Kawasaki Engines USA Grows B2B Ecommerce AOV by 500%

How Kawasaki Engines USA Grew B2B Ecommerce AOV by 500% Using AI

When people hear the name Kawasaki, motorcycles and jet skis often come to mind first. But behind those consumer-facing products is a powerful manufacturing operation — Kawasaki Engines USA — that also serves industries as diverse as robotics and aerospace. Over the past decade, this manufacturer has quietly been transforming its B2B ecommerce strategy, and the results speak for themselves: a staggering 500% growth in average order value (AOV). The secret weapon? Unified data and artificial intelligence.

At Salesforce Connections 2026 in Chicago, Anthony Gondick, Senior Manager of IT Business Strategy at Kawasaki Engines USA, pulled back the curtain on exactly how the company achieved this transformation — and what other manufacturers can learn from it.

The Challenge: Legacy Systems and Fragmented Data

Like many established manufacturers, Kawasaki Engines USA didn't start its digital journey with a clean slate. The company was operating on a foundation of legacy systems that held valuable data in silos. Customer information, order histories, product catalogs, and transactional data all lived in separate places, making it nearly impossible to deliver a seamless, personalized buying experience to B2B customers.

For a manufacturer whose customers range from small equipment dealers to large industrial procurement teams, this fragmentation created friction at every stage of the buying journey. Customers couldn't easily find the right parts, reorder efficiently, or receive intelligent product recommendations tailored to their specific needs. The result was a missed opportunity — not just in terms of customer satisfaction, but in terms of revenue.

According to Gondick, the first and most critical step was unifying all of that data from disparate legacy systems into a single, coherent platform. Without a strong data foundation, any attempt to layer AI or advanced ecommerce capabilities on top would have been built on sand.

Building the Foundation: Data Unification as the First Step

Data unification isn't glamorous, but it is transformational. For Kawasaki Engines USA, consolidating its data meant connecting systems that had operated independently for years — ERP platforms, CRM tools, product information management systems, and order management databases.

By bringing this data together, the company gained a comprehensive view of each customer: what they ordered, how often, what products complemented their purchases, and where they tended to drop off in the buying process. This 360-degree customer view became the launchpad for everything that followed.

The unification process also allowed Kawasaki Engines USA to clean and enrich its product data, ensuring that B2B buyers could search for parts and products with confidence, finding accurate descriptions, specifications, pricing, and availability — all in one place. In the B2B world, where procurement decisions involve technical specifications and large volumes, this level of data accuracy is not optional. It is essential.

AI-Powered Commerce: From Transactions to Intelligent Experiences

With a unified data foundation in place, Kawasaki Engines USA was ready to introduce artificial intelligence into its B2B ecommerce platform. Gondick's session at Salesforce Connections 2026 was titled "Drive Manufacturing Growth with AI-Powered B2B Commerce," and that framing is telling — the goal was never just to digitize existing processes, but to fundamentally elevate them.

AI capabilities were deployed across several key areas of the ecommerce experience:

Intelligent product recommendations: AI-driven recommendation engines analyze past purchasing behavior, industry type, and product compatibility to suggest relevant add-ons and complementary items at the point of purchase. This directly contributed to the increase in AOV, encouraging buyers to add more to their orders in ways that genuinely served their operational needs.
Personalized customer experiences: Rather than presenting every B2B buyer with the same generic catalog, the platform now delivers a personalized experience based on account history and preferences. A robotics supplier sees a different storefront than a motorcycle parts distributor, even though both shop on the same platform.
Streamlined reordering: AI helps identify patterns in repeat orders, surfacing likely reorder items proactively and reducing the friction that often causes B2B buyers to abandon a session or call a sales rep instead of completing a digital transaction.
Adoption acceleration: One of the less-discussed challenges in B2B ecommerce is getting existing customers — many of whom are accustomed to phone or email ordering — to actually use the digital platform. Kawasaki Engines USA leveraged AI-driven insights to identify which customers were underutilizing the portal and target them with personalized outreach and incentives to drive adoption.

The Results: 500% AOV Growth and Rising Revenue

The numbers tell a compelling story. By combining unified data with AI-powered commerce capabilities, Kawasaki Engines USA achieved a 500% increase in average order value through its B2B ecommerce channel. This is not a marginal improvement — it represents a fundamental shift in how customers engage with and purchase through the platform.

Higher AOV means more revenue per transaction without necessarily increasing the cost of acquiring new customers. For a manufacturer with a complex product catalog and a diverse customer base, this efficiency gain has significant implications for profitability and growth.

Beyond the numbers, the transformation has strengthened Kawasaki Engines USA's relationships with its B2B customers. When a buyer logs into a portal that understands their business, surfaces the right products, and makes reordering effortless, loyalty follows naturally.

Lessons for Manufacturers Exploring B2B Ecommerce

The Kawasaki Engines USA story offers a clear roadmap for other manufacturers looking to modernize their B2B commerce operations. A few key takeaways stand out:

Start with data: No ecommerce or AI strategy can succeed without a clean, unified data foundation. Investing in data integration upfront pays dividends at every subsequent stage.
Prioritize the buyer experience: B2B buyers increasingly expect the same intuitive, personalized experiences they enjoy as consumers. Manufacturers who meet this expectation will win loyalty and share of wallet.
Use AI purposefully: AI is not a magic button. Its value comes from applying it to specific, well-defined problems — increasing AOV, improving recommendations, reducing reorder friction — where data supports intelligent decision-making.
Measure adoption, not just revenue: Getting customers onto a digital platform is a prerequisite for everything else. Track portal adoption actively and address barriers proactively.

The Future of AI-Powered B2B Manufacturing Commerce

Kawasaki Engines USA's journey is still evolving. As AI capabilities continue to advance — from generative product descriptions to agentic commerce experiences that can handle complex procurement workflows autonomously — manufacturers who have already built strong data foundations will be best positioned to capitalize on the next wave of innovation.

For Gondick and his team, the work presented at Salesforce Connections 2026 is less a finished chapter and more a proof of concept for what B2B ecommerce can become when manufacturers commit to modernization from the ground up. The 500% AOV growth is remarkable — but if the trajectory continues, it may only be the beginning.

For manufacturers still relying on phone orders, static catalogs, and siloed data, the message from Kawasaki Engines USA is clear: the digital transformation of B2B commerce is not a future trend. It is happening right now, and the companies investing in it today are pulling ahead.