SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 showcased how SAP has helped customers transform their businesses into intelligent, sustainable enterprises with a portfolio of industry-specific solutions including SAP Upscale Commerce and a headless eCommerce platform that relies on SAP Commerce Cloud.
Even before the pandemic, online shopping has been one of the leading online activities worldwide, with about 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars of global e-retail sales in 2019. As brick and mortar retail abruptly shifted the majority of their business online in 2020, eCommerce skyrocketed accounting for 18% of all retail sales worldwide and is projected to reach 21.8% in 2024.
In the recently concluded annual event for SAP customers and partners SAPPHIRE NOW 2021, apart from unveiling the SAP Business Network that will bring together Ariba Network, SAP Logistics Business Network, and SAP Asset Intelligence Network, the German tech giant also featured its eCommerce solutions SAP Upscale Commerce and SAP Commerce Cloud Project “Spartacus”. Both released in 2019, SAP Upscale Commerce and Project Spartacus are currently gaining more traction as eCommerce continues to grow along with the ever-changing consumer behaviors.
Headless eCommerce Platform Spartacus
Spartacus was developed by the same team that works on SAP Commerce Cloud as a free, open-source JavaScript web application that enables headless commerce. Fully compliant with any JavaScript storefront technology, the solution allows enterprises to completely separate front-end and back-end development. By being open-source, Spartacus offers larger access to the SAP Commerce Cloud ecosystem and digital agencies as well as those who may not be official SAP partners.
Riad Hijal, SAP’s Global Vice President for Commerce Strategy said that included in Spartacus’ roadmap are the continued API support and new features for the headless eCommerce platform. He confirmed that the solution would deliver faster load speeds for web stores and faster deployments of eCommerce sites for SAP customers.
“We will continue peeling off the monolith [of the SAP eCommerce platform] into independent commerce microservices,” Hijal said.
Lisa de Souza, Lead for Commerce Cloud Product Management, also shared that the software company is in the process of “decomposing” its eCommerce front end into core services such as order management, content repositories, search, payments, and Experience Builder with AI tools to quickly set up buying experiences.
Bill Grimwood, CIO of SAP Commerce Cloud customer Hillyard, shared during the SAPPHIRE NOW that technologies that support the end-user experience are now converging with those that support B2B and B2C eCommerce experiences. The Missouri-based cleaning products manufacturer recently switched to SAP Commerce Cloud, migrating complex product information from its homegrown commerce website.
“In 2021, B2B buyers expect a user journey and online experience that matches a B2C experience. It was critical in this project to make our site as intuitive as possible,” Grimwood said.
Featuring SAP Upscale Commerce
A next-generation B2C commerce platform designed for retail and direct-to-customer businesses (D2C), SAP Upscale Commerce addresses today’s midmarket retailers’ need for an intelligent selling engine that delivers engaging storefronts that also optimises sales and profit and has the ability to rapidly create mobile-first shopping experiences. The Software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution empowers enterprises to go to market quickly and meet customers in the moment with an affordable, no-code, and maintenance-free cloud solution.
SAP Upscale Commerce also took the spotlight during the conversation between Julia White, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, and Paige Wei-Cox, Senior Vice President and Global Head of SAP Business Network, at the SAPPHIRE NOW 2021. It was highlighted that SAP Upscale Commerce enabled one retailer to deliver an omnichannel shopping experience for consumers, with embedded AI for personalised offerings based on a 360-degree view of customer data, including social sentiment and purchase history.
Moving forward, de Souza said that the SAP eCommerce roadmap includes deeper AI for context-driven services as well as multi-catalog and multi-site support to widen the pool of information and products from which the AI tools doing the personalisation can draw. Furthermore, regarding SAP’s efforts to support the citizen developers, she said:
“In the future, we will work toward low-code/no-code capabilities to enable rapid application development using the talent and resources you have today.”
Recent Comments