How will your company sell its products five years from now?
Maybe you’ll expand into new markets, start selling directly to customers, or acquire a business with an entirely different distribution model.
It’s hard to predict. Yet when manufacturers invest in commerce technology, they often evaluate it against how their business operates today. That leaves one important question unanswered: will the platform still meet their needs when the business changes?
More Sales Channels, More Demands on Technology
According to Deloitte’s 2026 B2B commerce research, suppliers supported an average of 4.7 commerce channels in 2025, up from 3.4 in 2023.
And there’s little reason to expect manufacturers to stop exploring new ways to reach customers.
But adding a sales channel isn’t always as simple as launching another website. A manufacturer entering a new market may need a different sales model, local pricing rules, and connections to different back-office systems.
If its commerce platform can’t accommodate those differences, the consequences can go well beyond another IT bill. A promising direct-sales launch might get postponed. An acquired business might have to keep running on a separate system. Or regional teams might be forced to change established sales processes to fit what the software can handle.
Suddenly, a technology decision made years ago is influencing which business opportunities the company can pursue today.
How Lactalis Expanded Without Starting Over
Global dairy manufacturer Lactalis faced this challenge when expanding its digital sales channels across markets with different distribution structures and established ordering methods.
Rather than imposing one sales model everywhere, Lactalis used a B2B digital commerce platform with multi-website capabilities and configurable workflows. This allowed the company to build on shared technology while adapting the buying experience and sales processes to each market:
● Existing EDI customerskept their ordering channel while gaining access to online account services.
● Markets introducing digital orderinggained self-service customer portals.
● Regions without distributor networkscould open direct-to-consumer sales channels.
Within two years, the company had expanded to 12 markets and onboarded 15,000 customers. New market deployments that previously took years could now be completed in months.
Lactalis could adapt how it sold in each market while building on the same commerce technology. And that’s a considerable advantage when the next expansion opportunity comes along.
What Does This Mean for Commerce Technology Selection?
When comparing commerce platforms, consider how easily you could change your routes to market. Can different regions operate under their own commercial rules while sharing the same technology? Could you introduce dedicated portals for your dealers? And what would it cost to bring an acquired business onto the platform?
You can’t anticipate every change in your sales strategy, but you can prepare for it. Choosing a platform that supports different commercial models within a shared system gives you more room to expand, adapt regional operations, or introduce new channels as opportunities arise.
Fortunately, the technology to support this flexibility already exists. Gartner’s 2026 Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce Platforms offers a useful starting point for comparing options, with a dedicated B2B commerce use case and criteria such as business model scalability.
After all, if a new sales opportunity makes good business sense, the technology you chose years ago shouldn’t be the reason you can’t pursue it.
