B2B Commerce Workflows Are Broken: Here’s What We Can Do About It

Let’s be honest: most B2B commerce workflows weren’t designed. They just … happened.

They grew layer by layer, like geological strata, each new approval, exception and workaround piling on top of the last. Before long, what started as a straightforward transaction morphed into a tangle of emails, spreadsheets, verbal approvals, and a “just-check-with-Janet” step no one really documented.

Throughout my career, I’ve been at multiple companies that have built complicated workflow solutions to address edge cases, only to watch those solutions fail to be adopted — or get ignored completely due to their never-ending complexity.

This mess isn't just annoying, it’s expensive and slow. And in an era when B2B buyers expect the same ease and immediacy they get from consumer platforms, it’s becoming a deal-breaker. What happened here? Software should be an enabler, not an intimidator.

Workflow Chaos is a B2B Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

Most B2B purchases involve more than one person. Department heads manage the budget. Procurement manages the negotiation process. IT reviews security. Inventory and operations weigh in. Legal wants terms. And everyone’s working off different timelines, tools and assumptions.

That complexity is real. But too often, companies respond by embedding rigid logic into systems that were never built to handle it, transforming commerce platforms into sprawling decision trees no one wants to maintain and people actively seek to sidestep.

And the moment that system fails — someone’s out of office, an approval threshold changes, or pricing rules shift — the whole thing grinds to a halt. So what do people do? They revert by sending an email, walking down the hall, or Slacking someone for a shortcut.

Instead of a workflow, you get a workaround.

Are We Overengineering for the 10%?

Here’s a hard truth: 90 percent of B2B purchasing is repeatable. It’s simple. It follows a known path. However, we tend to design systems for the rare 10 percent — the edge cases, the special approvals, the “what if this one VP is out of town” moments.

Designing for that 10 percent makes systems slower and harder for everyone. And ironically, those same exceptions typically require human judgment anyway, so all that extra logic still doesn’t remove the need for intervention.

The smarter approach? Build flexible, minimal workflows for the 90 percent. Handle the 10 percent manually or through existing business tools such as BPM software, ERP logic, or yes, even a well-documented Slack channel.

What B2B Commerce Workflows Should Look Like

It’s not that workflows aren’t valuable. It’s that they’ve become overengineered. So let’s reset the bar.

A good B2B workflow should:

• Support real buying behaviors, not idealized processes.
• Plug into existing business systems, rather than duplicate them.
• Provide enough structure to be auditable and to enforce accountability.
• Avoid forcing every edge case into software logic.

That last point is key. No one wins when approvals are so complex that buyers abandon the system or, worse, move the deal offline, where tracking disappears and errors creep in.

Rethinking the Role of Technology

Too often, companies try to solve workflow problems by shopping for a new platform — one that promises to “handle every scenario.” However, layering more tech onto the problem rarely fixes the root cause.

Instead, the better question is: What’s the simplest workflow solution that will still move the business forward?

Modern composable architectures and artificial intelligence-based automation tools make it easier than ever to design light workflows that are event-driven, traceable and adaptable. You don’t need to rip and replace. You don’t need to reinvent BPM. You just need to align your commerce experience with how people actually work.

Don’t Confuse Governance With Progress

If we’re going to make B2B buying easier, we need to remember one thing: audit trails are important. So are controls. But governance isn’t the same as progress. A workflow that slows deals down, confuses buyers, and frustrates Sales isn't a success story; it’s technical debt in disguise.

The B2B companies that win over the next decade won’t be the ones with the most airtight approval chains. They’ll be the ones that combine smart automation with human flexibility, reducing friction, not adding it. In other words, it’s time to make B2B workflows work.

Bryan House is the CEO of Elastic Path, a composable commerce solution.