For all the talk of e-commerce, digital transformation and AI, there’s a surprisingly large part of B2B commerce that remains firmly offline.
Orders and invoices are still exchanged every day through email, PDFs, spreadsheets and other disconnected channels. Behind those transactions are teams manually entering orders, validating information, correcting errors and moving data between systems.
The result? Delays, inefficiencies, rising costs and countless hours spent on work that technology should already be handling.
So, what does it take to change that?
Introducing Turning Offline On
Portalink’s new podcast, Turning Offline On (available on Apple and Spotify), explores the challenges, opportunities and technologies shaping the future of B2B commerce.
Hosted by Portalink CEO Tim Pope and co-host Frankie Marafioti, the series brings together industry leaders, merchants, technology partners and innovators to explore what happens when we start looking differently at the transactions that remain offline.
And it all starts with Episode 1.
Why is so much B2B commerce still offline?
The first episode tackles a problem that has remained surprisingly unresolved despite decades of digital transformation.
Around 70% of business orders, and a similar proportion of invoices, are still exchanged through email, PDFs, spreadsheets and other disconnected channels.
These transactions may be considered “offline”, but they are a huge part of how B2B commerce actually happens.
The challenge isn’t simply moving this information from one system to another. B2B trading relationships are complex. Product codes vary, pricing changes, systems fall out of sync and every buyer-supplier relationship can have its own rules and requirements.
That complexity is one reason traditional automation approaches have struggled to deliver truly touchless processing.
Trust is the key to zero-touch automation
One of the central themes explored in Episode 1 is trust.
Automation only works when businesses can trust the data moving between systems. Without that confidence, human intervention remains essential. With trusted data, businesses can move towards what Tim describes as zero-touch processing.
This is also where the conversation around AI becomes particularly interesting.
AI has enormous potential to transform how offline commerce is processed, but AI alone isn’t the answer. It needs to work alongside proven processes, validation rules, human oversight and years of industry expertise.
The goal isn’t simply to process documents faster.
It’s to eliminate friction while maintaining confidence in the outcome.
Bringing online and offline commerce together
The next opportunity for B2B isn’t necessarily choosing between online and offline commerce.
It’s bringing the two together.
Businesses have spent years optimising online ordering experiences. The opportunity now is to apply those same principles of speed, efficiency and visibility to the vast volume of transactions that still happen offline.
And the benefits could extend well beyond order processing.
High quality transaction data can unlock opportunities across procurement, accounts payable, customer service, supply chain visibility, ESG reporting and business intelligence.
For many organisations, that valuable data is currently trapped inside documents that were never fully captured or utilised.
Start the conversation
Turning Offline On is about exploring what comes next for B2B commerce and what businesses can do today to reduce manual work, improve data quality and embrace new technologies responsibly.
Episode 1 is now available to watch on the Portalink YouTube channel.
And if you want to keep up with the conversation, subscribe to the Portalink YouTube channel for new episodes of Turning Offline On.
Because the future of B2B isn’t just about being online.
It’s about turning offline on.
