The challenges of e-commerce for SMEs
The e-commerce sector is facing rapid change, which poses considerable challenges, especially for medium-sized companies. Rising customer expectations, increasing competitive pressure and the need to react quickly to market changes require flexible and powerful technologies. But how can SMEs ensure that their IT infrastructure is able to meet these requirements? The answer lies in choosing the right tools for the job.
The original role of SAP Commerce PCM:
While SAP Commerce plays a valuable role in the back office, overloading it with tasks it is not designed for can lead to significant efficiency losses. Tasks such as classifying products into different categories, exporting data to different channels or transforming it into other formats can overwhelm the system and slow down the entire e-commerce infrastructure.
Why specialisation makes sense: best of breed instead of best of brand
The ‘best of breed’ principle is becoming increasingly important in the modern IT landscape. Instead of relying on a ‘one-stop shop’ solution that may not optimally fulfil all of a company's specific requirements, more and more companies are opting for specialised software solutions that are precisely tailored to their needs.
A ‘best of breed’ strategy can offer decisive advantages for medium-sized companies. By using specialised PIM systems that have been developed for complex tasks such as managing product information, classification in multiple hierarchies or data-driven optimisation, they can make their e-commerce processes more efficient and react more quickly to market changes. In comparison, a ‘best of brand’ strategy, where all components come from a single brand, can limit flexibility and potentially lead to higher costs. This is not to question the quality of SAP Commerce, but rather that specialised solutions in certain areas are simply better suited to meet specific requirements.
How a harmonised system landscape ensures business success
A clear distribution of roles between SAP Commerce and specialised PIM systems can make a decisive contribution to creating an efficient and flexible e-commerce environment. SAP Commerce remains the backbone for the ERP and back office, while specialised tools take over the more complex tasks in the PIM area.
A practical example: a medium-sized company that relies on exporting its products to numerous different online marketplaces could benefit from a solution specifically designed to transform and export product data in various formats. SAP Commerce can fully utilise its strengths in combination with such a solution without being overloaded by additional tasks.
Conclusion
To summarise, SAP Commerce can continue to play a central role in the e-commerce of medium-sized companies - but it should not be burdened beyond its original task. A specialised system landscape that integrates best-of-breed solutions can help maximise efficiency and flexibility to ensure long-term success in e-commerce.
If you would like to find out more about how a customised IT landscape can help your company stay ahead of the competition, please contact us. We will analyse your current system landscape and will be happy to advise you on how you can optimally align your e-commerce strategy. For all on-premise users, now is the best time to prepare a migration to the cloud and establish specialised tools for specific tasks.
