It’s no secret that omnichannel B2B commerce is a must for small and mid-market manufacturers and distributors. They need to do everything they can to compete against larger rivals amid rising customer expectations.
But barriers to entry have traditionally been high, requiring costly and complex legacy systems that are beyond the reach of many SMBs. Handshake, founded in 2010, is changing that equation.
More than 1,500 small and mid-sized companies rely on Handshake’s modern, cloud-based mobile order sales entry and B2B ecommerce applications to grow their business. Handshake makes it easy for sales teams to close more deals and for customers to order products, in-person and online.
In a growing partnership with Dell Boomi, the New York City-based Handshake has enriched its offerings with cloud-native integration that lets manufacturers and distributors rapidly connect Handshake applications to their ERP, financial, customer management and sales systems to automate processes and improve efficiency.
“Our customers — typically smaller to mid-sized businesses — are able to reach a new level of automation through Boomi, removing barriers to productivity and allowing them to get more work done faster,” said Aaron Bleiweiss, Handshake’s director of customer success and professional services.
Visibility, Insights and Personalized Services
Embedded with Handshake, Boomi’s integration platform as a service (iPaaS) also enhances visibility for manufacturers and distributors. They gain new insights into customers, orders and inventory levels to deliver more personalized customer service and orchestrate the business around customer needs.
“Boomi is a very important strategic partner to Handshake that’s vital in helping our customers be successful and gain full value from our platform,” said Mike Elmgreen, Handshake’s chief marketing officer.
Boomi supports the company’s flagship Handshake Rep mobile app, which helps field sales reps place orders, review customer information, view orders and showcase products at client meetings. Boomi also works with the Handshake Direct Online B2B ecommerce portal, which lets B2B customers order goods online.
Boomi and Handshake are both leading the cloud revolution for building connected businesses. By harnessing cloud-native technologies, their software platforms are far easier, faster and less costly to deploy and maintain than traditional legacy options or custom coding. That’s especially important for SMB manufacturers and distributors that do not have the staff or budgets to build out automated workflows for connecting sales, marketing and customer service operations to streamline omnichannel activities.
Connectivity in Half the Time
Handshake customers have two options to utilize the Boomi integration technology embedded within Handshake. One, customers can use Boomi’s drag-and-drop tools and pre-built Integration Packs, which provide plug-and-play connections to more than 200 leading cloud and on-premise applications.
Secondly, customers can engage Handshake’s professional services team to set up connectivity. The service is particularly helpful for more complex, enterprise-grade integrations between Handshake and expansive ERP, CRM and other applications from Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Infor, Epicor, Retalix, Salesforce and others.
Previously, Handshake partnered with another iPaaS vendor before ending that relationship. Today, Handshake’s integration developers are enjoying the dependable speed, ease and flexibility of the Boomi low-code environment.
“With Boomi, we’ve probably cut in half the time it takes to get customers connected between Handshake and ERP or accounting systems,” Elmgreen said. “That is a great win for us and frees our people and resources to help customers in other ways.”
Dave Tavolaro, Boomi’s vice president of global business development, said teaming up with Handshake is a great example of how integration can multiply the benefits to businesses looking to drive digital transformation and harness the cloud to move ahead of the competition.
“We’ve worked closely with the Handshake team over the past three years to deploy hundreds of integrations for manufacturers and distributors using Handshake for B2B commerce,” Tavolaro said. “It’s great to see how our partnership with Handshake is helping its customers.”
ISVs Benefit as Boomi Partners
Handshake is one of more than 70 independent software vendors (ISVs) partnering with Boomi to help businesses swiftly connect applications and reap the rewards of a connected business.
By partnering with Boomi, software vendors gain far greater agility to meet rising customer demands for integration among an ever-increasing array of cloud-based and on-premise tools and data. That translates into more sales and larger deals for ISVs. They can offer prepackaged integrations without the need for customers to contract separately with a system integrator or outside consultant, helping lower costs and complexities for their customers.
Boomi has become a flagship member of Handshake’s partner network, as the software vendor seeks to build out its own ecosystem of partners to help its customers become more successful.
“Boomi is one of the most strategic technology partners we have,” Elmgreen said. “The ability to power integration with Boomi’s platform and elegant interface is strategically valuable to us.”