Zilliant Blog

October 21, 2021

Economic Trends | Manufacturing

How to Solve the 2 Big Challenges in Building Products Manufacturing

In January 2020, we checked in on the building products manufacturing industry in detail. We found that a broad labor shortage in the space was particularly harmful to sales teams, who were seeing an ongoing “brain drain” of older sellers, a shallow pool of younger reps and a sharp learning curve fo...

September 28, 2021

Manufacturing | Pricing

PODCAST: Manufacturers Need CPQ, A.S.A.P.

To set the stage for this week’s podcast, host Barrett Thompson, general manager of commercial excellence at Zilliant, cites an eye-popping stat from Gartner: Digital commerce platforms now account for 45% of organizations’ revenue and Gartner expects that 75% of B2B manufacturer...

June 24, 2021

Manufacturing | Pricing

[WEBINAR] Solving the Configured Product Pricing Puzzle

If you listened to our recent podcast episode with KBMax’s Vice President of Business Development Steve Stessman, you learned how dynamic product configuration tools align the customer shopping experience with the shop floor to create a product tailored to exact specifications. Toward the end of th...

June 17, 2021

Manufacturing | Pricing

How B2B Manufacturers Solve the Configured Product Pricing Puzzle

How does a B2B manufacturer figure out how to price a product it’s never sold before and may never sell again? How do you, as a pricing analyst, determine the truly optimal price for a product that’s built-to-order or uniquely configured?This is a common pricing problem faced by many manufacturers o...

March 16, 2021

Manufacturing

How to Become a Digital Commerce-Powered Manufacturer

Sit down (or have a video chat) with a commercial leader at a manufacturing company in 2021, and a number of themes are sure to come up in the conversation. Heading into 2020, market forces and digital requirements had come to a head. Now, after 12 months of a pandemic, those challenges on...

January 12, 2021

Economic Trends | Manufacturing | Pricing

How B2B Manufacturers Will Build Momentum in 2021

What happens when “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” runs headlong into “Necessity is the mother of invention?” The manufacturing industry showed us in 2020 that the latter wins out in this battle of aphorisms. Rarely have we seen a time in which the stuck-in-its-ways manufacturing sector tra...

December 29, 2020

Distribution | Manufacturing | Services

Unwrap Three New Industry Infographics

This monthZilliantreleasedthreenewinfographics focused onreimagined commercial solutions for threedistinct B2B vertical industries– food productionandmanufacturing, electronic components distribution and aftermarket/auto parts manufacturing. Here are previews to each, with links to download the...

November 19, 2020

Manufacturing | eCommerce | Pricing

[PODCAST] From “Why?” to “How?”: eCommerce in B2B Manufacturing

SAP's Jonathan Burdette joins the B2B Reimagined podcast to dissect the monumental shift to digital commerce for both manufacturers and their customers.B2B Reimagined Episode #19: From "Why?" to "How?" in B2B ManufacturingSAP’s Jonathan Burdette joins host Barrett Thompson to dissect the momentous s...

November 06, 2020

Manufacturing | Sales | Pricing

How Food Producers Win With Campaign Manager™

This week’s announcement of Zilliant Campaign Manager™ was met with excitement by current Zilliant customers and prospective customers alike. The brand-new application expands the possibilities for B2B revenue and margin growth by giving users the ability to scope, prioritize and execute desired cam...

September 15, 2020

Manufacturing | Pricing

Why High-Tech and Electronic Components Manufacturers Need Automated Negotiation

Companies in the high-tech and electronic components manufacturing industry often find themselves behind the times when it comes to creating a frictionless buying and selling process. Offer creation for technology providers and their channel partners is often slow and manual. This tends to torpedo w...

March 24, 2020

Manufacturing | Services

How the World Has Changed Abruptly for Three B2B Industries

The COVID-19 pandemic is altering social, personal and business norms around the globe. The effects are different depending on the industry, so the business response will necessarily be tailored in industry-specific ways. Let’s take a look at the distinct challenges that three B2B industry verticals...

February 27, 2020

Manufacturing | Pricing

[PODCAST] Industrial Manufacturers: Go-To-Market Complexities Shape Pricing Strategy

This episode ofB2B Reimaginedexplores the pricing dynamics and business challenges for companies in the industrial parts and equipment manufacturing industry. Zilliant Customer Success Director Nathan Rabold stopped by to share the knowledge he’s gained from working on the front line with clients in...

January 23, 2020

Manufacturing

Mitigating Sales Shortage in Building Products Manufacturing

We’ll give you the good news first. Recent reports show that despite some uncertainty, the U.S. construction market remains optimistic, with project backlogs and new building starts abundant. The bad news: the building industry at large continues to suffer from a labor shortage that’s hampering com...

December 10, 2019

Distribution | Economic Trends | Manufacturing

Tariff Series - Best Practices for B2B Distributors and Manufacturers in a Tumultuous Time

In the U.S., another round of tariffs was announced last week on imports from Argentina and Brazil, building upon the substantial tariffs imposed on Chinese imports in August and a looming $300 billion tariff action proposed for January 2020. The ripple effects are being felt by manufacturers, whose...

December 03, 2019

Economic Trends | Manufacturing

How to Respond to the 'Tea Leaves' of Manufacturing

There's a commonly held belief that manufacturing leads the rest of the economy, so declining indicators in manufacturing can produce anxiety for other sectors such as distribution and retailing. Some argue there's a decoupling trend as we shift to a more service-intensive economy that renders actu...