Ryan Cosby, FP&A Manager at Salon Service Group, joins Aaron Sheehan for a ground-level look at B2B beauty distribution. Ryan shares how SSG manages cost-to-serve across multiple channels, wrestles with pricing complexity and margin leakage, and navigates the messy realities of month-end close. He also breaks down what vendors need to bring to the table to earn a yes from finance.

Episode Highlights:

00:35 – Introduction: Meet Ryan Cosby & Salon Service Group

01:50 – How SSG's Distribution Model Works: Salons, Licenses & the Back Bar

03:25 – Cost-to-Serve: Is the Digital Channel Cheaper?

06:00 – Giving Reps Visibility Into eCommerce Behavior

07:34 – Commissioning Reps on eComm Sales and Why It Matters

08:50 – Pricing Complexity: Custom Agreements and Margin Leakage

12:40 – Sales Tax Complexity and Why SSG Uses Vertex

15:00 – The Tech Stack: System 2000, Qlik, and Excel

18:58 – Month-End Close: Reconciling Two Different Data Structures

22:07 – AI in FP&A: What SSG Is Piloting With Qlik

26:00 – What a Vendor Business Case Needs to Survive an FP&A Review

30:35 – Advice for Digital Champions Making the Case Up the Chain

34:45 – Payments Across Channels: Cards on File, Chargebacks & Debit Card Risk

39:16 – Ryan’s media recommendations

Resources Mentioned:

• Qlik — BI and analytics tool used by SSG
• Vertex — Sales tax automation platform
• Imbibe Magazine — Ryan's go-to for drinks culture, recommending it as a great example of a media brand quietly and successfully reinventing itself.

What happens when you drop an LLM on top of five ERPs and a decade of M&A? Aaron Sheehan and analyst Heather Hershey map the practical path: B2B use cases that work, risks that don’t, and why chunk-by-chunk modernization beats “robot, take the wheel.”

01:06 – Welcome back and introducing Heather Hershey

03:35 – Defining AI, LLMs, and RAG

09:30 – Why probabilistic AI makes ops teams nervous

11:58 – Is LLM an overkill compared to ‘boring’ machine learning and rule-based systems?

15:19 – The real blocker: fragmented data across ERPs and other systems

19:40 – The strangler pattern: modernize in chunks instead of ripping everything out

21:13 – Why commerce platforms become the orchestration layer for AI/NLP

24:37 – If you had $100K for AI: where to spend it

27:27 – Prisoner’s dilemma: agentic shopping and the disintermediation trap

34:53 – Agentic commerce predictions for B2B

40:30 – Are people replacing Google with LLMs?

This week, we met Kyle Gustafson, civil engineer by training, digital commerce expert by career. From scaling office supply giants to building businesses at Amazon, Kyle reflects on what digital transformation really takes and why WIFM – “What’s in it for me?” – is the key to adoption and growth.

00:00 – Introduction: Meet Kyle Gustafson & His Career Path

02:00 – Lessons from Office Depot, Staples, and OfficeMax

04:00 – Building Private Brands and Supply Chains at Amazon

06:35 – Transformation Mindset: Thinking 20 Years Ahead

11:35 – Why Companies Call for Help: Common Consulting Triggers

17:40 – Defining eCommerce: Where’s the line?

21:33 – Why Digital Transformation Never Really Ends

28:40 – Tech Adoption and the Power of WIFM

34:10 – The Alexa Microwave Story: When Customer Value Isn’t There

39:23 – Leadership Lessons from Mentor Ron Lala

45:10 – Book Recommendations & Closing Thoughts

Resources Mentioned

• Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
• Malcolm Gladwell – The Revenge of the Tipping Point
• Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley – The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI

Allie Copeland, Chief Transformation Officer at ADI Global, joins Aaron Sheehan to break down what transformation looks like in wholesale distribution. From merging companies and overhauling tech to building a customer-first culture, Allie shares how ADI keeps progress moving, even when change never ends.

Episode highlights:

00:00 – Introduction: Meet Allie Copeland & ADI

02:15 – What Does a Chief Transformation Officer Do?

04:50 – Why Transformation Never Really Ends

09:15 – Turning Strategy into Action

12:54 – Upgrading Tech: From Mainframe to Microservices

18:25 – Planning for Agility, Not Just Stability

21:45 – “Even Better Together”: Customer-First M&A

25:15 – Decision-Making: When Changes Help (or Hurt) Customers

27:24 – Real Feedback: NPS, Surveys, and Store Pilots

29:30 – How Distribution is Evolving Beyond Inventory

34:32 – Culture Change: Project Avengers & Rebel Alliance

40:13 – Radical Transparency & Leading Through Uncertainty

42:35 – Leadership Lessons & Advice for Transformation

46:25 – Book Recs & Closing Thoughts

Resources mentioned:

• The Singularity Is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil

• Apple in China by Patrick McGee

This episode tackles the real reasons manufacturers and distributors stay stuck: old systems, patchwork processes, and business habits that don’t change overnight. Jason Greenwood and Aaron Sheehan dig into what goes wrong in B2B projects, how leaders can spot roadblocks early, and why honest internal conversations matter more than buying the latest software.

Key Highlights

5:00 Why B2B companies still run on spreadsheets and ancient ERPs

9:00 Shadow IT in B2B operations

11:03 Field reps aging out, digital-native buyers moving in – how it’s reshaping expectations

13:05 The real question companies ask: Should we replace the ERP or launch eCommerce first?

15:23 Customers force the issue: “We’ll switch suppliers if you don’t make it easier”

17:05 How Jason breaks the customer base into three digital adoption buckets

19:16 Manual ordering habits (screenshots, PDFs)

23:20 When eCommerce is dismissed as ‘just for small customers’ and why that’s wrong

32:00 How eCommerce automation solves pain points beyond the transactional workflow

Resources Mentioned

• Digital Services Layer (DSL): Jason’s concept for all the non-transactional digital capabilities customers expect.
• OroCommerce's AI SmartOrder: An AI-powered tool for processing unstructured purchase orders and enabling digital self-service.
• Upcoming Movie: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
• Top Gun: Maverick
• B2B eCommerce World 2025 in Scottsdale, AZ

Kyler Nixon, Co-Founder of Forward Studios, joins the show to unpack what most distributors and B2B eCommerce teams get wrong about email marketing and how to turn it into a growth channel. Drawing on first-hand lessons as a Chief Revenue Officer, Kyler breaks down how to capture more revenue, why most companies leave money on the table, and what practical steps move the needle in B2B email.

Episode highlights:

00:30 – Intro: Kyler’s path from agency owner to B2B eCommerce

03:00 – What distributors get wrong about email marketing (and how Kyler found the gap)

05:42 – Planning and forecasting in distribution: What signals Kyler actually tracked

09:45 – Why the “endless aisle” is a trap for most distributors

11:40 – First growth levers: growing the sales team, fixing SEO, improving UX

16:33 – The lost revenue of not capturing email

22:40 – Personalization in B2B email: beyond “Hi, Bob”

23:50 – Simple segmentation that works: inside vs. outside the buying window

25:52 – Kyler’s 3-part B2B email marketing framework explained

32:10 – What the B2B Commerce Association adds for practitioners

37:23 – Kyler’s podcast and TV recommendations

Resources Mentioned:

How I Built This (podcast by Guy Raz)

Wisdom from the Top (podcast by Guy Raz)

Survivor (reality TV show)

B2B Commerce Association

The 2025 B2B Buyer Perspectives Report

In this episode, we sit down with Steven Javor, Head of Digital Customer Experience at Schneider Electric, for an inside look at how a global leader navigates the realities of digital transformation, AI, and the fast-changing world of B2B distribution. Steven shares Schneider Electric’s lessons learned from building marketplace strategies, upskilling employees in AI, and what it takes to keep up with the next generation of B2B buyers.

Key Takeaways:

(02:05) An intro into what Schneider Electric does

(05:28) Schneider Electric’s global approach to customer experience and digital strategy

(07:34) How regional differences shape digital transformation in B2B

(09:08) How B2B companies can succeed with digital

(13:22) Steve’s takeaways from recent B2B Online events

(15:21) The risks of not exploring and implementing digital solutions

(20:33) The evolution from D2C to marketplace: supporting distributors instead of competing

(24:25) Building AI competency at scale – Schneider’s internal mandate

(29:10) The link between digitization, sustainability, and Schneider’s core business

(31:06) Steven’s advice for digital leaders on aligning executive buy-in and driving change

Thanks for listening to B2B Commerce UnCut: A Journey Through Change, powered by Oro. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and subscribe for more real-world B2B insights.

In this special episode, we bring you a live session from B2B Online Chicago 2025, featuring Aaron Sheehan, Head of Product Marketing at OroCommerce, and Taylor Simpson, eCommerce & Digital Marketing Strategist at Ciranda, a leading food ingredient distributor. Aaron and Taylor discuss why B2B eCommerce is about more than just portals – and how building a unified, customer-centric digital experience can transform both sales and brand value.

Key Takeaways:

(01:25) Why traditional portals fall short of building B2B brand trust

(03:20) What's a B2B portal, and why it's not enough

(04:05) Why branded websites don't drive growth either

(05:38) What B2B buyers find frustrating with a current B2B commerce experience

(06:50) The proposed solution: Integrating the portal and brand website into one experience

(09:11) Ciranda’s journey from two sites to a single customer-first platform

(12:14) Personalizing experiences for both major and long-tail food brand customers

(13:50) Audience question: How are Ciranda's sales team's operations organized?

(16:08) Ciranda's results one quarter after going live with OroCommerce

Thanks for listening to B2B Commerce UnCut: A Journey Through Change, powered by Oro. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and subscribe for more real-world B2B insights.

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