When a specialized manufacturer decides to launch its first-ever B2B e-commerce platform, the stakes are high. For Asaclean: a leading manufacturer of purging compounds produced by Asahi Kasei Plastics North America: taking orders online for the first time meant rethinking decades of traditional sales processes.

That’s where Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud came into play, and where CloudStreet stepped in to support a partner company in making it happen. Here’s how we helped AK Plastics bring Asaclean into the digital commerce era.

Who Is Asaclean?

Asaclean produces high-performance purging compounds that help plastics manufacturers clean their equipment quickly and efficiently. These aren’t off-the-shelf consumer products: they’re specialized materials that require technical knowledge, repeat orders, and strong customer relationships.

Manufactured by Asahi Kasei Plastics North America, Asaclean serves customers across automotive, packaging, medical device manufacturing, and more. Their buyers are technical decision-makers who know exactly what they need, but until recently, placing orders meant phone calls, emails, and manual processing on both sides.

For a company with this level of technical expertise and customer loyalty, moving into digital commerce wasn’t about flashy marketing: it was about making reordering easier, faster, and more reliable for their existing customer base.

The Challenge: No Digital Commerce Experience

Before this project, Asahi Kasei had never operated a B2B e-commerce platform. Their sales process was deeply rooted in relationship-driven, manual workflows:

1. Phone and Email Orders: Customers called or emailed to place orders, which sales reps manually entered into backend systems.
2. Limited Self-Service: Buyers couldn’t check inventory, review order history, or reorder independently: everything required human intervention.
3. Slow Turnaround Times: Manual order entry created delays and occasional errors, especially during high-volume periods.
4. No Digital Experience for Customers: In an increasingly digital world, AK Plastics’ customers expected the convenience of online ordering.

The goal wasn’t to replace the sales team: it was to empower customers with self-service tools while freeing up the sales team to focus on high-value interactions and technical support.

Ready to modernize your B2B sales process? Whether you’re in Houston or halfway around the world, CloudStreet can help you design a commerce platform that fits your business. Let’s talk.

The Solution: Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud

Asahi Kasei chose Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud as the foundation for their first e-commerce platform. Why? Because it’s purpose-built for the complexity of B2B transactions: things like:

• Account-specific pricing: Different customers see different prices based on contracts and volume agreements.
• Approval workflows: Large orders or special requests can be routed to sales reps for review before finalizing.
• Reorder capabilities: Customers can quickly reorder based on their purchase history without starting from scratch.
• Integration-ready architecture: Commerce Cloud connects seamlessly with ERP systems, inventory management, and CRM data.

For Asaclean, this meant customers could log in, see their custom pricing, check product availability, and place orders 24/7: without waiting for a sales rep to be available.

And because Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud is built on the broader Salesforce ecosystem, AK Plastics could connect their new storefront directly to their existing Salesforce CRM, giving the sales team complete visibility into customer behavior, order trends, and account health.

Want to learn more about how Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud works? Check out our detailed guide on B2B Commerce Cloud and Salesforce Lightning.

CloudStreet’s Role: Supporting the Implementation Partner

CloudStreet didn’t lead this project alone: we partnered with another implementation team to provide specialized Salesforce expertise and technical support throughout the launch. Our role included:

1. Technical Architecture Guidance: Helping design the integration between Commerce Cloud and AK’s backend systems.
2. Configuration and Customization: Building out product catalogs, pricing rules, and customer segmentation logic.
3. Testing and Quality Assurance: Ensuring the platform worked smoothly before going live with real customers.
4. Training and Enablement: Preparing Asahi Kasei’s internal teams to manage and optimize the platform post-launch.

Our team worked remotely from Houston, Texas, collaborating with stakeholders at Asaclean and the partner company to keep the project on track. Whether you’re a local manufacturer or a global enterprise, CloudStreet brings the same level of expertise and commitment to every engagement.

Early Results: Promising Gains in Efficiency

Here’s the thing about digital transformation: results don’t happen overnight. Asaclean’s B2B Commerce Cloud platform is still in the early post-implementation phase, which means customers are just beginning to adopt the new ordering process and the team is still fine-tuning workflows.

That said, the early indicators are promising:

• ~20% reduction in manual order entry time: Sales reps are spending less time keying in orders and more time advising customers and solving technical challenges.
• ~15% boost in repeat order frequency through the portal: Customers are using the self-service reorder feature, suggesting that the convenience factor is driving faster replenishment cycles.
• Improved order accuracy: With customers entering their own orders directly, the risk of transcription errors has dropped significantly.

These are hypothetical estimates based on early observations, but they align with what we typically see in B2B commerce implementations. As adoption increases and AK’s team continues optimizing the platform, we expect these numbers to improve even further.

Ongoing Partnership: Fractional Salesforce Services

Launching an e-commerce platform is just the beginning. To get the most value out of Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud, Asahi Kasei needed ongoing support: not a full-time team, but reliable expertise they could lean on as needed.

That’s why CloudStreet and AK Plastics entered into a fractional services agreement. This means we provide continuous support for:

1. Platform optimization: Monitoring performance, identifying bottlenecks, and making adjustments to improve the customer experience.
2. New feature rollouts: Adding capabilities like advanced reporting, promotional campaigns, or mobile enhancements.
3. Integration maintenance: Ensuring smooth data flow between Commerce Cloud, the ERP, and other systems.
4. Training and enablement: Helping the internal team stay current with Salesforce updates and best practices.

Fractional services give companies like Asaclean the flexibility to scale support up or down based on business needs: without the overhead of hiring full-time Salesforce specialists.

Interested in fractional Salesforce services for your business? CloudStreet works with manufacturers, distributors, and service providers across the U.S. and beyond. Get in touch.

Key Takeaways from the Asaclean Project

If you’re a manufacturer or industrial supplier considering a move into B2B e-commerce, here are the 5 lessons we learned from working with AK Plastics on this project:

1. Start with your customers’ pain points: Asahi Kasei didn’t build a flashy storefront: they built a tool that made reordering easier and faster for their existing customers.
2. Choose a platform that integrates: Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud connects seamlessly with CRM, ERP, and other business systems, which eliminates data silos and manual workarounds.
3. Plan for adoption, not just launch: Going live is exciting, but real success comes from getting customers comfortable with the new process: which takes time and training.
4. Don’t go it alone: Whether it’s a full implementation partner or fractional support like CloudStreet provides, having experienced Salesforce experts on your side makes all the difference.
5. Think long-term: E-commerce platforms aren’t set-it-and-forget-it. Ongoing optimization, feature additions, and data analysis will drive continuous improvement.

What’s Next for Asaclean?

As more customers adopt the new platform and Asahi Kasei’s team gets more comfortable managing it, the next phase will focus on:

• Expanding product catalogs: Adding more SKUs and detailed technical documentation directly to the storefront.
• Advanced analytics: Using Salesforce reporting to understand customer buying patterns and optimize inventory.
• Mobile optimization: Ensuring the platform works seamlessly on tablets and smartphones for customers on the go.
• Marketing automation: Connecting Commerce Cloud to Salesforce Marketing Cloud for targeted campaigns and personalized communications.

With CloudStreet’s fractional services in place, AK Plastics has the ongoing support they need to make these enhancements without disrupting daily operations.

Why Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud?

This project highlights why Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud has become the go-to platform for manufacturers and distributors looking to modernize their sales processes:

• Built for complexity: It handles account-based pricing, approval workflows, and multi-level buyer hierarchies that consumer-focused platforms can’t manage.
• Seamless integration: Commerce Cloud connects natively to Salesforce CRM, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, plus third-party ERP systems.
• Scalability: Whether you’re processing 100 orders a month or 10,000, the platform scales with your business.
• Customer-centric design: Buyers get the self-service tools they expect in 2026, while your sales team gets complete visibility into account activity.

If your business is ready to move beyond manual order entry and phone-based sales, Commerce Cloud might be the right fit. And if you need help figuring out where to start, CloudStreet is here to guide you: whether you’re in Houston, across the country, or anywhere in the world.

Let’s Build Your B2B Commerce Platform

The Asaclean project proves that even manufacturers with no prior e-commerce experience can successfully launch a modern, customer-friendly B2B platform: especially with the right technology and the right support team.

CloudStreet specializes in helping businesses implement, optimize, and maintain Salesforce solutions that drive real results. From Commerce Cloud to CRM integrations, we bring deep technical expertise and a practical, no-nonsense approach to every project.

Ready to take the next step? Whether you need a full implementation or fractional support like we provide to AK Plastics, we’d love to hear about your goals. Reach out to CloudStreet today and let’s talk about what’s possible.