In this episode of the B2B eCommerce Show, Justin King sits down with Ty Sweet, Senior Technical Marketing Engineer at KIBO, to break down a hard truth in B2B commerce: orders are messy, and most systems weren’t built to handle that complexity in real time.
Ty explains why split shipments, backorders, contract pricing, dropship vendors, multiple warehouses, and multiple ERPs quickly turn “simple” orders into operational chaos. The conversation clarifies what an Order Management System (OMS) actually does, how it differs from an ERP, and why real-time inventory and order orchestration are critical to modern B2B fulfillment.
Justin and Ty explore how OMS acts as the brain of fulfillment—deciding where orders ship from, when they ship, whether they’re split or consolidated, and how business rules, customer preferences, and cost optimization all factor into those decisions. They also discuss why relying on batch inventory updates or overloading ERPs with real-time logic leads to broken promises, higher costs, and frustrated customers.
The episode closes with a look at how automation, AI, and agentic workflows increase the importance of strong OMS foundations, and why OMS is no longer an add-on but a core layer of the B2B commerce stack.
Key topics include:
• Why B2B orders look simple in the cart but fail behind the scenes
• What an OMS does and why ERPs aren’t built for real-time fulfillment decisions
• How order orchestration and routing actually work
• Why real-time inventory and available-to-promise matter at scale
• How to reduce ERP complexity instead of “Frankensteining” it
• Why OMS becomes more critical as automation and AI increase
A practical episode for manufacturers, distributors, and B2B commerce leaders looking to reduce order chaos and build fulfillment operations that scale.
Guest: Ty Sweet
Host: Justin King
