Change is imminent - should SAP Commerce be replaced by a new solution?
from Jörg Brunschwiler at
There are many different reasons for replacing a system. In most cases, it is not about the performance of the actual system, but very often about changing framework conditions and the momentum to implement new architectures and solutions for successful business development.
Of course, there are customers who at some point - whether in the very old Hybris days or later - decided in favour of SAP Commerce and the system simply no longer fits their current situation:
- ... because the next upgrade will be very expensive
- ... because the licence volumes - e.g. as a B2B company with moderate online sales - are not in good proportion to sales
- ... because further development is too cost-intensive
These dissatisfied customers may either have had "bad luck with the service provider" - or are rightly convinced that another solution would be better and more economical for them.
Developments in recent years have brought solutions to the market that fulfil precisely this promise. The lightweight, modern architectures - to which we also orientate ourselves (see blog post on Composable Commerce) - help customers to realise their ideas of flexibility and speed.
SAP itself has also realised that the world is moving in this direction and has recently announced its SAP Commerce Cloud Composable approach:
In the article, SAP enumerates the well-known benefits that their (or the general) Composable approach pays into, and also lists exciting strategic partnerships with market-leading providers such as Contentful (for CMS) and Akeneo (for PIM).
The comprehensive article deliberately and skilfully avoids the main problem - in this context, it's almost ironic:
The centrepiece SAP Commerce Cloud remains the architectural monolith and is not cloud-native - and this inevitably leads to the difficulties mentioned above, such as expensive upgrades and further developments.
The best-known representative of commerce systems with modern architecture is probably commercetools. However, one solution stands out in this context that fits like a glove for unhappy SAP Commerce customers: Emporix, a cloud-native digital commerce platform for B2B and B2C in one solution.
It is essentially what the experienced SAP Commerce developers still have in mind as YaaS (Hybris as a Service) - and was already forward-looking at the time.
However, this development strand never caught on within SAP, but it is now on the market as its own software and offers a major advantage over other modern solutions:
In Emporix, the philosophies familiar from SAP Commerce and tried and tested since the old Hybris days are also on board, for example in the data structures.
A dreaded migration project away from the SAP Commerce Cloud - to Emporix - is therefore leaner by definition.
Does this lean replacement of SAP Commerce Cloud - in pursuit of the composable commerce approach - with Emporix sound too good to be true?
The answer is probably the same as always: it depends!
We would be happy to analyse for you whether a change would make sense in your situation and what it would mean for you.
Why are we the right people for this? We are
- ... know SAP Commerce Cloud very well from an application, consulting and implementation perspective
- ... are the first Swiss Emporix partner
- ... are the absolute integration experts (for SAP and various ERP, CRM and industry solutions)
- ... are Akeneo and Contentful experts (partnerships are being established here)
- ... have a proven and pragmatic review process
Get in touch with us!
