There’s a chasm in most B2B organizations that costs millions.

It’s not a gap in technology. It’s not a lack of budget.

It’s the Great Divide.

On one side: Executives and business teams who know what customers need, understand market dynamics, and feel the pain when things don’t work.

On the other: IT teams and technical practitioners who know what’s feasible, understand system constraints, and see the complexity others miss.

The problem? They speak completely different languages.

And nowhere is this more expensive than in platform selection.

Platform decisions are where the Great Divide becomes a crisis.

Here’s what typically happens:

Business knows the customer. Tech teams know the data and technology. And executives know what they want but maybe not how to get there.

Business says: “We need flexible pricing for our customers.”

IT hears: “Another vague requirement to figure out later.”

The executive asks: “How hard can this be?”

The practitioner knows: “This is six months of configuration and custom development.”

And it’s hard to find a language that pulls them together.

The potential result? A 6 or 7-figure platform investment that doesn’t work the way the business needs it to. Delayed launches. Frustrated teams. Customers who can’t use the system, so they call the sales rep instead.

Most B2B companies want to re-platform. Even more are struggling with customer adoption.

The language challenge across teams is a big reason why.

B2B isn’t B2C with a slightly different checkout process.

Your customers aren’t individuals shopping for themselves. They’re procurement managers with approval hierarchies, engineers with technical specifications, project managers with job codes, and financial controllers with budget limits.

They have:

• Multi-level account structures (corporate → regional → branch → user)
• Custom catalogs based on contracts
• Approval workflows that vary by spend threshold, product category, and user role
• Integration requirements with their procurement systems
• Different pricing at every level of their organization

And every single one of these complexities translates directly into platform requirements.

Miss one? Your customer can’t use your platform. They’ll call customer service. Your digital investment becomes a glorified marketing site.

But here’s the challenge: Business teams understand these complexities because they live with them daily. IT teams know data and technology, that’s their expertise.

But for many of these teams, B2B platforms may be a new frontier. How do you connect everyone to a common end — selecting the right tool for the job?

Before I describe the process, here’s what Platform Logic Alignment actually is:

Platform logic is the HOW. It’s the WAY the platform handles specific tasks, workflows and functionality. And finding a platform that best aligns with your customers, business rules and logic is the key to managing services and optimizing customer adoption.

Platform Logic Alignment is the process that bridges the Great Divide.

It’s not just another selection methodology. It’s a translation layer between business needs and technical capabilities—a common language that everyone can understand.

The process works in stages:

Stage 1: Customer Discovery

This isn’t your typical satisfaction survey asking customers to rate you on a scale of 1-10.

This is about understanding HOW your customers actually buy:

• What’s their internal purchasing process?
• Who approves what at each level?
• How are they organized (locations, departments, hierarchies)?
• What causes friction in their current buying process?
• What controls and workflows do they need?

Every answer becomes a requirement for YOUR platform.

Stage 2: Internal Stakeholder Discovery

Customer requirements drive internal requirements. Now you map what your teams need to support those customers:

• Inside Sales: What do they need to serve customers efficiently?
• Sales: What customer commitments have been made?
• Operations: What fulfillment and workflow complexities exist?
• Finance: What approval and budgeting controls are required?
• IT: What integration and data requirements must be met?

This is where business and IT start speaking the same language: use cases.

Stage 3: Use Case Definition

Use cases answer two questions:

• WHO is using the system?
• WHAT are they trying to accomplish?

This is crucial: Use cases must be defined by business teams, not technical teams. Business knows what needs to happen. IT knows how to build it. But the “what” must come first.

A use case isn’t “flexible pricing.” A use case is: “Regional manager needs to approve quote for national account that exceeds standard contract pricing by 15%, view pricing history for this account across all branches, and receive notification when approval is granted.”

See the difference?

Stage 4: Requirements Translation

Here’s where Platform Logic Alignment becomes powerful. Every use case translates into detailed requirements—not features, but specifications.

Most RFPs ask: “Do you have account management?” Every vendor says yes.

Platform Logic Alignment asks: “Can you handle 6-level account hierarchies with role-based approval thresholds, custom pricing matrices by account level, location-specific catalogs, and inherited-but-overridable permissions?”

Now you’ll get real answers. And those answers fall into one of five implementation options:

1. Out-of-the-box (native functionality)
2. Configuration (admin settings)
3. Plugin/Extension (third-party add-ons)
4. Custom Development (code changes)
5. Impossible/Not Feasible

Each option has vastly different costs, timelines, and long-term implications.

Stage 5: Objective Scoring & Platform Alignment

With requirements defined and vendor responses categorized, you can now objectively score platforms against your actual needs.

This removes bias. It creates defensibility. And it gives you something critical: an explanation executives can understand for why Platform X was selected over Platform Y.

No more getting ‘sold’ — you control the process.

B2B complexity isn’t going away. If anything, it’s increasing.

Customer expectations are rising. Digital commerce is becoming table stakes. The platforms that win are those that match how your business actually works—not platforms that force you to change your business to fit their logic.

Platform Logic Alignment accounts for this complexity in a way that lets all stakeholders understand:

Executives understand because the process provides clear business justification with defensible data. You’re not asking them to trust a gut feeling—you’re showing them objective analysis of total cost of ownership, implementation risk, and strategic fit.

Business teams understand because their actual use cases and customer requirements are documented, prioritized, and mapped to platform capabilities. They can see whether their needs will be met out-of-the-box or will require expensive customizations.

IT teams understand because requirements are translated into technical specifications they can evaluate. They know exactly what integration work lies ahead, what customization will be needed, and what the long-term maintenance burden will be.

And most importantly: Everyone is looking at the same data, speaking the same language, and working toward the same goal.

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