The Platform Chronicles: 10 Questions with Ray Grady, President and CEO, Conexiom
On his mission to digitize the estimated $15 trillion in manual B2B orders and invoices
Welcome to The Platform Chronicles, a series designed to introduce readers to some of the most innovative Salesforce customers, partners, and employees.
This issue introduces Ray Grady who is President and CEO, Conexiom. Ray brings more than 20 years of experience in scaling high-growth B2B organizations and leads the company in designing and executing Conexiom’s vision, strategic growth plans, and company operations.
Ray joined Conexiom from Salesforce B2B Commerce where he held the role of SVP, COO, and GM. Previously, Ray was President and COO of CloudCraze where he led the company through its 2018 acquisition by Salesforce. Grady’s extensive experience also includes roles as SVP and GM of Acquia, one of the fastest-growing SaaS providers in the world, and the co-founder of Acquity Group which went public in 2012 before being acquired by Accenture Interactive in 2013.
Fun fact: Ray, a career tech executive, was president of a joint venture between Acquity Group and the Beijing headquartered Li-Ning Company, a Chinese sportswear and equipment company with $2 billion in revenue. Ray was part of the team instrumental in recruiting NBA star Dwyane Wade to the Li-Ning brand from the Jordan brand as they launched their presence in North America.
10 Questions for Ray
The following is a lightly edited transcript of our ten questions for Ray.
Question #1
Ray, when we first met, I was stunned when you told me that about half of all B2B orders come in via email, phone, fax, and face-to-face. How is that possible in 2021?
We’re doing our best to change that. Thankfully, we have economics in our favor. The average cost per order entered manually is $8.30 — though I’ve seen estimates as high as $26 per order.
On average it takes 20–30 minutes to enter that order. The manual process is not flawless — companies average a 1–3% error rate. The errors jump the average cost per order to $250. Manual processes also tie up valuable customer service personnel. Heads-down order entry and error remediation can take up to 30–50% of their day.
We have an enormous market opportunity. More than $7 trillion in manual B2B sales orders are processed each year in North American and Europe alone.
Question #2
How does Conexiom cut the cost per order down to nearly nothing?
We use AI and machine learning to deal with the actual text in incoming orders. We extract, process, and then transform the actual data that’s in the document. It starts with the correct data, and then we add the transformations and business-specific rules to that.
As a result, Conexiom provides 100% data accuracy in the processing of purchase orders. Order cycle times are decreased by 90%. About 80% of the orders are touch-less. Orders are processed in two minutes or less. Order-to-shipment times are less than 15 minutes.
Net-net: The ROI starts almost immediately.
Question #3
You started at Conexiom about a month before the pandemic started. What was 2020 like?
Very busy! We built a new executive team with new hires in Finance, Marketing, Services, Security, and Business Development. We also added a seasoned executive to run EMEA sales operations. Overall, we doubled our headcount last year and are continuing to grow our employee base this year.
“We have an enormous market opportunity. More than $7 trillion in manual B2B sales orders are processed each year in North American and Europe alone.”
On the product side, we added a new Salesforce integration — Conexiom for Salesforce Service Cloud and B2B Commerce. We complement this with a robust integration platform that has pre-built solutions with the major ERP vendors. These investments allow Salesforce customers to get the most out of their Service Cloud investment and their Commerce Cloud investment. We let the service personnel live in Service Cloud and digitize all manual orders which can be processed through B2B Commerce.
We also raised money. ICONIQ Capital invested $40 million into Conexiom last summer as a strategic growth investment.
Most importantly, we also signed some high-profile customers, including Chevron, HP, and Bunzl. Finally, we have a robust commercial business. This quarter over 30% of our ACV was created and closed in the quarter and almost all was in our commercial business.
Question #4
Speaking of customers, recently you highlighted that Conexiom had reached a company-best Net Promoter Score. Can you tell us more?
Out of all our successes in 2020, I am most proud of our NPS score of 72. This score is almost unheard of in the software industry. This score truly reflects the value that our product and customer success teams deliver on a daily basis. Our customers know they can trust Conexiom to help them achieve their business goals, exceed ROI, and deliver a superior customer experience.
Thanks to the success of our customers, we’re recognized as the leading platform for customers looking to fully automate complex and mission-critical trade documents, including RFPs, sales orders, AP documents, ASN, SPA, tax certificates, and more.
We are starting to get more recognition from third parties, too. G2 recently awarded Conexiom “High Performer” status in the order management category of its winter ratings.
Question #5
Ray, while you’re a huge proponent of AI and ML, are there other technologies like OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) that could be used to digitize the order management process?
If the goal is 100% order accuracy, OCR technologies provide a double whammy of higher error rates and extra labor. The letter ‘L’ looks like a 1, while ‘O’ looks like 0. Mistakes are very costly — far north of the $250 per error that we talked about before. We frequently replace OCR for many of our customers.
In contrast, Conexiom deals with the actual text in incoming orders, as opposed to an OCR solution, which uses pictures of letters and numbers. We process the actual data that’s in the document. It starts with the correct data, and then we add the transformations and business-specific rules to that. Conexiom provides 100% data accuracy in the processing of purchase orders.
As for RPA, sales order automation is very difficult to achieve through RPA tools. There is too much variability between customers to successfully automate with toolkits. We’ve seen RPA add a ton of value to our customers in other use cases, but when it comes to unstructured data with a lot of variability our customers use us, and not RPA.
Question #6
EDI has been around since the Berlin Airlift in the late 1940s. Are you surprised that it’s lasted almost 75 years?
Customers don’t want to change their buying process because it’s a distraction that doesn’t add value and takes precious IT resources away from revenue-generating activities.
Those same customers refuse to re-key orders into their procurement system and a supplier’s e-commerce system (sexy though it may be). And so those customers continue to send along PDFs. If they still have some legacy EDI integrations, fantastic, it saves them the trouble of emailing the PO.
“I am most proud of our NPS score of 72. This score is almost unheard of in the software industry. This score truly reflects the value that our product and customer success teams deliver on a daily basis.”
But either way, until someone invents a magic integration layer that seamlessly connects bespoke and complex procurement object models with bespoke and complex supplier object models, we are going to be dealing with EDI and even PDFs for a long, long time.
Question #7
Ray, let’s go back to talking about products. What’s on your roadmap?
The Connector app launched in November 2019. It connects Conexiom customers’ Salesforce instance with their instance in Conexiom. The app creates orders and cases in Salesforce for Conexiom documents, and increases the visibility of their customers’ orders.
We recently launched the Conexiom for Salesforce app. The app is built on Sales Cloud with an optional integration to Service Cloud. It’s a Conexiom UI within Salesforce that uses APIs to present Conexiom data and actions within the Salesforce UI. This lets Conexiom users access our portal without leaving Salesforce because it links data from Conexiom to the relevant Salesforce account record so they can view data in a centralized platform.
These applications create a “single pane of glass” for Conexiom and Salesforce users, as customers can use Salesforce to centralize their work and reduce “swivel-chair.”
Question #8
Conexiom is more than a product company. Can you tell us about your service offerings?
Conexiom offers a proven implementation methodology that has been used to implement thousands of trading partners onto our service. We work closely with customers to understand the business rules and process they follow for handling purchase orders and invoices and then configure Conexiom so POs and incoming AP invoices flow directly into your ERP system as sales orders and invoices.
Upon subscribing to the Conexiom service, customers are assigned an Onboarding Specialist who will work with them to help them learn how to use their online account and bring their customers and suppliers onto the Conexiom service.
Question #9
Ray, let’s go back to your CloudCraze days for a minute. There is a ton of innovation happening in B2C — creating new customer experiences, the emergence of Social Commerce, new payment options, and the like. What do you see as key emerging trends in the B2B space?
We’re looking at identifying the efficiencies using automation technology and leveraging data science & ML to solve the whole problem for the customer. Our goal: All manual orders will be automated with 100% accuracy.
“These applications create a ‘single pane of glass’ for Conexiom and Salesforce users, as customers can use Salesforce to centralize their work and reduce ‘swivel-chair.’”
We’re also looking at applying this technology to other mission-critical use cases — AP Invoices, Special Pricing agreements, ASNs (Advanced Ship Notifications), Tax Certifications, and Order Acknowledgements. We also know that in certain industries, a quoting process starts with the receipt of an RFQ (Request for Quote). Processing that RFQ is a manual and error-prone activity that Conexiom can automate. This will allow the customer to then leverage their investment in their Salesforce Revenue Cloud to deliver a quote.
Question #10
Last question: Ray, this might be an unfair question given your status as partner, customer, and former employee, but what can Salesforce add to the platform or its product suite to make life better for you and your team?
As the CEO of a cloud business, I’d like to see Salesforce offer more tools to help efficiently run, manage, report, and predict my business. Don’t make me go out and buy Gong or InsightSquared.
Ray, thank you for your time!
About Conexiom: Conexiom’s SaaS automation platform eliminates manual entry and approvals in the order fulfillment process by transforming complex data into 100% accurate, touchless documents, delivered seamlessly into an ERP system. Manufacturers and distributors across the globe, including Grainger, Genpak, Prysmian, Rexnord, USESI, and Compugen, trust Conexiom to improve efficiency, speed and accuracy, increase profitability, and elevate the customer experience, while eliminating unnecessary costs from manual approaches.
Conexiom is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and has offices in Kitchener, Ontario; London, England; and Chicago, Illinois.
