Opportunity for B2B Digital Transformation in a Growing Market

The adoption of B2B ecommerce technology and virtual wholesale purchasing solutions is growing among many manufacturing verticals and current market conditions are accelerating this trend. While this technology is widely adopted by brands and retailers in many sectors, such as the outdoor, surf, cycling, footwear and sporting goods verticals for both hard and softgoods, a large opportunity still awaits the medical clothing, workwear and uniform industry when making this transition. According to research from Fortune Business Insights, the global medical clothing industry alone represents an estimated $71 billion in annual sales revenue for 2021. The workwear and uniform sectors together are expected to generate an additional $37 billion in global 2021 sales according to market estimates from Research Nester. Based on this data, the combined medical clothing, workwear and uniform industry represents $108 billion in estimated global annual sales revenue that is expected to grow to $147 billion by 2027.

The global COVID-19 crisis accelerated the need for the medical uniform industry to be able to anticipate, react, and pivot. With hospitals and essential businesses requiring massive amounts of PPE in a short period of time, to be able to track incoming and outgoing inventory and sell on virtual platforms was crucial. While this combined industry is expected to experience continued expansion, even greater sales growth and profitability await manufacturers and brands with the adoption of next-generation B2B ecommerce technology. The following assessment of this opportunity indicates that the industry could experience an additional $23 billion in estimated sales revenue and cost savings, growing to an estimated additional $31 billion by 2027, by making the transition from traditional wholesale purchasing processes. In addition to these bottom-line results, manufacturers can also expect measurable sustainability benefits that are calculated and outlined in this assessment.

End-to-End Sales Revenue Enhancement

By transitioning to a next-generation B2B ecommerce solution, as seen across numerous verticals already utilizing Elastic, manufacturers can boost their overall commercial sales revenue by a combined average of 21.2%. To achieve this potential lift it requires complete adoption of the Elastic technology and fully implementing each of the associated improvements for maximum ROI. To do so also requires strong organizational leadership to implement the needed sales process changes when making these improvements.

A breakdown of the various impacts from each of the Elastic functional benefits and the corresponding potential percentage lift on sales revenues is summarized below:

Elastic Functional Benefit & Potential Sales Lift

Cross-Functional Measurable Cost Savings

In addition to sales lift, digital B2B solutions like Elastic also provide measurable efficiency-driven cost savings that can reduce manufacturers’ combined sales, marketing and customer service budgets. By far the largest source of cost savings comes through the elimination of printed product catalogs and sales workbooks. Printing B2B sales materials can be a significant line item within the sales and marketing budgets of leading manufacturers that is now being eliminated entirely by Elastic clients. Based on proprietary data from manufacturers that have gone 100% print-free using Elastic’s digital catalogs, the quantity of catalog printing that is eliminated averages 29,850 pages (equal to 298 catalogs, 100 pages each) per $1 million in B2B sales revenue. With an average catalog printing cost of $0.067 per page, this translates to $2,000 in printing costs alone per $1 million in revenue.

By making this B2B ecommerce transition, both brands and retailers also benefit from the efficiency-driven cost savings of a much more strategic, streamlined and paperless procurement process through feature-rich, interactive digital sales materials. Across the verticals currently on the Elastic platform, manufacturers are seeing an average savings equal to 3.1% of their B2B sales and marketing budgets from B2B print elimination alone.

In addition to print elimination, manufacturers can potentially reduce their overall sales and marketing expenses by a total of 10.3% on average through complete deployment of a digital B2B solution. A breakdown of the total potential sales and market budget reductions from applying each of the Elastic functional benefits is summarized here:

Greater Sustainability through Print Elimination

In addition to cost savings and increased sales revenue, the Elastic platform helps manufacturers strengthen their commitment to sustainability through measurable greener business practices. As more and more end-user clients and customers are becoming aware of the importance of following sustainable choices, their preference, affinity and loyalty to brands that follow similar business practices continues to increase as well. The biggest contributor to sustainability provided by Elastic is the complete elimination of printed B2B catalogs and sales workbooks. There are significant negative impacts to the environment associated with producing, transporting and disposing of these materials that are erased when fully deploying the Elastic solution.

Based on the industry average from other verticals of 29,850 catalog pages produced per $1 million in B2B sales revenue, the medical clothing, workwear and uniform industry produces an astounding estimated 3.22 billion catalog pages annually, projected to grow to 4.38 billion by 2027 if current business practices continue to be followed. The negative environmental impact from this massive printing of B2B sales materials is equally astounding. This amount of printing is equal to 32.2 million 100-page catalogs that consume 40,284 tons of coated free sheet color printing material annually. Consider these environmental impacts every year by the medical clothing, workwear and uniform industry when producing and eventually disposing of these materials calculated using scientifically verified methodology provided by the Environmental Paper Network.

Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator Version 4.0. For more information visit www.papercalculator.org.