As B2B e-commerce continues to gain momentum in Japan, businesses need smarter tools to manage their growing networks of partners. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce offers powerful capabilities that allow organizations to structure and streamline B2B interactions—particularly through the use of customer hierarchies.
In this blog, we explore how Japan-based businesses can leverage customer hierarchies in Dynamics 365 Commerce to manage B2B relationships effectively, automate partner onboarding, and control access across multiple e-commerce sites.
What Are B2B Business Partners?
In a B2B e-commerce setup, business partners refer to client organizations and their employees or representatives who engage with your company through an online portal. These partners might include wholesalers, corporate buyers, or resellers—essentially, anyone making purchases or managing accounts on behalf of a business.
Managing these relationships becomes more complex as your e-commerce footprint expands, especially when dealing with multiple users from the same company. That’s where customer hierarchies come in.
Why Customer Hierarchies Matter for B2B E-commerce
Customer hierarchies let you map out and manage the structure of each partner organization. This includes associating multiple users with a single parent company, assigning roles like Admin or User, and ensuring consistent pricing, credit terms, and permissions.
For Japanese enterprises focused on efficiency and compliance, this structured approach is essential. It enables centralized management while allowing controlled access for individual users within partner organizations.
Step 1: Enable B2B Features in Dynamics 365 Commerce
To begin, B2B capabilities must be enabled in the Commerce headquarters:
Go to Workspaces > Feature Management.
Search for the Retail and Commerce module.
Enable the feature: Use of B2B eCommerce Capabilities.
Once enabled, Dynamics 365 Commerce opens up new features including partner onboarding, approval flows, and automatic account linking.
Step 2: Automate Business Buyer Onboarding
Dynamics allows new business buyers to self-register via your B2B e-commerce site. To streamline this:
Enable the Local Identity Record and Commerce Customer Automatic Linking feature.
Ensure the 1010 (Customers) distribution job runs before login, so email-based linking is successful.
This automation ensures that once a partner submits a request, their organization and user records are automatically created and linked within the system.
Step 3: Define a Number Sequence for Customer Hierarchies
Number sequences generate unique IDs for each partner organization. In Japan, where recordkeeping and traceability are crucial for compliance, this is especially important.
To configure:
Go to Retail and Commerce > Number Sequences.
Create or select a number sequence.
Assign it under Commerce Shared Parameters > Customer Hierarchy ID.
This step ensures every partner organization has a unique and traceable identifier.
Step 4: Review and Approve Partner Requests
When a business submits an onboarding request, it’s saved as a prospect. An operations manager in Commerce HQ can then review and approve or reject the request.
Upon approval, Dynamics 365 creates:
One Organization-type customer record (for the partner company)
One Person-type record (for the individual user)
A customer hierarchy is created, linking the user to their company. The first user is assigned the Admin role, allowing them to manage their own team.
Step 5: Manage Roles and Access Within Hierarchies
As the business partner adds more users, each is assigned a User role and automatically linked to the existing customer hierarchy. This ensures:
Centralized invoicing and order tracking
Role-based access to catalogs and pricing
Streamlined customer service operations
From Commerce HQ, users can view, compare, and override property values across the hierarchy—for example, ensuring all users have consistent pricing tiers.
Step 6: Control Channel-Level Access (Optional)
From version 10.0.38 onwards, Japanese companies can restrict which e-commerce sites a partner can access. This is useful when managing multiple regional channels or product lines.
Administrators can associate specific B2B channels with a customer hierarchy, offering precise control over site visibility.
Conclusion
For Japanese businesses operating in the competitive B2B e-commerce landscape, managing customer relationships goes far beyond individual accounts. With Dynamics 365 Commerce customer hierarchies, organizations can bring structure, automation, and transparency to B2B partner management.
Whether you’re onboarding a new wholesaler in Osaka or managing resellers across Tokyo and Nagoya, customer hierarchies provide the foundation to scale securely and efficiently.
Sysamic specializes in localized ERP and CRM solutions tailored for the Japanese market. Contact us today to simplify your B2B operations.