Join us as Human Element’s Kevin Gardner and Amla Commerce’s Tom Flierl talk about what makes Znode a true B2B eCommerce platform.
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Kevin Gardner
All right, well, hello there and thanks for listening to the Human Element podcast. This is Beyond the Cart, eCommerce insights for Human Element. I’m Kevin Gardner, a development manager here at Human Element. For over 20 years, we’ve focused on solving complex digital commerce challenges. And that’s everything from core architecture to digital strategy. But more importantly today, I’m thrilled to be joined by a great partner, Tom Flierl, Chief Communications Officer at Znode. Tom, welcome. Znode is well known as a modern API first platform built specifically for B2B complexity. We’re excited to discuss our new partnership. Frankly, the conversation today is really about what our development team is seeing as they get hands on with Znode and how our technical philosophies align. It feels like two strong technical foundations coming together to solve complex eCommerce challenges.
Tom Flierl
Thank you, Kevin.
Kevin Gardner
Tom, before we dive into the technical alignment, could you briefly describe what Znode means by an API first B2B platform and what that approach fundamentally enables for manufacturers and distributors?
Tom Flierl
Yeah, absolutely. Great question. So, you know, there’s this big move towards composability, right? That’s been a common theme for probably about four years in the eCommerce space. And I guess our perspective is B2B has always been composable, right? You’ve always had to attach to one or multiple ERPs depending upon the complexity of the organization, exchange data. You have to integrate with the CRM. You have to integrate with the PIM.
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
Go down the line, right? So you’ve always had to bring different information into the eCommerce platform and expose it in the user experience. And that could be one user experience, like a traditional B2B storefront like distributors use. Or if it’s a roll-up through M &A, it could be five different distributor experiences, right? It could be a portal that distributors log into if you’re a manufacturer. Just go down the list. But for us, the concept of exchanging data
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
Whether you want to call it composability or not, I don’t know. But that’s always been a core principle of the platform since day one. And so Znode’s entire platform is completely surrounded by APIs. There’s over 2,000 API touch points that are pre-built. There is a connector, we call it the commerce connector, which is basically a way to exchange data and log that directly in Znode. And also you can orchestrate data if you have multiple ERPs. And then the front end of Xeno, the head if you will, in our headless world, is an accelerator kit also calling APIs. So that’s the architecture from an API standpoint at a high level. And part of the why is B2B is different than B2C.
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
Every manufacturer, every distributor has their own unique requirements. Flexibility is probably the number one requirement for having a good B2B eCommerce platform. And so we’ve built everything API first with that in mind.
Kevin Gardner
Nice, absolutely, yeah. So from our vantage point at Human Element, we see manufacturers and distributors navigating similar, generally often overwhelming challenges, complex pricing structures, deep back-end integrations, and a constant need for scale, scale, scale, scale, right? So Tom, in your view, what’s the single biggest architectural requirement on demand coming from B2B clients right now?
Tom Flierl
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
Yeah, good question. I don’t know the exact data, but the data I’ve seen is about 58 to 68 % of column B2B merchants, manufacturers, distributors have the need for more than one storefront. Right. We talked about &A, maybe it’s a roll up of multiple distributors, or maybe it’s a manufacturer that has a B2B storefront behind login, and then they have a separate portal for dealers or go down the list, right? Or maybe it’s a roll up of brands that multi-brand.
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
So that’s a big one. And what we run into, or we hear a lot, we don’t run into, we help solve it is, how do I manage catalogs across multiple storefronts? How do I manage my data across multiple storefronts? And so within Znode is a lightweight PIM. We call it a commerce PIM, which allows for full catalog management directly in the eCommerce platform. And probably the biggest differentiator with that architecture for Znode is that catalogs can be applied one to many, many to one across stores. And you know this, Kevin, like the traditional B2C platforms, even if they can run multi store, which is somewhat of a headache for them, they still have a single catalog, single store architecture. So it makes it very challenging if you want to stand up a store, but you want to have eight different catalogs attached to that store because based upon a specific segment that logs and you want to give them their specific catalog which is a common B2B requirement, right? So we’ve solved for a lot of the challenges around catalog management, customer specific, segment specific, account specific catalogs. Some companies call them formularies, some people call them programs, but that to me is the biggest requirement in B2B that is still being missed to this day without significant customization to a B2C platform, a third party PIM, lots of technology investment, lot of overhead that we’ve sold for.
Kevin Gardner (05:48.332)
I want to take just a moment here before we talk a little bit more about the API and just kind of have a discussion more than anything about D365. You guys do a lot of integration there. Could you tell us a little bit about how far you guys go with that and some key touch points that anyone who uses the node could potentially expect?
Tom Flierl (06:08.261)
Yeah, I mean, so basically, if we go back to the concept of the commerce connector, which I talked about a little bit ago, we’ve built this. I was told not to call it a middleware, but it’s the but it has the same features and functionality of a middleware where you can map API calls. If there’s customization in the ERP, there are workarounds directly in the in the commerce connector to exchange data between systems. What we’ve done with both FNO or no FSC and with BC is if it’s a standard implementation, we can simply map the APIs and exchange data very easily. We are a Microsoft Gold Development Partner. We actually have our own instance of FNO, our own instance of BC that we use when having built this and tested. Once we built the Commerce Connector, we just released the updated version. Our product management team mapped the data between the systems in a matter of days. Like what used to take a project, say three to four months took, I don’t know, full-time person eight to 12 hours. Now that’s stated, you and I both know that there’s no standard implementation of an ERP and there’s always some customization in the ERP. So there’s workarounds for that. How to scope that is a little bit bigger, you know, a bigger discussion.
Kevin Gardner
Yeah, I you can usually generally get 80 % of the way there with a connector of some sort. And then there’s always those little kicks of where you had a particular client who set their data up a certain way that wasn’t really up to system specs or something like that that you have to kind of work with. But it’s really good to know that Znode has a commerce connector that will act as, again, you know, it’ll act a little bit as middleware. Right, right, we can’t say that word right, right. So, but yes, that, you know, it will go the full distance when it comes to actually being able to handle that.
Tom Flierl
Yeah. Don’t say that word.
Tom Flierl
Yeah. I also think, you know, we’re talking shop talk a little bit here, but we talk about like composable. I think that’s one of the flaws in some of the composable platforms is they have an array of microservices that are prebuilt, but you still have to hire multiple developers to maintain all of the integrations to the microservices. So the, the one thing that Znode does is logging can occur within that commerce connector. So when you think about the total cost of ownership of a full-on composable platform to exchange data versus Znode, which is equally composable, but you don’t need two FTEs and $400,000 a year in salary and benefits to maintain those connections. the benefit is not only ease of managing data exchanges, but it’s also total cost of ownership is significantly less.
Kevin Gardner
That is an amazing point. And I just want to kind of touch on just like the API first approach. It’s one of the things that I really love about Znode. From a developer side of Human Element, the demand for composable, flexible architecture, I mean, let’s be really skyrocketed. I mean, like you said, it’s been, we’ve been doing this forever. And I think that finally merchants are really starting to catch on and learn what that actually means. Clients need architecture that allows them to truly own their data and control their presentation layer.
Tom Flierl
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Gardner
Our experience at Human Element across .NET, PHP, and JS with React, specifically React, is completely driven by this need for flexibility that multi-platform edge is key. But let’s get a little bit more technical. Our developers are getting hands-on with Xenote as we speak, and they’ve been impressed by the depth of the native B2B capabilities. It’s what really saves us time, let’s be honest.
Tom Flierl
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Gardner
Tom, can you elaborate on the core critical B2B features that come out of the Box with Znode? What’s baked in that directly addresses the complexity?
Tom Flierl
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we already covered catalog management, right? I mean, to me that that’s always the biggest requirement in True B2B, showing the right procured set of products to the right account segment, etc. But then you’ve got other things, as you mentioned, pricing. We allow within Znode unlimited priceless. And the reason we do that is the platform was originally developed to take care of some of the latency issues that happened with the ERPs.
Tom Flierl
Even cloud-based ERPs, if you’re making lots of pricing calls, eventually you will have some performance issues. So within Znode, you can have unlimited price lists and pricing is decoupled from product because pricing in B2B is specific to an account. And so the entire platform allows for configurability of those types of concepts like pricing, catalog, account.
Kevin Gardner
Right, right.
Tom Flierl
And then there’s other things like what else you commonly see in B2B is multi warehouse is what we call it, but you could also call it multi distribution center. You’re working with a, you’re working with a big distributor and they have 20 DCs across the country. You have to be able to show the correct inventory and the right distribution center. So as long as that can be pulled in via WMS into Znode, all of that can be housed in Znode. But workflow approvals a common thing, right? I think one of the biggest differentiators within Znode 2 is, so as a headless platform, we have a traditional B2B accelerator kit, which is a traditional storefront. However, Znode also offers an accelerator kit for a portal. And think of it like a single pane of glass. And this is big, especially for manufacturers, where
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
Manufacturers often are working with their dealers or their distributors and they’re putting together large orders to quote on projects. They don’t want that quote to hit the ERP until they win the project. So within this portal, there’s a role for sales where the manufacturer’s sales or the sales reps that may be contracted by the manufacturer can log in. They can start to stage orders and manage quotes directly in the platform.
They can also see all of their accounts, all the orders by account, etc. The distributor or dealer can log in and they can request quotes and they can start to put together projects that they’re bidding on. And if there’s even a role for a customer where, let’s say it’s a general contractor and it’s commercial plumbing equipment that’s getting delivered to a job site after the distributor and the manufacturer win the RFP, the general contractor can choose delivery types, delivery dates, because they don’t want products sitting out on the job site because more than likely it’s going to get damaged if it’s there for more than 24 hours. So that is core traditional online, offline B2B functionality that’s native in the platform that you just don’t see in other platforms. So that’s a high level. mean, there’s a whole feature list that people can download. But when I think about big highlights, I would say those are the highlights that are absolutely crucial in B2B that are served in Z-Note. I’ll give you one architectural highlight if I’m not going too long here, Kevin.
Kevin Gardner
No, you’re good. Go for it.
Tom Flierl
So another big thing that we see in B2B is there’s typically data that’s housed in multiple places around a company. It could be things like, it could be product attributes. Typically that would be in a PIM though, but think of other things like territories. Or if you’re working with a manufacturer that has to create formularies specific to ordinances, right? Where do you keep the ordinance data?
Do you keep that in your ERP? Do you have a SQL Server database somewhere on-prem that keeps all this ordinance data? How do you grab that data because you want to serve up the right catalog based upon the ordinance, right? So within Znode, within the platform itself, through the admin console, without needing a developer, you can create unlimited custom tables and unlimited product attributes directly in the platform. And when you create a custom table or product attribute,
Kevin Gardner
Right.
Tom Flierl
can also do unlimited user defined fields, it automatically extends an API. Because we want to offer that flexibility to pull that data into a front end experience. But again, you don’t need multiple tech stacks to house that data. You can house it directly in your eCommerce platform, which makes it easily accessible from an upgrade standpoint. You don’t have to worry about upgrading the platform because it’s all done through custom tables through the admin. But it allows for you resolve some of the latency issues of having to pull that into a front end experience by housing it directly in the platform. So that again gets to scalability, flexibility, and common requirement in B2B is to have this unique data that sitting in multiple places, why not bring it into one place?
Kevin Gardner
You know, that’s interesting that you say that because you could, I mean, in theory, you could create your custom tables, right? You could create custom tables, create your custom product attributes, and then use the connector to then sync that information over. And then it would be like a one-to-one copy. You would be able to keep that within Znode as it is. So that’s actually pretty amazing that you guys allow that. I like that.
Tom Flierl
Right. Yeah. And you can also take that SQL database that’s sitting in a closet somewhere and deprecate it and reduce your overall investment in tech and reuse your tech stack.
Kevin Gardner
That’s awesome. So I mean, I just want to point out that, you know, just all those features in general, like the, just being able to do complex pricing logic, the account hierarchy, the connector, that is exactly what impressed us with this platform overall. The fact that we can respect the core and then we could concentrate on doing just custom high, you know, high value logic, just, just things that
Tom Flierl
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Gardner
You specifically need that might not have originally been thought of with the out of the box Xenote experience and the fact that the front end is customizable. It’s fully API driven. just just is icing on the cake when it comes to that. We’ve we’ve worked with other platforms before where they’ll give you know, obviously you guys offer a an example that you can work with as you’re creating the front end, but other platforms it tends to be a little. It could be a little more rigid potentially. On how you do things and because you guys allow full customization on the front end, it does make things a lot easier and a lot more effective.
Tom Flierl
Right, and also Contemporary Tech Stack, it’s a React front end with a page builder. We’ve really tried to make it easy for our partners at Implement and for the actual eCommerce practitioners to be able to manage the store pretty easily without a lot of need for technical help and without forgoing the flexibility that’s needed.
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Gardner
Yeah, and we actually got a little bit ahead. I kind of wanted to let you dive into that a little bit as well. So I mean, you obviously you’ve been talking about like, know, clients are demanding things and clients are in demand when it comes to this sort of thing. But when it comes to your platform being API first, what in your opinion is critical for achieving true development flexibility? So development flexibility from the perspective of a agency like us working with it, being able to work with an API first platform. We kind of already hit on it a little bit where we’re talking about, I want to give you an opportunity to flesh that out as well. If you want to talk about, mean, obviously you’re looking at it from the perspective of the customer, but we’re also looking at it from the perspective of, you know, a customer working with Human Element at this point and just being able to feel confident in being able to work with someone that knows that this is a truly flexible platform and they can likely do everything they want to do. Does that make sense?
Tom Flierl
So development flexibility, I think there’s a bunch of ways that can be addressed. One of them is the ability to extend the platform. So Znode customers and partners have access to our LMS, which is an online learning platform. We have a full academy. I believe now we have over 43 courses. But one of the courses is how to extend Znode. Because Kevin, you and I know this, just like we talked about it.
The platform has to be extremely flexible from the data, the API standpoint. One of the reasons is you may need to build something custom outside of the platform. And you want to be able to extend that platform. And so we have eight different ways that you can extend Xenote. So your developers can, without touching the core, without ruining the upgrade path, because it’s a SaaS platform, there really is no upgrade, your developers can hit that API layer.
There are eight different ways to extend it, build anything custom that you want around that core without ruining the update. And then again, I think the other thing that I think about is speed to market and launching different digital business models. Your developers want to be able to take an accelerator kit, whether it’s the B2B storefront, whether it’s a portal, and they want to be able to go live with a new storefront quickly. Right, so having a configurable platform where…
Like one of the cool things, I’ll give you an example of Znode is we have companies that run hundreds of stores on Znode. It’s very easy for a developer through good requirements to build the front end theme in our native theme accelerator kit with all of the different attributes that you could turn on and off across 100 stores. And to launch new stores, you can simply replicate that store.
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
You can go into that store, turn on and off the attributes that you want to expose on the front end, attach a catalog and publish it. yeah, so the flexibility is like, is there to not only run one digital business model, but to run 100 at scale with developers doing the front end work through requirements and upfront development in the theme, and then being able to apply it universally using toggling on and off for hundreds of different experiences.
Kevin Gardner
That’s incredible.
Tom Flierl
Again, extreme edge cases, but you see it a lot with government contracts, uniforms, promotional products, chemicals. You have to be able to launch a unique portal with its own unique formulary, with its own unique business rules to its own unique account. That can be configured very easily in Znode. And so your developers can do that quickly. If they need to do some custom code, they can also extend Znode.
Kevin Gardner
That’s all, folks.
Kevin Gardner
I think one of the coolest things that I’m hearing from that is not only the fact that we can utilize to get the front end up and going really quickly, but from the perspective of prospective clients, we should be able to get proof of concepts up really quickly. I mean, that’s a huge win for us. any particular client that might be thinking of working with us, odds are we can take your requirements, we can obviously parse through them, figure out what’s going on.
Tom Flierl
Absolutely. Yes.
Kevin Gardner
Get a proof of concept up and running and then, you know, in theory get the sale with that, you know, ideally get the sale with that. So, and then get, you know, get your, get the client utilizing Znode. So that’ll be, I look forward to that being something that we get, that gives you guys a bit of a competitive edge over other platforms because just the speed in which you can get a proof of concept up and running, I believe.
Tom Flierl
Absolutely. Yeah. Good point.
Kevin Gardner
So, I just wanted to just move a little forward and talk about just the power of our partnership. So our teams, we share like really very similar principles. We focus on technical excellence, transparency, and helping manufacturers and distributors just modernize. Because it’s a huge, there’s a lot of room for that. From Znode’s perspective, what is the role and the value of a strong partnership like Human Element in this ecosystem?
Tom Flierl
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
Well, to me it’s really understanding B2B requirements. There’s such a difference between B2C eCommerce and B2B eCommerce and having people who’ve been through the trenches before working with large manufacturers that have aftermarket parts, equipment manufacturers, large distributors, knowing what to look for on the requirements side and talk with the same language that the manufacturer, the distributor does is a huge differentiator. And so we really at Znode only focus on working with partners that understand B2B and Human Element checks all of those boxes.
Kevin Gardner
Awesome. Thanks for the compliment. We appreciate it. I will say that just being able to collaborate with you guys is absolutely key. Our consultative approach aligns perfectly. We’re not just throwing developers at a project. A lot of agencies that you’ll speak with will just like, OK, we don’t have any developers that can run this. We’re just going to throw developers, let them learn, and then go with that. We’re providing the architectural planning and experience to ensure the platform is implemented sustainably.
Tom Flierl
You bet.
Kevin Gardner
And Znode seems to align with that as the ability to be able to look at API endpoints and things like that from different perspectives, but still maintain a level of maintainability and sustainability for the client’s websites as well too. So our clients need this, they need sustainable digital growth. I mean, that’s an absolute key and that starts with the right partnership model. So, okay, looking ahead, we’ve got continued developer training scheduled.
Tom Flierl
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Gardner
On our side, we’re continuing to onboard developers using some of those amazing tools that you talked about. And we have shared opportunities in our pipeline, right? So as we move forward together, what would you say is Znode’s core message to the market?
Tom Flierl
So I think there’s a lot of confusion in the market these days. You know, this is that seven years ago, retail was still growing and most of the platforms were focused on B2C. All of those platforms have repositioned themselves to be B2B platforms. Look under the hood though. Like really look under the hood. And my message is make sure that you use a real B2B platform.
Kevin Gardner
Mm-hmm.
Tom Flierl
If you’re a manufacturer distributor, do not rework your core processes internally to adapt to your eCommerce platform or do not spend significant dollars customizing what was never meant to be a B2B eCommerce platform.
Kevin Gardner
That’s fair and that’s something that Human Element can definitely help with in partnership with you guys. So, mean, that is actually that’s really a great note for us to end on honestly with this discussion. Tom, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. We’ve covered the power of Znode’s API first architecture, the value of its native B2B features for our developers, which is meant and the crucial alignment of our own the integration, especially where the Microsoft ecosystem is concerned. So if you have, know, we have any clients that are, that you are absolutely needing to stay within the Microsoft ecosystem or you want to convert to the Microsoft ecosystem with Znode, this will definitely be a really good option for you. I really enjoyed our conversation and look forward to working together to build a world-class B2B solution for merchants and multiple if we can.
You can find more about Znode on znode.com and at human-element.com. Thanks again, Tom. We appreciate you joining us.
Tom Flierl
All right, thank you so much, Kevin. Appreciate it.