In this second episode of The CEO Spot, Rick Watson sits down with Matt Harris, Founder of Harris Digital.

The interviews were conducted at Shoptoberfest 2025, discussing the state of B2B e-commerce and the challenges of 'hard commerce' faced by manufacturers and distributors.

Harris explains that many companies struggle with legacy ERP systems, analog data management, and complex pricing models involving tiered and customer-specific discounts. He emphasizes the importance of product information management (PIM) systems in cleaning and centralizing data before launching e-commerce platforms.

Harris shares his background, starting in the 1990s, with early e-commerce projects and how his agency helps mid-market manufacturers (with up to $1 billion in revenue) modernize sales by augmenting—not replacing—existing ERP systems.

He discusses the friction caused by generational mindset shifts and private equity consolidation in these industries. On AI, Harris notes that while small-scale AI and analytics are useful, most enterprise AI projects fail to deliver revenue due to siloed data and unrealistic expectations; he advocates for building unified data lakes and warehouses as a foundation for future AI-driven business improvements.