Commerce Transformation Days (CTD) is an international conference fully dedicated to digital commerce transformation. On September 22 and 23, 2022, the 7th edition of this annual event, previously known as the E-commerce Directors Congress, will take place at the Concordia Design business center in Wrocław. After two years of restricted event activity, the conference organized by Unity Group returns with…

The input from business has been invaluable. - It is now clear that we still have months, if not years, of this emergency ahead of us. Therefore we have to start helping in a different way. Now is the time for long-term systemic actions - emphasises Grzegorz Rudno-Rudziński, managing partner of Unity Group

Regardless of the effective date, the changes will be quickly noticeable. - Large e-commerce platforms use advanced pricing solutions and personalized promotions also on the basis of identified customer preferences and in this case, they will have to inform about the use of such mechanism - says Sebastian Błaszkiewicz, Sales Director at Unity Group.

It is worth following what is happening in the B2B segment of e-commerce. Many companies, e.g. in the construction industry, stock up on inventory (to fulfill current contracts, but also future ones). These companies are concerned over rising prices and inventory shortages. Here also (in B2B e-commerce), despite unfavorable economic factors, we observe sales increases and investments in the development of these sales channels. " - sales director at Unity Group Sebastian Blaszkiewicz

We should not forget that nearly 3 million refugees from Ukraine – mostly women with children – have entered Poland. – This has an impact on online sales of food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. It is confirmed, for example, by the launch of the Ukrainian version by Allegro. Soon others will launch them as well – believes Sebastian Blaszkiewicz, sales director…

The accelerating inflation and rising interest rates caused turnover drops in many e-shops; buyers lost, among others, their creditworthiness - assessed Grzegorz Rudno-Rudziński from Unity Group commenting on the CSO data. Some sectors, e.g. construction, however, recorded increased turnovers, he added.

All teams were actively involved. In our organization, almost immediately four people were released from their duties so that they could only deal with and coordinate these activities, says Grzegorz Rudno-Rudziński, Managing Partner of Unity Group, one of the companies belonging to ITCorner and president of the cluster's board

urrently, the most interesting trends in the commerce sector are cross-border, q commerce, green commerce, live commerce, e-grocery, as well as the growing role of the marketplace - says Piotr Wrzalik, partner manager at Unity Group and in the perspective of the next 5 years the following phenomena will become important: MACH (microservices, API, cloud, headless) dominating for companies selling in omnichannel model, the proliferation of SaaS and PaaS models, voice commerce and VR.

The past 25 years have seen rapid advances in technology, taking commerce to ever higher levels. The intervals between successive milestones in this industry are clearly becoming shorter. Our predictions definitely go beyond the borders of commonly understood e-commerce - says Grzegorz Rudno-Rudziński, managing partner of Unity Group and president of ITCorner, a nationwide organization associating IT companies.

For many, their first experience with buying groceries online came as a surprise, and a positive one at that. Thanks to the pandemic, consumers felt first-hand that technology is becoming more user-friendly, logistics are faster, and online shopping does not exclude the possibility of picking up at one of the increasingly numerous pick-up points, if one has such a preference - says Sebastian Błaszkiewicz, sales director at Unity Group. - In the last two years, there have been many fundamental changes in the area of trade, especially online, which made the observed changes in shopping habits permanent - he adds.

Not only the purchases of consumers, but also companies are changing. - The pandemic favours not only the development of B2C e-commerce, but also the much less media-savvy B2B e-commerce, whose value in Poland exceeds 600 billion PLN - claims Sebastian Błaszkiewicz, Sales Director at Unity Group. - Shopping habits are already changing permanently and the role of shopping malls will switch in the coming years.

In such cases it is worth to use the knowledge of experts from the outside, who have a track record of many transformation processes. The role of such person/team is to get to know the company from the inside, i.e. to understand how it functions and whether it is ready for changes. The mission of outsourcing of transformation processes is to make the strategic goals more realistic and to translate them into effective task execution thanks to properly selected technologies. The result of this work should be a reliable action plan resistant to challenges during the transformation - says Mateusz Bąska, Head of Consulting in Unity Group, who has conducted over 500 commerce transformation projects.