March 16-17, 2027 / Convene, Chicago

Agenda

The agenda gives executives at manufacturers and distributors time to compare experiences, meet peers and work through challenges together. Their priorities shape the roundtable topics.

Submit your priorities

March 16Day 1

8:00-8:30am
Doors openBreakfast and pre-event activities.
8:30-10:30am
Pre-Summit workshopPre-event Executive WorkshopsThe Forum North/South, Adams & WackerSolution providers host these workshops before the Summit begins. Each workshop requires separate registration.
Data feeds: Data Syndication
Next Gen Search & Discovery
Turning Data into Dollars with AI
Sales Enablement
Redefining B2B Commerce in the Age of AI
10:00-11:00am
Summit registration opensWelcome. Check in and meet other attendees over coffee.
11:00-11:30am
Kick-off: State of B2B eCommerce 2027, The Next Competitive AdvantageThe HallEvery company has access to similar technologies, and AI is no exception. What separates leaders is how quickly they integrate technology, align teams, modernize processes and turn new capabilities into measurable business outcomes. In short: execution, organization and speed. What do you need to do as a leader to build a winning B2B business by 2030?
11:30am-12:45pm
Table Topic ConnectionsThe HallEveryone's favorite part of the Summit. Meet your B2B peers and talk about pressing issues in 15-minute speed-dating rounds that leave you with peer perspectives and ideas to take back to your desk.
12:45-2:00pm
LunchEnjoy lunch and connect with your manufacturer and distributor peers.
Invite onlyNexus Lunch SessionFor Nexus clients, Expert Advisors and invited guests: a working lunch facilitated by Nexus Expert Advisors to uncover and discuss B2B commerce imperatives in the current AI-crazy business environment.
2:00-2:50pm
PractitionersExecutive Roundtables, session 1Choose one roundtable. A practitioner moderates a small group through one problem for 50 minutes.
Selling to Buyers (and Bots) Who Never Call You First
Most B2B buyers do 60 to 70% of their research before ever talking to a salesperson, and a growing slice of that research is now done by AI shopping agents instead of humans. This session gets specific about what content is actually influencing decisions before your reps get a call, and what it takes to get found by an AI agent shopping on someone else's behalf.
Fix Your Product Data Before You Buy More AI Tokens
Most AI initiatives quietly stall on bad product data: missing attributes, inconsistent formats, duplicate SKUs. This session focuses on the specific data problems that block the most value and the order to fix them in, backed by examples of companies that accelerated time to market by cleaning up first.
What Happens When Your Search Bar Starts Making Recommendations
Search is shifting from type keywords, get a list, to a conversational assistant that understands intent and recommends. This session gets concrete about what that shift actually requires in product data, UX and integration, and addresses the real worry underneath it: buyers abandoning keyword search altogether.
Is Your Checkout Costing You Deals?
Payment terms and checkout friction are an underrated reason B2B deals stall or shrink. This session covers what is actually moving the needle, flexible terms, embedded credit, faster approvals, with real conversion numbers, not vendor pitches.
Solution providersWorkshop: Winning in B2B. How to Position for Relevance, Trust and GrowthThe way manufacturers and distributors research, evaluate and select solution providers is changing rapidly. This session for solution providers explores the latest shifts in B2B buying behavior and what they mean for your positioning, messaging and go-to-market strategy: how to stand out in a crowded market, communicate value more effectively, build credibility earlier in the buying journey, and align your message with what today's B2B buyers care about most.
3:00-3:50pm
PractitionersExecutive Roundtables, session 2Choose a second roundtable from the same list.
Solution providersWorkshop: Inside the Buying Room. How B2B Executives Choose, and Reject, Solution ProvidersSelling to mid-sized and large manufacturers and distributors takes more than a strong solution and a compelling pitch. This session examines how B2B buyers actually evaluate solution providers, who influences the decision, what gets a vendor shortlisted, and what causes promising opportunities to stall or disappear, plus the common mistakes solution providers make during the buying process and what the most successful providers do differently.
4:00-4:45pm
Interactive Panel: Is the Marketing Function Dead in B2B?Marketing has historically struggled to earn the same strategic influence inside manufacturers and distributors that it commands in many B2C organizations, and today the traditional B2B marketing function is being challenged even further. As eCommerce, sales, customer experience and revenue responsibilities converge, where does marketing fit, and who should own the customer and the growth agenda? This interactive panel explores whether the traditional B2B marketing organization is becoming obsolete, simply being renamed and reorganized, or evolving into something far more important. Hear how leading executives are redefining marketing's role, capabilities and value in the modern B2B enterprise.
4:45-5:00pm
Day one wrap-up
5:00-6:00pm
Cocktail receptionJoin your peers and Master B2B for a parting drink and snack in our event space.
6:00pm
Invite onlyExecutive dinnersChicago Metropolitan Club

March 17Day 2

8:00-8:30am
Continental breakfast
8:30-9:00am
Day two kick-off
9:00-9:50am
Interactive Panel: The Way I Used AI That Impressed My ExecsA lively, demo-led tech showcase of peer-recommended tools and technologies B2B commerce executives and their IT partners should know.
10:00-11:50am
Executive Roundtables: Technology and Business tracksChoose a Technology or Business roundtable. Each discussion runs 50 minutes with a peer moderator. The Technology track, How Technology Enables Growth, is where digital and IT partners join practitioners.
Technology track
How to Say No to 80% of Your Tech Backlog
Every proposed investment competes for the same limited attention and budget. This session is about the hard part: what to actually cut or defer, not just how to score a spreadsheet.
Is Your Tech Stack Ready to Let AI Take Action (Not Just Suggest)?
Agentic AI means software that can execute a task, not just recommend one, and most stacks were not built for that. This session focuses on what ready actually requires: data access, guardrails, and where to keep a human in the loop.
When to Replatform (and When to Stop Blaming the Platform)
Not every scaling problem is a platform problem. Some are process or org problems wearing a platform costume. This session helps separate the two before anyone commits to a rebuild.
How to Operate with Imperfect Data
Most executives are not waiting for perfect data before deciding on pricing, inventory or personalization, because perfect data never arrives. A practical conversation about what good enough looks like, how to tell when a data gap is truly blocking a decision versus being used as an excuse, and how teams have moved forward anyway.
Business track
eCommerce Growth Has Stalled. Now What?
Many manufacturers and distributors have reached a plateau in eCommerce adoption, leaving leaders searching for the next source of digital growth. This session gets specific about the common causes of the plateau and what leading companies are actually testing to break past it.
Retiring the KPI Slide No One Believes Anymore
Many companies are still using the same online-revenue metrics, and the same slide, year after year, even though digital's impact goes well beyond online revenue. This session is about which numbers actually get budget approved and why.
What Should Humans Never Give Up?
There is so much opportunity to automate everything, but just because you can does not mean you should. Where should you as a B2B leader draw the line on automation and advocate for human over agent?
Practical AI: A Hands-on Workshop
Beyond the hype, AI is delivering measurable value in B2B and wholesale by improving well-defined, high-volume, repetitive tasks. Participants work through real use cases that share a common foundation: enough training data, a clear measure of success, and human oversight for exceptions.
12:00-1:00pm
Lunch
1:00-1:50pm
Unpopular OpinionsFive executives share their hills to die on for B2B eCommerce that almost no one agrees with, in a fun, provocative session.
2:00-3:30pm
B2B Commerce Org of the Future (Meaning Now)Join your peers and experts in this hands-on session to build your org and talent roadmap for a modern B2B eCommerce team: new roles, reskilling versus replacing, and partner versus in-house strategies that work.
3:30-3:45pm
Coffee break
3:50-4:40pm
Interactive Workshop: What We Learned, Taking ActionThe Summit Download. Compare what you learned over the two days and decide what to take back to your team.
4:40-5:00pm
Summit wrap-up

Speakers will be added as they are confirmed. Session times and titles may still change before March.

Business and technology, together

Bring your technology lead.

Day Two includes both technology and business roundtables. Bring a colleague who can help apply what you learn.

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Help shape the conversations

What are your priorities?

Choose up to two roundtables you would like to discuss. Your choices help the organizers understand attendee interests; they do not reserve a session or register you for the Summit.

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