01
Quotes go quiet and nobody follows up
Follow-up depends on individual memory, and the pipeline reflects that.
B2B & Distribution
Quotes out the same day. Orders confirmed without a phone call.
Technology, Software and AI Automation for B2B, Wholesale and Distribution
B2B revenue leaks quietly: a quote nobody chased, an order stuck at a credit check, an account query answered three days late. None of it shows up as a lost deal — it shows up as a customer who orders slightly less each quarter.
- 08:30Emailed orders arrive overnightSales assistants re-key them into the ERP before they can confirm anything.
- 10:15A customer asks for account pricingThe rep has to check three spreadsheets to be sure the price is right.
- 12:00Quote requests stack upSome wait two days, and the customer orders from whoever replied first.
- 15:30"Has my order shipped?"Inside sales stops quoting to look it up.
- 17:00CRM update timeReps skip it, so the pipeline report is wrong by Monday.
01Strategize
Build vs buy on trade commerce, ERP integration boundaries, and what has to be true before a distributor can sell online without breaking pricing.
Explore 02BuildAccount-based pricing, credit terms, rapid re-ordering and partner portals — the patterns consumer ecommerce platforms handle badly.
Explore 03AutomateQuote follow-up, order chasing, account queries and CRM hygiene, so the pipeline stops depending on who remembered to call.
Explore 04RunManaged applications and integration monitoring, because in distribution a silent EDI or ERP sync failure becomes a delivery failure.
ExploreThe short answer
How does AI automation apply to B2B and distribution businesses?
In B2B the transaction is longer and more procedural than in retail: quotes, approvals, credit terms, purchase orders, part-shipments and account queries. AI automation is applied to the procedural layer — reading incoming POs and invoices, chasing quotes and outstanding orders, answering account and stock queries from live data, detecting orders stalled at an approval step, and keeping the CRM accurate. The relationship and the negotiation stay with your sales people; the chasing and the paperwork do not need to.
- Workflows mapped
- 6
- Tasks safe to automate
- 9
- Kept with people
- 6
- Systems we connect
- 9+
What we usually find
Six problems that show up in almost every b2b & distribution business
02
Orders stall at approval or credit
Nobody notices until the customer asks where their delivery is.
03
Account queries take days
Statement, pricing and delivery questions queue behind whoever owns the account.
04
POs and invoices are keyed by hand
Documents arrive as PDFs and email attachments and are retyped into the ERP.
05
Pricing complexity causes errors
Customer-specific pricing and contract terms applied inconsistently.
06
CRM does not reflect reality
Stages, owners and next actions are stale, so forecasting is guesswork.
Workflows
What the work looks like once it is automated
Pick a workflow to see each step. Every one reads from your real systems, and hands over to a person where the rules say it should.
Quote follow-up
- 1
Detect a quote with no response
- 2
Follow up with a specific, useful question
- 3
Capture the reply
- 4
Update the CRM
- 5
Escalate to the account owner when there is a real signal.
Every step is logged, and anything outside policy goes to a person.
Stalled order detection
- 1
Watch order state against expected progression
- 2
Identify the blocking step
- 3
Chase the internal owner or the customer
- 4
Escalate on the second failure.
Every step is logged, and anything outside policy goes to a person.
Account query handling
- 1
Identify the account
- 2
Read live pricing, credit position, order history and stock
- 3
Answer accurately, or route to the account manager.
Every step is logged, and anything outside policy goes to a person.
PO and invoice processing
- 1
Extract structured data from the document
- 2
Match against the order and price list
- 3
Raise exceptions where the match fails.
Every step is logged, and anything outside policy goes to a person.
Credit and approval workflow
- 1
Route approvals to the right person with the evidence attached, and escalate when they sit unactioned.
Every step is logged, and anything outside policy goes to a person.
CRM hygiene
- 1
Find duplicates, stale deals, missing owners and unrecorded contacts, and fix or flag them.
Every step is logged, and anything outside policy goes to a person.
Reference architecture
How the pieces fit together
Automation is only as good as what it can see. This is the shape we build towards in b2b & distribution: channels on top, your systems of record underneath, and people where judgement is needed.
InputsHow B2B work actually arrives.
- Email + attachments
- Portal orders
- EDI
- Phone
- Sales rep entry
UnderstandingTurning documents and messages into records.
- PO extraction
- Invoice matching
- Intent classification
- Account identification
ProcessWhere B2B orders get stuck.
- Credit check
- Approval routing
- Stock allocation
- Part-shipment logic
- Exception queue
SystemsRecords that must stay consistent.
- ERP
- CRM
- Commerce platform
- Accounting
- WMS
Follow-throughThe part that quietly loses revenue.
- Quote chasing
- Order chasing
- Re-order prompts
- Escalation ladder
Where the line sits
What software handles, and what stays with your people
Handled automatically
- Quote and proposal follow-up
- Order status and delivery queries
- Statement and invoice copy requests
- Stock and lead-time enquiries
- PO and invoice data extraction
- Stalled-order detection and chasing
- Approval routing and reminders
- CRM data hygiene
- Re-order prompts based on order history
Always a person
- Pricing and commercial negotiation
- Credit limit decisions
- Contract terms and disputes
- Relationship management for key accounts
- Escalated complaints and service failures
- Any exception outside agreed policy
Advice before you spend
Three technology decisions b2b & distribution businesses often get wrong
B2B portal or keep taking orders by email?
A portal once repeat customers order regularly, with their own prices and credit terms. Keep email intake too, but read it automatically.
Extend the ERP or build around it?
Keep pricing, stock and invoicing in the ERP. Build the customer-facing layer around it rather than customising the ERP heavily.
What to automate first?
Order entry from emails and order status questions. Both are high volume and take sales people away from selling.
What to measure
Four numbers that tell you whether technology is helping. We take a baseline before any work starts.
Quote turnaround time
In B2B, the fastest accurate quote usually wins the order.
Orders entered manually
Each one is time and a chance of error.
Order status contacts
Calls and emails that a portal or proactive update would prevent.
CRM data completeness
Whether the pipeline can be trusted for forecasting.
Where it fits
Common starting points
Building materials and industrial supply
Complex catalogues, customer-specific pricing and quote-driven ordering.
Wholesale and distribution
High order frequency, part-shipments and constant stock and lead-time queries.
Manufacturing sales operations
Long approval chains and document-heavy ordering.
Multi-brand sales organisations
Several brands, one pipeline, and CRM data that has to stay coherent.
Related work
Systems we have built
Case study
B2B Commerce Platform for a Building-Materials Supplier
A B2B ordering platform for a building-materials business: trade catalogues, account-based pricing and an ordering flow built for contractor...
Read the case study Case studyCustom CRM for a Multi-Brand Sales Organization
A purpose-built CRM replacing spreadsheets across brands: lead pipeline, follow-up automation and management reporting in one system the sal...
Read the case study Case studyMulti-Brand Cloud Consolidation & Migration
Migration of a portfolio of production businesses onto consolidated, managed cloud infrastructure - cutting cost and putting security, backu...
Read the case studyOur ordering runs on email and PDFs. Can that be automated?
Yes, and it is one of the better returns available in B2B. Extracting a PO into structured data, matching it against the price list and the customer record, and raising exceptions only where the match fails removes a large amount of keying and a whole class of error.
Will this interfere with our sales relationships?
It should protect them. The automation handles chasing and paperwork; the account manager keeps the conversation. Automated messages are identifiable as such and name the person who owns the account.
We have complex customer-specific pricing. Can the AI handle it?
The AI does not decide pricing — it reads it from your pricing system and applies your rules. Pricing logic belongs in deterministic code, not in a model, and we build it that way.
Where should a B2B business start?
Usually stalled-order detection or PO extraction. Both are measurable within weeks and neither touches the commercial relationship.
Tell us what is slowing your operation down.
One process, one system or one decision. An engineer who understands b2b & distribution replies within one working day with how we would approach it, and whether it needs building at all.