Female digital leadership: Strong women's panels at the B2B DMC online conference

From the 9th to the 10th of November 2021, handelskraft.de and warenausgang.com will present best practices from successful digitalisation projects in the B2B sector at the B2B Digital Masters Convention, featuring a line-up of female digital leaders.

It is not only the composition of the panels at the online conference that clearly shows: Female leaders have become an indispensable part of the digitalisation projects of B2B companies. Claudia Jung, Head of Digital EcoSystem at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG and speaker at the B2B DMC 2021, believes that digitalisation and B2B e-commerce do not work without women: »Our business team in the field of e-commerce consists largely of women – even on an international level. I think it is absolutely necessary to have a female perspective on the details. After all, there are also women on the other side now, namely those who manage purchasing for our customers!«

Balanced Leadership Teams for Successful Digital Transformation

So is it the female perspective on online shops and user experience design that makes the presence of women essential in digitalisation projects? There is much more to the digital transformation of business processes than is visible to customers: A major challenge, especially in the B2B sector, is the representation of digitalisation within companies and the involvement of employees. For Kristin Fleer-Follner, communications manager at the metal manufacturer MEVACO, it is not so much gender, but rather certain character traits that are relevant in this regard. »To really implement digital transformation in an organisation in the long term, you need to have certain qualities – and two essential ones are empathy and patience,« she says, describing her experience of implementing an e-commerce platform and a CRM system at MEVACO. Even though these traits are more likely to be attributed to women, Fleer-Follner considers heterogeneous leadership teams to be the key to success.

Anja Höft agrees with this. The Director for Digital Agenda and Innovation at STIHL sees the digitalisation of a company as an opportunity to create new structures and deliberately focus on building a balanced team: »Women and men often have different leadership styles, but they complement each other very well. Especially when dealing with complex processes such as digital transformation, it is important to use this potential.« For Höft, her own position in an industry with a very high proportion of male customers is not a problem at all: »I have always worked in companies with a higher proportion of men and have always had the feeling of being supported just as much as my male colleagues!«

B2B DMC 2021 as a Platform for Female Digital Leaders

So does the gender gap no longer play a role in the digitalisation of the B2B sector? »I think we still have a bit of work to do,« Kristin Fleer-Follner remarks. Not everyone shares the view that women and men equally drive the digital transformation of business relationships: »For some, it is still important that certain things are decided by a man.«

In order to change this mindset, it is important to give female digital leaders and their successful digitalisation projects a platform. As one of the few conferences in the B2B sector that focuses on digital transformation, the B2B DMC, presented by handelskraft.de and warenausgang.com, provides this platform and features a high-quality agenda packed with inspiring speakers from the field in 2021.

B2B DMC 2021 – Digital People. Digital Business.

The B2B Digital Masters Convention 2021 offers a platform for the digital transformation of business relationships in the B2B sector and focuses on the human factor. After all, there are people behind every company, product and service – people who want to bring the convenience of e-commerce, which they are used to in their private lives, to the professional world as well. At the third edition of the B2B DMC in November, digital experts will show that this is possible and how this can be achieved.

On the 9th and 10th of November 2021, B2B wholesalers, manufacturers, brands and all those interested in strategies for the digitalisation of B2B business will come together at the online conference. For the first time, this year's event will not only focus on best practices and strategy examples, but also feature masterclasses on digitalisation in the B2B sector held by leading software manufacturers.