Kristina Harrington on Turning Aftermarket Parts and Service Into a Digital Growth Engine for B2B Manufacturers

For most equipment manufacturers, the sale of a machine is not the end of the customer relationship. It is the beginning of one. What happens after that sale, when a part wears out or a piece of equipment needs service, often determines whether a customer stays loyal or looks elsewhere. Few people understand that dynamic better than Kristina (Kris) Harrington, chief executive officer of GenAlpha Technologies, whose Equip360 platform helps manufacturers and dealers manage aftermarket parts, service, and digital commerce. Harrington joined Jason Hein on the B2B eCommerce Show to talk through the questions today's manufacturer websites still cannot answer and where AI is starting to close that gap.

Fifteen Years Building the Future of Parts and Service

Harrington's path to the aftermarket began in the U.S. Navy, where she worked as a machinist mate keeping ships running. From there she built a career in sales and aftermarket leadership at Enerpac, Caterpillar, and Bucyrus International, work that took her across Canada, Brazil, and Peru. That experience eventually led her and a group of colleagues to build the company that became GenAlpha Technologies, which had just marked 15 years in business at the time of the conversation.

I've been in technology almost as long as I've been supporting equipment in parts. — Kris Harrington, CEO, GenAlpha Technologies

Why the Relationship Behind a Part Number Still Matters

Hein opened by pointing out that a replacement part is rarely just a part. It represents a specific problem, whether a worn component or a breakdown that is costing a customer real money, and he asked Harrington what role the relationship between parts sellers and buyers has played in an industry built on capital equipment.

Typically you'll find that teams that support parts very well not only sell parts where customers come back to them regularly, but customers come back to them for the next capital piece of equipment, that next purchase, because they believe in the support. — Kris Harrington

Poor aftermarket support does not just cost a parts sale, she said. It can cost the next capital equipment sale as well.

Nobody wants to buy a five million, ten million, fourteen million dollar piece of equipment from somebody that isn't an expert. — Jason Hein, B2B eCommerce Association

The Question B2B Websites Still Cannot Answer

Hein asked Harrington a pointed question drawn from her years working across manufacturers' digital portfolios: is there a question a B2B website still cannot answer?

Where I think companies are struggling is prior to knowing the part number, helping them get to the part number. — Kris Harrington

Most B2B eCommerce sites, per B2BEA's guide to selecting a B2B eCommerce platform, were built to serve buyers who already know what they need. Harrington estimated that roughly 40 percent of the administrative work aftermarket teams handle comes after a customer already has a part number: pricing, availability, invoices, and tracking. Manufacturers have largely solved that layer. The harder problem, she argued, is helping a customer who only knows a symptom get from problem to resolution in the first place.

Access, Format, and Integration

Manufacturers have spent years investing in ERP, PIM, CAD, and warranty systems, each built for good reason, but rarely built to talk to each other or to the technician standing in front of a machine.

What I think has been missing is a connected system that allows everyone in that chain, your internal support, your customers, your dealers, however you go to market, to be able to access that information in a way that they can go and find the information that they're looking for quickly. — Kris Harrington

She described a distributor supporting roughly 100 pieces of equipment mostly through old paper binders, except for the one manufacturer whose support was fully digital, where answers came instantly instead of after a callback. Harrington framed the fix around three priorities: access, format, and integration, questioning whether a static PDF manual, pinch zoomed by a technician with dirty hands, is still the right way to deliver information. Bringing disparate systems together into a more flexible architecture is closely related to what the industry now calls composable commerce, assembling best fit tools rather than relying on one rigid platform for everything.

Where Artificial Intelligence Fits

Hein noted that "AI" covers a wide range of technologies, from large language models to machine learning to natural language search, and asked what kind actually helps manufacturers close the gap between a problem and its resolution.

AI can allow for conversational searching. — Kris Harrington

She described a system that can take a technician's description of a strange noise or vibration and narrow it down to a likely cause, drawing on manuals, parts data, and service video, or surface a validated torque spec on request instead of making someone hunt through a binder. That shift in buyer behavior is already underway: research from Forrester found that the large majority of B2B buyers now use AI somewhere in their purchasing process, often before they ever speak to a salesperson.

This next phase requires work, but we have the tools to enable this more than we ever have had before. — Kris Harrington

Freeing Salespeople to Do the Work That Matters

Offloading routine, low value questions to a well built digital experience does not threaten sales and service teams, Hein and Harrington agreed. It frees them.

My best salespeople only have so many hours in the day. It is not worth my best people's time to answer an email asking for a copy of a POD. — Jason Hein

I think people become way more valuable in this equation when we work on these things. — Kris Harrington

Freed from repetitive requests, aftermarket teams can focus on the gaps in customer data that point to bigger opportunities, the kind of work highlighted in B2BEA's discussion of aftermarket product data and profit leakage. It also lets less experienced staff walk into a customer visit prepared, using a connected view of that account's history instead of decades of institutional memory they have not had time to build, something Hein compared to giving every technician "a giant construction exoskeleton." That kind of investment is paying off industry wide: Digital Commerce 360 has tracked manufacturers seeing measurable gains from modernized parts catalogs and digital support, and Pierce Manufacturing's work to rebuild its aftermarket parts platform, detailed in a B2BEA case study, is one example of what that looks like in practice.

Building a Loyal, Connected Customer Base

I personally believe that is the future we're working on right now: how do we make you easier to do business with. — Kris Harrington

Manufacturers who reduce friction earn something harder to replicate than a single sale. They earn trust.

People trust people who help them solve problems. — Kris Harrington

B2B eCommerce revenue continues to climb as a share of total sales, a shift McKinsey has documented across B2B industries broadly, and manufacturers who treat aftermarket support as a growth engine rather than a cost center stand to benefit most.

A Career Lesson in Raising Your Hand

Asked what she would tell her 21 year old self, Harrington, a self-described introvert, pointed to a habit she wishes she had built earlier: speaking up, instead of waiting to be asked.

I wish I would have done that earlier and more often in my career, not been waiting to be called upon in some way, but really to put my hand up with the information that I know. — Kris Harrington

Hein closed by pointing to storytelling as the thread running through the conversation.

It's so important to vendors. It's so important to manufacturers. It's so important to sellers. It's so important to service providers. We have to learn to tell stories that cross those cultures. — Jason Hein

Manufacturers and distributors looking to strengthen their own aftermarket strategy can find more practical guidance in B2BEA's B2B eCommerce Customer Adoption Framework.

About the Guest

Kristina (Kris) Harrington is the Chief Executive Officer of GenAlpha Technologies, a technology company focused on helping equipment manufacturers grow aftermarket parts and service through digital commerce. GenAlpha's Equip360 platform enables manufacturers to provide customers and dealers with easier access to equipment information, parts, service, and online purchasing. Kris has more than 20 years of experience in the manufacturing and equipment industries, with leadership experience in sales and aftermarket at Enerpac, Caterpillar, and Bucyrus International. She is a recognized thought leader in B2B manufacturing digital transformation and hosts a BROADcast for Manufacturers. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

About the Host

Jason Hein is Vice President of B2BEA Academy and Global Director of Programming for B2B eCommerce World at the B2B eCommerce Association, where he builds and scales the association's practitioner education offerings and leads the development of conference programming across B2B eCommerce World events in APAC, the Americas, and Europe. He also hosts the B2B eCommerce Show, where he talks with practitioners and technology leaders shaping how manufacturers and distributors sell online. With nearly 30 years of experience in B2B eCommerce, he also runs his own consulting practice, Acumental B2B, helping companies fix underperforming B2B sites.