01. Copperberg Podcast
Episode 12
Event Highlights: E-Connect 2025 – Power of 50
Running a smart and agile manufacturing operation
At E-Connect – Power of 50 in February 2025, Copperberg gathered 50 digital commerce leaders in Cologne for a focused day of insight and exchange around the theme: “Transforming E-Commerce for Continuous Growth.”
02. CONTENT
From real-world challenges to future-facing strategies, this recap captures the moments that mattered.
Inside the Episode:
- Delegate Spotlights: Hear firsthand from attendees representing Kalmar, Sandvik, and Ammann Asphalt GmbH. From digital nudges to adoption roadblocks, their reflections show how e-commerce leaders are navigating change in different contexts.
- Keynote Soundbites: Discover what stood out from the main stage. From Roehm’s practical take on behavioral nudges to commercetools’ call for generational relevance, and Schneider Electric’s reality check on buyer expectations, these talks reframed what’s possible in modern B2B commerce.
- Roundtable Debriefs: With five interactive sessions running throughout the day, our moderators from Coveo, Sana Commerce, PROS, and Valtech reveal the patterns and takeaways they saw emerge, from the role of AI in personalization to unlocking pricing potential.
- Themes to Take Forward: From AI’s growing influence on the buyer journey to the importance of starting small and building confidence, the day’s conversations centered on one common theme: practical progress over perfection. As Kathy Miller of TVH reminded us, “Don’t boil the ocean.”
If you missed the event or want to revisit the standout moments, this episode brings the conversation to you, one voice at a time.
03. Speakers
Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters is your go-to podcast for candid discussions with the industry’s top thinkers and innovators.
04. Listen now
Event Highlights: E-Connect 2025 – Power of 50
05. Transcript
Nina Roper Yearwood (00:04)
Hello, and welcome to a new episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters! I’m Nina Roper Yearwood, coming to you from Germany! Whether you’re listening while commuting, enjoying your coffee break, or just winding down for the day, I’m so glad to have you here.
In today’s episode, I’m bringing you along for a look back at the E-Connect 2025 – Power of 50, which took place last February in Cologne.
We gathered at the Marriott Hotel with 50 e-commerce professionals for a full day of learning, sharing, and making connections. The big theme was “Transforming E-Commerce for Continuous Growth: How to Enhance Your B2B Digital Journey.”
So, pour yourself a cup, settle in, and let’s rewind to that day in February. Over the next few minutes, you’ll hear some of the best moments – from interviews with delegates, partners, and speakers, to highlights of the discussions that kept everyone talking.
Nina Roper Yearwood (01:10)
Now let’s hear directly from the people who made the day so engaging. During the breaks, I had the chance to chat with some delegates about what really resonated with them.
First up, we have Aukusti Koivisto, Head of Parts Business Development at Kalmar Global, he shares what brought him to the event – and his favorite part of that packed agenda.
Aukusti Koivisto, Kalmar Global (01:32)
I’m definitely hearing more about e-commerce and industrial and B2B companies, and I’ve been working with e-commerce in the past, so really, a lot of it is about insights and discussions.
Nina Roper Yearwood (01:47)
Was there anything today you are excited about?
Aukusti Koivisto, Kalmar Global (01:52)
I think overall the roundtables are a really good place to, well, discuss things and also benchmark of it. We can share the best practices, I think that’s the best part.
Nina Roper Yearwood (02:06)
And finally, you’ll hear from Sven Kloppmann, Head of Aftersales Excellence at Ammann Asphalt.
One of the keynotes that really got people talking was about digital nudges – those small, well-placed prompts that help guide customers through the online buying process. It’s about making it easier and more intuitive to take the next step, especially in complex B2B journeys.
In this next clip, Sven shares why that topic hit home for him and why it’s so relevant to his own projects.
Sven Kloppmann, Ammann Asphalt (02:38)
I’m looking for insights on the how we can approach creating that fundamental, creating webshop integration, I was really inspired by, for example, by the nudges Tanja presented, how we can influence customers in a light way, change their decision about purchasing.
Nina Roper Yearwood (03:00)
And that concludes our brief conversation with the delegates. Let us now move on to the interviews we did with our event speakers and partners.
Nina Roper Yearwood (03:09)
So we ended earlier with a short interview with Mr. Kloppmann, who shared why he found the topic of digital nudges relevant in his web hub project.
Moving on, you will hear from the keynote speaker, Tanja Tschech, Digital Transformation Manager at Roehm, who delivered the presentation on this very topic of using digital nudges in B2B e-commerce.
In the next clip, she gives us an overview of her keynote and her thoughts on the event.
Tanja Tschech, Roehm (03:40)
Our customers in B2B, they want to be able to sleep at night, and they want to make their decisions quickly and easily. And in order to help our customers sleep at night, we can support them with this on-demand services in the B2B space, and we can help them with digital nudging on that in order to make the best decisions possible for their business. That’s really what my keynote focused around today. So, digital nudging.
I loved it [the event]! There are very few venues that I find where people are really open and honestand talking about the challenges that we face in the B2B space. And so for me, the biggest takeaway is really to learn that we all face the same challenges with data silos within our organizations, and that we have to dive into those digital silos in order to learn more about our customers to find the best solutions. So, the open honesty is just a huge part of this event that I really appreciate.
Nina Roper Yearwood (04:33)
Now let’s hear from Julia Rabkin, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at commercetools. If you were there, you will remember her now famous line: “No one is getting younger except the B2B buyer”! She said this while exploring trends shaping B2B commerce in 2025. Here she shares her main takeaways and what stood out from the day’s conversations.
Julia Rabkin, commercetools (04:57)
Key takeaways from my keynote would be that customer centricity is more than just your buyer, right? Being customer centric is really about diffusing that customer centricity throughout your organization, and making sure that all of your teams are enabled to serve that customer and their best interests.
The other key takeaway is that I think of all the trends shaping the future of commerce. I think this year unified commerce is going to be the big trend. And this is really about harmonizing all of your commerce and operations data to be able to make better decisions based on the right data and a complete view of your customers, your products, your channels, and everything in one place.
Today was a very intense day, but it was really insightful. At our roundtables, we asked about what people are hopeful for looking into 2025 and what they are challenged by or concerned by. And I think while there is still a lot of challenges, there are also a lot of opportunities. There’s really great momentum. And I was very inspired hearing from the practitioners today about some of the things that they’re trying and the experiments that they’re doing, the new technologies that they’re using to really advance their innovation in B2B commerce So I’m very optimistic for the future.
Nina Roper Yearwood (06:22)
Up next is a Affan Mahmood, Director of E-Commerce and Distribution at Schneider Electric. He grabbed everyone’s attention with this statement: “B2B customers do demand a B2C experience – but not in the literal sense.” This was the foundation for his keynote on elevating the B2B buyer journey. Let’s hear his overview and reflections on the event.
Affan Mahmood, Schneider Electric (06:47)
We talked about B2B customers wanting a B2C experience. I think it resonated quite well with a lot of the people. In fact, when I asked for a show of hands, everyone raised it, right?
So I think, the key takeaway there is that we are not alone, it’s everyone in the B2B space is having the same problem, and we are working towards the solution together to solve it, right? Which means we can also learn a lot from each other in this journey.
I think it’s an amazing event, very different from the others that I’ve attended. In the sense that it’s a small, closely knit group and, you know, you are interacting or engaging a lot in roundtables, and then you have keynotes and panel discussions. It’s not a monologue. I would say it’s very, very interactive. And at the end of the day, you get to know everyone in the room, which is probably the best part.
Nina Roper Yearwood (07:36)
Moving on, we’ll now listen to roundtable moderators who will share with us an insider’s perspective on what happened during their five rounds of brainstorming.
First up is Cliff Reichardt, Regional Manager DACH & Spain at Coveo. He’ll share the big ideas they unpacked at his table, which centered on this question: How can AI-powered personalization boost the B2B online buying experience?
Cliff Reichardt, Coveo (08:06)
Companies are really getting into how to use AI, how to leverage AI to provide actual value and return on investment. I think one key element is also still the quality of data. We’ve heard today that some companies in B2B have 10 million, 20, even 50 million products online. So it’s really the challenge about how to put the ranking and how to actually, you know, show the right products at the right time to the right customer and really leverage 1 to 1 personalization. I think that is, you know, across everyone here today, really the key takeaway that people are looking into, yeah.
Oh very good! So I like the openness and the transparency of everyone participating today, really sharing what they really care about, what keeps them awake at night. And, that was a good expertise of good people knowing what really matters. Also what they think that they can improve and what’s challenging for them. So yeah, overall really good event. It’s also not the first of Copperberg events. So, yeah, we’re looking forward to more!
Nina Roper Yearwood (09:18)
Coming up, we have Arno Ham, Chief Technology Officer at Sana Commerce, who will let us in on the perspective shared during the roundtable he led, focused on why the best technology is nothing without adoption. This is then followed by his reflections on the value of deep and detailed conversations on B2B e-commerce.
Arno Ham, Sana Commerce (09:43)
Yeah, we talked a lot about adoption. So adopting a B2B e-commerce platform, for example. And a lot of information was shared around that. And the main, the key takeaway there is that there is still a long way to go, because Gartner was predicting that by 2025, which is this year, 80% of the, let’s say transactions would be on digital channels, right? But the reality is, talking with the audience, that they are averaging between 15% and 30% roughly. So that’s still far away from 80%. And adoption is one of the hurdles to get to that, to these numbers, right? So it’s around internal adoption. So, we share tips on how you can motivate your sales force, for example, to adopt a B2B e-commerce platform as well as external adoption and what hurdles you can be and how you can overcome that.
I think it was a fantastic event. It was great to have these roundtable sessions that you can really talk in a lot of detail and in quite some time on B2B and deep B2B e-commerce topics, right? And, yeah, we at Sana, we have the platform engineered for B2B. So we are addicted and we really love to talk about B2B and all the challenges that come with it. And, I think that it’s amazing that an event like this can facilitate that.
Nina Roper Yearwood (11:00)
Next we have Simon Bräu, Senior Strategic Consultant at PROS, who will share what went on during his roundtable discussions about strategies that can unlock e-commerce potential and pricing and selling optimization. Listen in as he also shares his overall impression of the event.
Simon Bräu, PROS (11:21)
Yes, we presented the value realization of pricing and sales optimization for e-commerce. So for us at PROS we see the value realization as how can my prices work best in the marketplace I’m presenting them? And how can I make sure that the prices are going to be delivered in real time and almost instantaneous way for my customers.
So, I really like the Copperberg events, they’re really intimate and everyone’s always very talkative and we hardly into prompt any questions. We just mentioned a topic and the whole group is always very open to share any ideas.
Nina Roper Yearwood (12:01)
And to round things out, we have Vincent van Hellemondt, Client Director at Valtech. He presented insights from Copperberg and Valtech’s annual report, The Voice of Digital Leaders in Manufacturing 2025. This was the fourth edition of the report, and in this clip, he talks about the key themes he shared and why these peer-to-peer conversations are so critical for leveling up in B2B e-commerce.
Vincent van Hellemondt, Valtech (12:30)
Today we’ve launched the fourth edition of the Voice of Digital Leaders in Manufacturing, and it is awesome to see again what the state of digital is in this specific industry. And we see mixed emotions this year, and it’s nice to see that in this event when talking about the state of digital, but also see that in the results that we’ve presented today. Some examples of what we see in the results are, the importance of customer experience in this industry, the importance of data and AI, and how to create a foundation in relation to it and the importance of setting up a stable technology.
Today’s event was again full of insights, but above all, this format that Copperberg hosted here is a format where everybody shares insights and advices with each other. I think this is a super low hanging or quick step in event that helps everybody get to the next level in their own e-commerce journey or digital journey. Super fruitful for us, super fruitful for participants and a lot of energy we got out of it. Thanks for that, Copperberg!
Nina Roper Yearwood (13:41)
And that’s a wrap on our recap of the E-Connect 2025 – Power of 50! If there was one big takeaway from this edition, it’s the conversation around how AI will shape the B2B buyer journey – and what needs to change to move past legacy thinking and get those quick wins that build confidence to scale.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite lines from the day. Kathy Miller, Global Head of E-Commerce at TVH, summed it up on the panel with: “Don’t boil the ocean.” A reminder that it’s better to start small, focus on the right things, and build momentum.
Another key point that really stuck with me was the importance of good data. Preparing a solid data set is critical, the backbone, but so is understanding that a B2B online ecosystem will always need human input – expert consultation that adds context and makes purchasing more bespoke and consultative. After all, in B2B, there are often multiple stakeholders to convince.
As we end this and look ahead to the 2026 edition, I leave you with two questions to think about:
1. What incremental steps are you taking to improve your B2B buyer journey?
2. What critical insights from the discussions are you putting into action?
Thanks so much for joining me today. If you want to continue learning – and stay on top of B2B e-commerce, service, and aftermarket trends in manufacturing – head over to our website – Copperberg.com And don’t forget to follow us on social media for updates.
Once again, thank you for being here and until next time, bye for now!