally, Stanley’s Scheduled Deliveries tool allows major customers to pace their deliveries to avoid having too much stock at once, while still accessing volume discounts. In the past, this could only be achieved through direct engagement with the SBD sales team.
Looking Ahead
With a rich B2B digital commerce system in place and a clear plan for the future, Stanley Black & Decker now has a long-term digital transformation plan with VTEX and Clouda, including:
- Complete migration from legacy platforms: These migrations will open further revenue streams and reduce maintenance costs
- Addition of AI-assisted Guided Selling capabilities: These tools will continue progress toward more personalized and optimized buying processes.
- Online quote-to-order processes: This process will add one more level of convenience and efficiency to the customer experience