Digitalising 50 Years of B2B Trust: Steel Recon Industries' Move to Shopify Plus

Founded in 1974, Steel Recon Industries (SRI) is Malaysia's pioneering manufacturer of firefighting equipment and fire suppression systems, with products installed across more than 10,000 sites in over 70 countries, from stadiums and shopping malls to corporate towers and industrial facilities. For most of its five-decade history, SRI operated purely as a B2B manufacturer with a corporate website, no Ecommerce presence, and no need for one: their business was built on direct relationships with commercial clients, not online storefronts.

Client

Steel Recon Industries

Industry

  • Industrial & Manufacturing

Services

  • Discovery & Consulting
  • Integration Strategy
  • Cross-border Commerce Strategy
  • System Integrations & Middleware
  • Managed Services

Highlights

  • Digitalised 50 years of phone and WhatsApp-based B2B ordering onto Shopify Plus
  • Launched a new B2C fire safety product line, a first for a historically B2B-only manufacturer
  • Integrated Oracle NetSuite to connect Ecommerce orders directly into SRI's operational systems
  • Built for cross-border commerce to support SRI's presence across 70+ countries

Challenge

SRI's commercial customers had always ordered the same way: phone calls and WhatsApp messages to place orders for fire extinguishers, hose reels, and suppression systems. It worked, but it didn't scale, and it left no digital record, no self-service option, and no faster path for repeat commercial buyers who knew exactly what they needed.SRI's first attempt at Ecommerce was actually a B2C fire extinguisher shop for home and family use, a genuine departure from their commercial-only history. It proved the platform could work, but SRI's real opportunity, and their real challenge, was bringing their core B2B business online without alienating decades-old customers used to ordering by phone.

Goal

Digitalise SRI's B2B ordering process on Shopify Plus, giving commercial customers a self-service alternative to phone and WhatsApp orders, while managing a difficult adoption curve among longtime B2B clients who were used to doing things the old way. Alongside this, SRI needed the new platform properly connected to their Oracle NetSuite system and positioned to support cross-border commerce, given their footprint across 70+ countries.

Solution

Sweetmag built out SRI's Ecommerce presence in two phases, starting with B2C, then moving into the more significant undertaking of digitalising their core B2B business.

B2C Launch on Shopify Plus

SRI's first move online was a consumer-facing store selling fire extinguishers for home and family safety, a new business line for a company that had spent 50 years serving commercial clients exclusively. This gave SRI a working proof point for Ecommerce before tackling the more complex B2B side.

B2B Digitalisation with Shopify Plus

With Shopify Plus's native B2B functionality, Sweetmag helped SRI digitalise decades of phone-and-WhatsApp ordering into a self-service commercial ordering platform. Adoption wasn't automatic, longtime B2B customers were used to calling in orders, and change takes time with relationships built over years. The simplicity of Shopify's B2B ordering flow eased that transition, giving commercial buyers a faster way to order once they made the switch.

Oracle NetSuite Integration

Sweetmag connected SRI's new Ecommerce platform with their Oracle NetSuite system, ensuring orders placed online, whether B2C or B2B, flowed directly into SRI's existing operational backbone rather than creating a second, disconnected system to manage.

Cross-Border Commerce & Legacy System Modernisation

Given SRI's reach across more than 70 countries, the platform was built with cross-border commerce in mind, part of a broader legacy system modernisation that brought a company built on analogue, relationship-driven ordering into a digitally-enabled operation without losing the trust that took 50 years to build.

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