e-Connect Europe Participant Profiles: Interview with Justyna Zoltanska

There will be plenty of thought-provoking presentations from industry experts as well as time to socialize with fellow B2B e-commerce professionals. But what is the event about? Why are B2B e-commerce leaders signing up? What challenges do they want to overcome, and what solutions are they looking for? Our interview series, called “Participants Profiles”, will give you all these insights as well as encouraging enriching dialogues between our participants.

Our first interview is with Justyna Zoltanska, the Group E-commerce Project Manager at the headquarters of Puratos. I hope that you enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it!

Hello Justyna, thanks for taking part in our “Participant Profiles” interview. As the e-commerce project manager at Puratos, how would you define your role? What does a typical day in your work look like?

At Puratos headquarters, our e-commerce department consists of two people including myself. So, I’m involved in many different tasks. My role as the project manager at Puratos is to make sure the e-commerce is successfully implemented across the Puratos group. And by the implementation, I am not speaking about the technical aspects of the e-commerce launch, this is, of course, part of the project management that I am responsible for, but the business success of the e-commerce at Puratos is my objective number one.

It is hard to define a typical day because every day is different. I need to plan my time and prioritize according to business needs. Sometimes that means tracking the performance of countries, sometimes it is creating the business strategy for Puratos.

What do you want to achieve with Puratos’s e-commerce platform?

First of all, I should clarify, For years Puratos favoured a face to face approach with its customers when it comes to sales, and we do not want to change it with the e-commerce.

The people remain the most important resource at Puratos. Our e-commerce platform is not meant to replace our sales team. On the contrary, the sales teams are our biggest allies to ensure the success of e-commerce within our company. E-commerce is there to support the sales reps to do more business with their customers. With e-commerce, we also want to help them with their day to day work by reducing their administrative and order-taking tasks so that they can focus on more value-added tasks such as introducing new products.

Another goal we want to achieve with our e-commerce platform is to help our customers. Through the e-commerce website, our customers can place orders but also they can see the order history, download invoices. It makes their lives easier as well.

You said that Puratos has a long tradition of having a face to face approach in handling sales. E-commerce is surely a change in that sense. What kind of challenges have you faced during the introduction of e-commerce in such a company? And how did you tackle them?

For years Puratos has been doing business in a very traditional way. The digitalization and shift toward e-commerce is a big change not only for the company and the employees but also for our customers.

Our customers are bakers. They don’t work at a classic office, and they spend little time in front of a computer. They are used to dealing with a sales representative who comes to see them periodically, and they appreciate human contact.

Therefore, we have to manage and communicate this change not only internally but also externally. This is why, as I already said, the sales team is a key to ensure the success of e-commerce within Puratos.

What is the best part of your work at Puratos?

To be at the beginning of our e-commerce adventure at Puratos is very exciting. I am working very closely with other departments such as IT, BI, Marketing and we all have the same goal, to make the e-commerce a success. It is very interesting to work with cross-functional teams toward the common objective.

I think e-commerce offers a lot of exciting opportunities and advantages for us and I’m happy to guide and be part of this journey.

What is in future for Puratos in regards to e-commerce?

We have always been a reliable partner in innovation to our customers. And this not only relates to product innovation but also to services that we are offering to our customers.

I view e-commerce as a mandatory step in service innovation and I believe we have a very bright future ahead of us.

What made you decide to attend to our e-connect Europe?

I think conferences such as e-connect Europe is a great opportunity to meet other professionals who are working in similar roles and might have the same concerns or even solutions for them. We must learn from each other because we all have knowledge that we can share and benefit from.

Speaking of knowledge, what is the one area of expertise you can enlighten our participants about?

I would normally say customer experience but Fernanda from Puratos France who is one of the speakers at e-connect Europe will give a great speech on this subject so I would say I can provide information on how to implement an e-commerce website for local offices from HQ. I believe this is a worthy topic because you have to take into account different needs and find a way to keep the platform’s standard at the same time.

And what about one thing you want to get out of the event?

It would be great to know how other e-commerce professionals are dealing with B2B pricing.

Any message you want to share with other participants of e-connect Europe?

We all have to remember that we need to put the customer first because although we are in B2B e-commerce, our customers are evaluating their experiences with us according to their experiences in B2C e-commerce.

Thank you Justyna Zoltanska for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences with us. If you would like to take part in our interview series, please do not hesitate to contact me at muge.hizal@copperberg.com. If you would like to learn more about e-connect Europe visit our event website. We are looking forward to welcoming you all at e-connect Europe.