Wagento’s Exclusive Interview with iPaaS.com’s CPO: Robert Rand

I built my expertise in the eCommerce industry as the CTO of Rand Marketing, a full-service agency specializing in complex eCommerce projects. After ten years of growth, the agency was acquired in 2017. The next chapters in my career included heading up partnerships at an integration platform, and then at a web hosting firm, before joining the iPaaS.com team in 2023.

Throughout the years, I’ve seen businesses struggle to manage and maintain connectors between software. There is no single platform that can check all the boxes that best-in-class ERP, CRM, PIM, Ecommerce, and other software can individually. While some platforms have tried to build an all-in-one, inevitably, they can’t reach the maturity of a best-of-breed product that’s more focused. 
So, the problem that remains is making these products work together, flowing data seamlessly between the systems used by sales, finance, operations, marketing, warehousing, shipping, and other departments within a company.

When I first saw iPaaS.com over 2 years ago, I realized that I was looking at the next generation of integration technology. Instead of focusing on building point-to-point connectors for every integration, which becomes burdensome to manage and maintain, iPaaS.com acts as a central hub. Data is transmitted into iPaaS.com from a piece of software, such as an eCommerce website, and can flow to all of your key systems, being transformed along the way. It provides users with more visibility into what’s happening, greater capability to make adjustments, and increased resiliency to grow their tech stacks and achieve better business outcomes.

I find that it’s best to think about where your data is, where you want it to be, and how that data needs to change along the way.

For instance, your product data may start in your ERP. You can then flow that data to a Product Information Management (PIM) system where it can be enhanced. That gives your marketers and merchandisers a place to categorize products, enhance their descriptions, add tags that will make it easier for shoppers to sort and filter to find the right product, and so on.

When you’re considering ultimately selling those products online, you might need product pricing and inventory to originate in your ERP, but marketing data about your products to come from your PIM. Ultimately, it all needs to be stitched together flawlessly on your website.

Similarly, as orders are received on your eCommerce website, they may need to be routed to multiple systems. For example, your ERP for accounting, a WMS, OMS, 3PL, or shipping system for fulfillment, a marketing platform to help your team send targeted follow-up messages to buyers based on their purchase histories, and your CRM, so that your sales team can view your orders.

Ultimately, the goal is to break down data silos and empower your team to work effectively in the systems built to achieve their departmental goals—and ultimately, your business goals.

So often, we think of data as a backend issue – but you’re right. It can have a real impact on shoppers. It’s not just about reducing manual data entry behind the scenes.

The right integrations will help you keep your inventory up-to-date so that shoppers don’t purchase items that are out of stock and can’t be fulfilled.

They’ll receive orders at the right place to be shipped faster, and get the tracking information back to the shopper more quickly.

They’ll bring together data, such as store credits, between online and offline systems, so that shoppers have a consistent experience whether they’re ordering through a sales representative or your website.

They help businesses improve customer service by getting a combined view of a shoppers complete history in one place, so that you can see all of their orders, whether placed online or offline, in one place.

Efficiency is something that shoppers expect. The right integrations don’t just save you labor. They help you delight your customers and earn repeat business.

It’s easy for B2B focused organizations to stagnate technologically. I grew up around a manufacturing business that was able to exist with minimal tech. We mailed out catalogs and sold at trade shows and through sales reps who spent most of the year on the road. We received handwritten orders via fax and took them down over the phone.

The question is, what do shoppers want today? It’s not that shoppers don’t want a sales rep. They do want to work with real people! However, they want to browse your catalog and see what’s in inventory privately. They want to sort and filter their options to find the right items to ask about. They want to be able to place an order whenever they’re ready, day or night.

To make that happen, you may need your team to approve them as buyers, negotiate unique rates, respond to quote requests, and so forth… but, for instance, those same shoppers want to be able to turn the custom quotes you provide them into eCommerce orders that they can track and reorder online. They want to have their cake, and eat it too.

Bringing more automation makes it easier for a sales rep to not only support more buyers, but to do it better! It makes it easier for accounting to offer the right payment terms to the right shoppers, and to make it easier than ever for customers to pay invoices.

As a rule of thumb, if you’re still manually entering data, or managing it in spreadsheets, it’s time to evaluate how you can improve your operations. As you select the right technology, you need to pick the right integrations.

In today’s market, you don’t build an eCommerce platform from scratch. You choose a best-in-breed solution such as BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify, or Shopware.

When it comes to integrations, the same applies. You don’t want to take on the IT overhead of maintaining custom integrations, you want a platform that will handle that for you. You want an integration solution that helps you unify your data, not just shuffle it from point A to point B, but rather, flow the data wherever your team needs it to be, and manage any data errors, exceptions, or issues that might arise along the way.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the obvious hot topic. Businesses should be asking how they can see measurable improvements, but sometimes, this isn’t about using standalone “AI” software like ChatGPT.

For instance, there are now popular Product Information Management systems that will help you improve product descriptions automatically. A human still edits and approves the data, but with extensive product catalogs, AI can mean the difference between very bland product information, and content that improves your sales stats.

Similarly, the right CRM or Marketing stack can analyze what shoppers have purchased and when, and help reengage them. Perhaps that’s achieved by offering to replenish goods, or by introducing new products that relate to their historical purchases. Perhaps it’s simply coaxing them back if they haven’t purchased in a while. Regardless of the campaigns that you choose, using AI to recommend the right messages to the right shoppers at the right time can be very beneficial.