Years (sometimes decades) of international growth have left most B2B brands with a trail of regional sales portals, manual workflows, local tax engines, and improvised integrations. On paper, you have a global presence. On the ground, every new order, pricing update, or compliance change reminds you how fragile (and costly) this patchwork has become.
According to recent research, more than half of supply-chain leaders say cross-border eCommerce is difficult.
The root cause? Fragmentation, with multiple platforms and disconnected processes under one corporate brand.
That fragmentation isn’t just an IT problem. It shows up as slow launches, compliance surprises, missed revenue, and frustrated customers who never see the same experience twice.
This article breaks down why global B2B operations are so prone to digital sprawl, how leading manufacturers and distributors are untangling the mess, and where unified platforms are delivering better control and value, without sacrificing local autonomy. You’ll see what’s at stake, what the transition looks like, and what to demand from your next platform.
Common Roadblocks When Selling Internationally
Let’s get specific about what makes global B2B so uniquely challenging (and why B2C solutions patched for B2B usually fall flat):
Regulatory hurdles
Every country piles on its own tax, customs, and compliance rules. Even something as basic as misclassifying a product (the wrong HS code) can hold up shipments, trigger fines, or damage hard-won customer relationships. Over 40% of companies say they struggle with HS codes, and paperwork errors remain the top cause of shipping delays.
Tariff turbulence
Trade policy changes don’t wait for your IT roadmap. Sudden tariffs on steel, chemicals, or specific trading partners force last-minute pricing updates, rush paperwork, and strain finance teams. Shipping goods between your own divisions doesn’t shield you: every cross-border transfer faces scrutiny and duty.
Tax risk everywhere
UK VAT; EU’s shifting digital tax rules; local surcharges. Getting it wrong means audits, penalties, and even reputational damage. No two countries handle tax the same way, but customers still expect clarity at checkout.
Currency and Pricing Risk
Managing price lists in dozens of currencies goes far beyond updating exchange rates. Real control means ensuring your customers always see accurate pricing, keeping billing mistakes off your finance team’s plate, and reacting quickly to local shifts, whether that’s a currency fluctuation or a market-specific promotion. Can you do that effectively when your pricing logic is scattered across disconnected systems?
Disconnected data
Every market running its own platform creates blind spots. Inventory can’t be seen globally, buyers get duplicate records, and analytics become guesswork.
Customer experience gaps
Inconsistent sites, language barriers, missing payment options – any one of these can push a buyer back to manual ordering. Fragmented platforms force sales teams to fill the gaps by email and spreadsheet, wasting time on both sides.
Mounting IT costs
Expanding into a new location often means another round of resource-heavy integrations, new local tools, and duplicated work. For many companies, the investment and overhead become so high that promising ideas or new market opportunities never even get a chance.
Questions That Reveal the Cracks
If you want to gauge how much fragmentation is costing your business, ask:
| Questions | Why It Matters |
| How many codebases serve our current markets? | Each codebase doubles maintenance and security exposure. |
| Can we launch a new country without writing custom code? | Growth strategy collapses if every launch is a dev project. |
| Do product attributes live in one global catalog? | Duplicate SKUs cause stockouts, pricing errors, and compliance gaps. |
| How long does a tariff update take to reach checkout pages? | Hours is acceptable; days trigger shipping holds. |
| Are VAT/GST rules version-controlled and centrally audited? | Regulators expect consistent treatment at every touchpoint. |
| Do you have instant visibility into critical sales and commerce metrics for all locations, without manual data reconciliation? | Without real-time reporting, teams miss what’s happening and can’t act fast. |
If any answer feels uncertain or requires a meeting with multiple regional IT leads, you’re likely managing fragmentation risk rather than eliminating it.
The Modern Global B2B Commerce Playbook
So, what does it look like when you take control? For many manufacturers and distributors, it starts with rethinking your foundation.
Instead of layering yet another tool or launching another standalone site, you move to a platform built specifically for the realities of global B2B. You get a single place to manage all your sites, catalogs, workflows, and compliance rules, with the flexibility your local teams need to do business their way.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
You can launch and operate dozens of regional storefronts from a single admin. Each storefront can have its own product selection, pricing, payments, shipping methods, tax rules, languages (including right-to-left languages), and approval workflows. Local teams get the autonomy they need; global standards stay intact.
Modern platforms allow you to tailor each market’s catalog, content, and promotions down to the smallest detail. Buyers see their preferred language and currency, the right shipping and payment options, and interfaces that work just as well on mobile as on desktop.
Adjust tax, tariff, and regulatory rules directly in the platform. When there’s a change, whether it’s VAT, GST, or a new duty, you update the rule once, and it’s applied consistently across every relevant market and storefront.
All your product, customer, inventory, and transaction data is managed centrally, so you always have a single, accurate source of truth. Update a price, product attribute, or compliance rule in one place, and it’s instantly available everywhere you do business.
Accept global and local payment methods so buyers can confidently pay however they prefer.
Compliance with global data privacy laws is handled centrally, with granular access controls, audit trails, and the flexibility to adapt to new regulations as they emerge.
When all these capabilities work together, global complexity becomes manageable and even an advantage. Here’s how companies already operating across borders are putting this playbook into action.
Lactalis: Local Flavor on a Single Backbone
The world’s largest dairy group operated a mix of EDI, home-grown portals, and manual order capture. Each region owned its own tech stack. Launching eCommerce in a new country required separate budgets, distinct security reviews, and custom integrations that were slow, costly, and impossible to audit centrally.
Lactalis piloted OroCommerce, a unified B2B eCommerce platform, in three markets, refining workflows for high-frequency reorders, complex discounts, and multi-warehouse fulfillment. With a viable pattern in place, the company rolled out to nine more countries in less than two years.
Outcomes:
- 230% year-over-year growth in digital orders
- 15,000 customers self-serving across 12 markets
- 44% reduction in manual entry and reconciliation
- Deployment timelines fell from years to months
Because every country still controls front-end language, promotions, and catalog, local relevance never suffers. Yet tax, tariff, security, and product data flow through one pipeline, easing audits and future launches.
Azelis: Scaling Up With Local Portals, Not Local IT Projects
Azelis, a specialty chemicals distributor, manages business in 57 countries, each with its own regulations, product data, and buyer needs. Managing this at scale takes more than a collection of local sites.
To solve it, Azelis built 100+ localized customer portals on a single B2B platform. Instead of launching a separate site for each region, Azelis standardized on one foundation that supports:
- Local language and compliance
- Market-specific catalogs and documentation
- Secure access to every service, from product search to post-sale support
Now, buyers can place and track orders, access regulatory and technical documents, request samples, and engage with local teams, all in their language, with accurate, up-to-date info. A centralized PIM integrated with OroCommerce now manages 100,000+ products and 400,000+ documents, ensuring accuracy everywhere.
The results:
- First market launched in four months – proving international rollouts don’t have to drag on
- 100+ portals now live across segments
- Double the capacity to digitize and update complex product information
- Higher customer engagement, driven by relevant content and easier access
By consolidating onto one purpose-built platform, Azelis gives every market the tailored experience buyers expect, without multiplying manual work or system complexity. Orders, documents, and support all flow through one connected system, letting Azelis scale internationally with control and consistency.
What Changes When You Consolidate Your Global B2B Commerce
Lactalis and Azelis demonstrate that even deeply entrenched, multi-regional operations can unify around one architecture without losing local nuance. The playbook is clear:
- Standardize the engine. One codebase, one security model, one tax library.
- Localize the experience. Languages, currencies, workflows, as many as the market requires.
- Automate compliance. HS codes, VAT, duty calculation, and bond monitoring live inside the platform, not inside spreadsheets.
- Connect everything. Open APIs keep ERP, WMS, PIM, and freight systems synchronized.
- Measure and iterate. Global dashboards surface adoption and margin by region, guiding the next rollout.
When you consolidate global operations onto a unified platform, the results are immediate and hard to ignore:
- Faster time to market: Rolling out a new country or product line becomes a matter of configuration, not an 18-month IT project.
- Responsive compliance: When tariffs change or compliance rules shift, you update logic once across all markets. No more manual fixes or patching a dozen systems.
- Reliable customer experience: Every buyer gets the right language, currency, payment, and support, but you retain global standards and data visibility.
- Reduced IT overhead: One platform means less duplication, simpler security management, and fewer integration issues.
- Empowered sales and service: With global account hierarchies, self-service, role-based access, sales teams and buyers spend less time on admin, more on value.
From Fragmented to Future-Ready
Global B2B commerce will never be simple. Tariffs evolve, tax authorities tighten rules, buyers demand richer digital collaboration, and local teams still need flexibility.
If international revenue already powers your business but the underlying systems feel held together by heroic effort, now is the moment to align architecture with ambition.
The difference between companies weighed down by the past and those ready for what’s next? A unified platform that turns complexity into an advantage, clearing the path from defensive maintenance to proactive growth in every market.
