White Paper

Strengthening Customer Experience in the Age of AI & Marketplaces

The strategic case for DACH manufacturers: why after-sales and self-service are becoming the strongest levers for loyalty, aftermarket growth, and staying visible when buying decisions are mediated by AI.
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EXECUTIVE TAKEAWAY

The next decade belongs to whoever owns the digital relationship

If customers (and their AI agents) can’t access your pricing, assets, service history, and documentation digitally, your differentiation becomes harder to recognize — and easier to replace.

What you will get

  • Executive summary + market context for DACH manufacturers
  • The risks of AI- and marketplace-driven disintermediation
  • The strategic principles behind strong digital customer relationships

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

Why manufacturers must act now to protect customer loyalty

If customers (and their AI tools) can’t buy, reorder, and get service directly with you, they’ll default to whoever makes it easiest. This paper gives the strategic case and the risks of waiting.

Market opportunity: why customer relationships are your greatest asset in DACH manufacturing.

Risk of not acting: AI visibility, algorithmic commoditization, platform dependency, loss of direct access.

Strategic response: what a self-service portal must deliver to strengthen loyalty and switching costs.

AI is changing B2B buying interfaces
If you're not machine-readable, you're not short-listed. Digital discoverability becomes strategic.
Marketplaces shift control away from OEMs
They own the interface, standardize listings, and push competition toward price and availability.
Aftermarket is the leverage point
Spare parts, service, and consumables can be significantly more profitable than new equipment sales.
The portal is a loyalty mechanism
Not a "shop," but a relationship layer for assets, documentation, tickets, contracts, and reorders.

WHO THIS IS FOR

Built for executive decision‑makers

Especially in sales, service/after‑sales, and digital—anyone accountable for loyalty, margin, and customer lifetime value.

Executive leadership
CEO, MD, board-level decision-makers
Sales / Commercial
Heads of Sales, commercial directors, KAM leadership
Service / After Sales
Service leaders responsible for uptime, cost-to-serve, SLAs
Digital / IT
Digital, eCommerce & IT teams enabling portals, data, integrations

Proof it works

The framework isn’t theoretical. This white paper includes examples of manufacturers who digitized customer relationships with a self-service portal.


Meusburger

  • Composable portal for complex product logic, configurators, and deep ERP integration.

53%+ orders online
1M+ orders digitally
100k+ SKUs live

Ricoh

  • One login for assets, tickets, invoices, deliveries, and orders — 24/7 self-service.
−30% call volume
45 days to go-live

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About Spryker

Spryker is the leading global composable commerce platform for enterprises with sophisticated business models to enable growth, innovation, and differentiation. Designed specifically for sophisticated transactional businesses, Spryker’s easy-to-use, headless, API-first model offers a best-of-breed approach that provides businesses the flexibility to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating faster time-to-value throughout their digital transformation journey. As a global platform leader for B2B and B2C Enterprise Marketplaces, IoT Commerce, and Unified Commerce, Spryker has empowered 150+ global enterprise customers worldwide and is trusted by brands such as ALDI, Siemens, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Ricoh. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin and New York backed by world class investors such as TCV, One Peak, Project A, Cherry Ventures, and Maverick Capital. Learn more at spryker.com.

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