What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
As a PIM and PXM vendor, Akeneo offers a comprehensive solution for managing and optimizing product information across all channels. Our solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with a range of other systems and applications, making it an ideal choice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce. Additionally, by partnering with Spryker, a leading e-commerce platform, Akeneo can provide a complete end-to-end solution for companies looking to build and deploy modern, flexible digital experiences. Together, our solutions enable companies to quickly and easily assemble and deploy new capabilities and experiences while also providing the flexibility and scalability required to meet evolving customer needs and market conditions.
At Akeneo, we are proud to be a technology partner with Spryker, a leading e-commerce platform that enables Composable Commerce. Our PIM and PXM solutions are foundational to any successful commerce strategy, providing the ability to manage and optimize product information across all channels. By integrating seamlessly with Spryker, we are able to provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution that enables companies to quickly and easily build and deploy modern, flexible digital experiences.
Together, our solutions enable companies to create seamless, personalized omnichannel experiences that engage customers and drive revenue growth. We are excited to be at the forefront of this transformational shift in the e-commerce industry, and we look forward to continuing to work with Spryker to help companies achieve their goals and succeed in the rapidly evolving digital marketplace.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
In addition, Composable Commerce allows companies to be more agile, which is vital in the modern marketplace where businesses need to be able to adapt to emerging trends fast. This can be difficult with a standard e-commerce solution, where making changes to your system can be expensive and take a long time. Changes are much quicker and simpler in a headless system, making it easier to adapt to whatever comes your way.
Finally, a big advantage of Composable Commerce is that it saves both time and money. Making modifications to a traditional commerce platform can take weeks if not months. During this time, you’ll rack up a huge IT bill—especially if you outsource development responsibilities. A headless commerce platform allows businesses to oversee change implementation in-house, and those changes are much quicker to implement.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
The adoption of composable technology is really high in Europe - particularly in Germany. 79% of enterprise businesses are already on their journey from monolithic architectures to composable tech, and that number is only going to grow. We also expect to see expansion into new verticals and huge growth in other regions such as North America, Asia, and the Pacific as well.
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
Be prepared for the transformation to require a significant investment early on, which will pay off later. At the beginning of the journey, there will likely be smaller incremental wins and improvements rather than a huge immediate return on investment. Consider asking peers already on the journey, such as those in the MACH Alliance, to give a clearer idea of the total cost of ownership over the entire lifecycle.
There will be a learning curve when adopting Composable Commerce, so it’s important to invest in training your team. There may be specialised training options that your solution provider can point you to.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
Fluent Commerce’s solution is a cloud native, highly flexible, and fully scalable distributed order management platform. Fluent Order Management provides accurate and near real-time inventory availability across multiple locations, as well as supporting order orchestration, fulfillment optimisation, fulfillment location management, and reporting.
Partnering with a leading B2B composable commerce platform like Spryker was the perfect next step as we further expand our capability into the B2B market. The opportunity to manage 1st and 3rd party products via Spryker's marketplace capability, underpinned by Fluent Big Inventory and Fluent Order Management, is a game-changer.
Furthermore, we value ecosystem over ownership, and Spryker has demonstrated their commitment to that by building and supporting a connection to Fluent Order Management for our joint customers. Similarly, they share our strong commitment to advocating for MACH technology and Composable Commerce solutions. We firmly believe that Composable Commerce unlocks a step change in the ability for customers to innovate when compared with previous unified stacks.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
First, it can be used to create or, with the right technology partner, co-create hyper-personalized solutions that talk to the consumers’ needs and help businesses meet specific KPIs, leading to an optimized customer experience that reduces complexity and costs.
Second, it makes A/B testing in real-time easy and effective by ensuring each individual composable element of their tech stack works harmoniously and in sync.
This is more advantageous considering the influx of new technological capabilities we’re seeing. Forward-looking businesses need to adapt to these changes quickly to reduce costs and increase overall operational efficiency. That’s where Composable Commerce has its biggest advantage – businesses can take an API-first approach and easily adapt to new advancements and ever-changing conditions, create new ways of interacting with customers across their user journey, and have a modular tech stack that allows them to add / remove / switch functionalities based on business needs.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Customers now want faster one-to-one interactions with their favorite brands. As a result, we've seen hyper-personalization, automation, and 24/7 availability take center stage. Recent developments in technology have led to new entrants, including AI chatbots, rich messaging apps, and upgraded voice and video channels – making it easier for customers and brands to connect and stay connected. We see these industry trends on our own platform with a substantial increase in cloud contact center interactions, chat apps as key channels for marketing, sales, and support - as well as year-on-year growth in the use of digital channels for customer communication.
With this shift in customer communication channels, we’re experiencing more conversational interactions that have led to industry-wide transformations such as chat banking, conversational commerce, and the 4th industrial revolution. These advancements are setting the foundation for a conversational future. Effectively replicating an in-store experience through a single digital channel, what we refer to as Single Channel, omni-experiences.
In the future, Composable Commerce will continue to advance in both efficiency and user experience to become an essential part of many aspects of every industry and not just retail. So, far the majority of the use cases have been around the retail and e-commerce vertical. However, we're already witnessing adoption among other industries such as finance, Telco, and healthcare. We will see a further verticalization of use cases, and plug-and-play tech stacks, made simpler because of this adoption of such a modular solution. This will also democratize customer experience technologies further, with partnership ecosystems playing a pivotal role in helping businesses achieve their true potential. AI and predictive models will take center stage, and data will be the north star that will fuel innovation, revenue, opportunity, and longevity.
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
Choose a communication partner that you can co-create with. The beauty of a composable approach is that you can blend different solutions together to create the perfect one for you – and for that, you need a partner who understands your business needs and has a flexible platform that makes everything extensible. For example, our Infobip platform is like a jigsaw puzzle we can easily fit into a customer's tech ecosystem.
Think of CPaaS as the DNA of Composable Commerce, ensuring an API-first approach that allows more partners, customers, and developers to participate in a looping ecosystem that supports value creation, ideation, and exchange.
And most importantly, think about the bigger picture by starting with the customer experience you want to achieve and then working backward to optimize the tech stack needed to go-to-market with speed, scale, and cost efficiency.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
The entire commerce ecosystem is constantly evolving, and for businesses to stay ahead, they need the right technology partners. This is where Infobip and Spryker, together, make the difference. Our partnership brings two hyper-focused leaders in the technology space, integrate their solutions to help B2C/B2B companies have the composability and flexibility required to succeed. This results in:
- Spryker’s addition of being a global B2B commerce platform and marketplace provider, with our added communication layer, make for the perfect Conversational Commerce value proposition bringing industries, solution partners, and end users into the new digital age
- A modular solution from Infobip – for conversational capabilities – CDP, Customer experience solutions, Buyer journeys, unrivaled portfolio of channels, and conversational design. We are moving the landscape from an omnichannel approach to us providing singular channel but omni-experience.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
When getting started with Composable Commerce, companies should consider several key factors to ensure a successful implementation.
- Identify your needs: Before selecting a Composable Commerce solution, it is important to identify your business needs and requirements. Consider factors such as scalability, flexibility, customization, and integration with existing systems.
- Choose the right components: Composable Commerce is all about selecting the right components that meet your specific needs. Consider factors such as functionality, compatibility, ease of integration, and vendor support when evaluating different components.
- Plan for integration: Composable Commerce requires a well-planned integration strategy to ensure that all components work seamlessly together. Consider factors such as data mapping, API design, and testing when planning your integration strategy.
- Focus on customer experience: Composable Commerce allows for greater flexibility in delivering a personalized customer experience. Consider factors such as personalization, real-time interactions, and seamless omnichannel experiences when designing your customer experience.
- Embrace agility: Composable Commerce is designed to be agile and flexible, allowing businesses to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs. Embrace this agility by staying up-to-date on emerging trends and technologies and being open to new solutions and components.
When evaluating different Composable Commerce solutions, consider factors such as vendor experience, reputation, support, and pricing. Look for vendors that have a proven track record of success and offer comprehensive support and documentation.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
NETFORMIC GmbH is an e-commerce agency. Their services include development, strategy, customer experience, PIM and much more for marketplace & online store. Equipped with the perfect toolbox, NETFORMIC makes their clients' ideas and businesses grow - radical digitally, of course.
One of the key advantages of Spryker is its focus on customization and personalization. With Spryker, businesses can create unique and tailored experiences for their customers by using a wide range of modules and tools that can be easily combined and configured to meet their specific needs.
Overall, Spryker is a strong choice for businesses looking to implement a Composable Commerce solution. With its modular and flexible architecture, focus on customization and personalization, and robust API ecosystem, Spryker can help businesses to stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
With composable, you’re given the freedom to use best-in-class components and choose the right commerce components, CMS, build tools, etc. that fits your team and use case. This allows you to realize faster time to market, better flexibility, scalability, security, and the ability to differentiate your brand.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
- Time to market: How fast can I deliver? How fast can I make changes?
- Conversion on your digital touchpoints. How fast does content load?
- What are the true costs involved in not only publishing but also maintaining the site once it's live?
Next, you should prioritize projects where you can see tangible results. Shipping faster means that you'll be able to receive feedback from the market faster, optimize or pivot quickly, and watch the ROI results stream in.
Last, remember that choosing the right composable components only gives you the ROI you are looking for if you also apply the right composable orchestration. If you are still doing operations as usual on your infrastructure cloud, you typically won’t get the key benefits like a significantly increased time to market.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
With Netlify, you have complete autonomy to deliver compelling brand experiences through instant web updates. You can quickly build and deploy new sites and stores or iterate on existing ones without bottlenecks. Compared to output created with monolithic solutions, e-commerce pages built with Netlify are also more performant, reliable, and optimized to drive more conversions. Most importantly, because Netlify’s e-commerce stack is powered by composable architecture, users can easily implement modular updates to the stack based on their needs. Together, Spryker and Netlify are a powerful Composable Commerce solution that is flexible, scalable, and easy to manage. By leveraging the modular architecture of Spryker and the web development capabilities of Netlify, retailers can create customized e-commerce experiences that meet the unique needs of their customers today and in the future.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
- Agility: Businesses can experiment and innovate more efficiently as Composable Commerce allows them to add and test new features quickly without impacting the whole system. New products and services can be brought to market more quickly.
- Scalability: Composable systems can be more easily scaled up and down as components are scaled independently unlike monolithic applications. So, you can respond to change more quickly without re-architecting the whole application.
- Flexibility: Composability allows to build applications using a collection of pre-built best-of-breed components that suit the business best. They are easily assembled and replaced as needed. The high degree of flexibility allows businesses to adapt to changing market conditions, customer needs, and the changing commerce landscape.
- Customization: Create highly customized systems by only adopting components the business requires and integrating them in ways that best suit their needs. This leads to a more personalized experience for the customers.
- Cost: Composability helps to avoid costly custom development and integration costs by leveraging pre-built components. These components are often more affordable and easier to maintain than custom code, delivering better value for money.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
- Emerging technologies integration: There will be many new components and solutions that leverage emerging technologies like AI, Blockchain, IoT, AR/VR, etc. This will allow new and innovative services and experiences.
- Customer Experience: Solutions will evolve to better meet the needs and expectations of customers. I expect a greater focus on personalization using real-time data analytics, providing more seamless targeted digital experiences.
- Increased adoption: More businesses will see the benefits of Composable Commerce. This will lead to new and more specialized solutions and improved interoperability between solutions in the market; all driven by a desire to improve flexibility, scalability, agility, customization, and cost-effectiveness
- APIs, APIs, APIs: More and more business functionality will be exposed through APIs. This will allow businesses to integrate different components and systems more seamlessly. Also, there will be increased standardization around the use of APIs.
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
- Understand your requirements: Before you start evaluating solutions, understand your requirements and goals, and determine what you need and how it can be integrated.
- Start small: Composable can involve significant complexity, so it’s important to start small and gradually build, test, and refine to minimize the risk of a major failure.
- Integration capabilities: Composable relies heavily on integration between components. Determine the ease of integration, and identify limitations or restrictions on types of integrations. It’s essential to have a capable team or partner for this.
- Evaluate composable solutions: Many solutions in the market offer similar functionality. Assess quality, functionality, scalability, and compatibility. Determine how well they meet your requirements.
- Evaluate vendor support: Ensure you have reliable vendors. Assess the quality of support and responsiveness. What training and documentation are available to help you get started?
- Security: Ensure that your solution is secure. E-commerce manages potentially sensitive information. Asses security features and ensure they meet your needs around data, protection, compliance (PCI), and risk management. Composable solutions should adhere to zero-trust principles.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
Commerce as a Service (CaaS) is drastically changing the way businesses think about digital transformation projects. CaaS gives businesses flexible service offerings, enabling them to leverage the exact solutions they need to drive their digital transformation.
- Accelerators & Applications: Pivotree is constantly building new accelerators and applications to support faster time to market at lower cost and mitigated risk.
- Get More for Less: All-in-one services or unbundled; you get the best in strategy, implementation, experience design, and performance, all at one monthly price.
- Reduced Technical Debt: Our customers spend upwards of 20% of their IT budget on technical debt. Through our managed integrations and composable technology we work with, we can reduce that technical debt by upwards of 50%.
- Flexible Payment Options: Reduce capital spend with periodic payment plans.
For all these purposes, Spryker is the right partner for us because of its dedication to building the Spryker App Composition Platform to seamlessly bring technology partners together. Spryker is built for the Enterprise. Together, we have solved many specific B2B problems, such as alienating channel conflict, buy-side marketplace, and complex CPQ built into the commerce platform.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
Composable commerce offers significant advantages over traditional eCommerce. Its architecture is designed to be highly decoupled, with packaged business capabilities that include related microservices. This approach effectively abstracts the complexities of flow orchestration and data synchronization.
For Enterprises, this means that Composable Commerce
- unlocks flexibility and agility within the organization
- results in lower TCO
- can be implemented quickly
- is easy to integrate with third party enterprise systems like ERP, PIM, CMS
- provides consistent user experience across multiple touchpoints.
- supports changes required by the business team
- enables multiple business models
- can be monetized at various touchpoints
- facilitates adjustments to market and consumer needs quickly
- helps in selling in multiple markets
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Over the years, e-commerce platforms have evolved from first generation shop-centric platforms like Hybris, Oracle commerce, Magento to second generation service-centric platforms like Demandware, Commercetools to third generation api-centric platforms like Newstore, VTEX and to the current and fourth generation app-based platforms like Spryker.
Given that companies have built their commerce technology stack by buying off-the-shelf solutions or through custom developments, there is a heterogeneous mix of platforms. Replacing all of these with a single monolithic DXP becomes challenging. Such projects can easily cost millions of dollars, and as a result, it is difficult for companies to justify the expenses as they typically lack business cases that can provide a cost/benefit analysis.
For others who have complicated e-commerce systems that cannot scale, are end-of-life, and also face capability issues but would still like to retain some of the systems, create long term roadmaps while offering high-performance composable is the way. In both these instances, companies have the flexibility to can adopt the composable approach since they can replace some systems and retain some to save valuable data and complex customizations that have evolved over time. This enables them to become more agile, save money and build a business case.
Composable Commerce will also evolve in the development of more standardized interfaces and protocols. Continuous innovation with new components and integrations will make it an excellent option.
Trends and developments that are expected to emerge include:
- Increased adoption of headless architecture
- Expansion of the composable ecosystem
- Greater emphasis on API-first approach: API-first approach is another key component
- Integration of AI and machine learning will become even more important
- Increased focus on security and compliance
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
We would first recommend an evaluation of a company's digital maturity and then check to see where the approach should be fully composable or headless could serve the purpose. One could start headless with a composable platform and gradually move to Composable Commerce without an impact on the revenue.
If the company is facing an engagement issue with its channels and needs to update the site with new content frequently, want to offer sophisticated personalization, or needs site performance, then the approach would be headless approach with an enterprise class CMS.
Our success mantra is to “walk in the footsteps of the customer”. This allows us to create innovative customer journeys for clients. The normal process that we follow includes
- Key stakeholder engagement
- Understand the current pain points and vision for 3-5 years
- Become familiar with the business processes and current state
- Design the plan and roadmap in consent with the Stakeholders
- Platform Evaluation and offer the options
- Design an MVP as per the industry best practices and existing business processes with buy-in from customer
- Commit, build, and deliver
- Support and scale
Key considerations when selecting a commerce platform.
- Platform Vendor should be willing to “make you succeed”
- Widely accepted underlying technology
- Maximize OOTB and minimize development
- Commerce PBC’s needed upfront to build an effective transactional site
- Composable experience management and CMS solution allows marketing to manage content
- Out Of the Box Accelerators aligned to B2C,B2B,B2C marketplace, B2B Marketplace to make development easy
- Marketing and attribution: Help understand what’s performing well and what isn't, with tracking attribution from ad clicks. Enable meaningful, data-driven choices for improving CX
- Search and personalization: Advanced search capabilities like search term indexing, boost and bury, minimum search time, and easy query modeling
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
SkillNet Solutions is a leading provider of consulting, engineering, and system integration services. We help enterprises modernize their omnichannel touchpoints to better engage and transact with their end customers. SkillNet collaborates with top industry players like Spryker, to deliver modern commerce solutions. These solutions are composable, cloud native, and headless, and power all business models such as B2C, B2B, B2B2C, and marketplaces. With a track record spanning over two decades, we have partnered with leading brands across North America, EMEA & LATAM to deliver unparalleled customer experiences and drive growth.
We see a lot of synergy between SkillNet and Spryker. Whether a customer needs an Enterprise Marketplace, B2B and B2C, Unified Commerce, or loT Commerce, Spryker has the transactional capabilities for a new business, to create innovations, or to bring an existing platform to the next level. Our partnership gives us the expertise to provide comprehensive platform evaluation by mapping desired capabilities with out-of-box capabilities, customization needs, and address geo regulatory and compliance requirements. With a team of 19+ certified consultants, SkillNet supports customers through the entire project process, from design to development and implementation. Our team not only understands the platform but also has in-depth knowledge of processes being implemented.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
The landscape of digital commerce has undergone a dramatic transformation, evolving into an entirely distinct realm compared to what it was just one or two years ago. New solutions are cropping up daily, and it’s no longer good enough to simply release a new feature every few months. The future of digital commerce is composable because there's a need to move quickly to adapt to ever-changing customer expectations and market conditions. In this environment, an Operating Model that allows you to test and scale becomes more important than an actual strategy. Integrating Composable Commerce and Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs) are the key elements for such an Operating Model from a technology point of view. Time to market and the capabilities to build-measure-learn are essential for success. Monolithic systems of the past and also the very granular microservices, that first have to be processed into functional units, don’t allow for the same level of speed and flexibility.
Furthermore, incorporating composable puzzle pieces that can be swiftly implemented and tested enables businesses to future-proof their operations and safeguard against market disruptions. I encourage businesses to lead the change rather than react only. Whether B2C or B2B, the modern consumer wants a channelless experience. This means multiple touchpoints and the ability to seamlessly switch between them. By relying on robust, proven solutions from different providers, you can customize the exact solution you need to implement better processes, serve customers, and meet the market's demands.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
- Focus on Developer Experience: With the rise of Composable Commerce, developer experience (DX) will become a critical consideration. ChatGTP and other AI tools will allow developers to focus on the fun part of their jobs. E-commerce platforms will invest in developer-friendly tools, comprehensive documentation, and vibrant developer communities to encourage collaboration, accelerate development, and facilitate easy onboarding.
- AI and Personalization: Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a crucial role in Composable Commerce's future. Businesses will harness AI-powered tools and algorithms to analyze customer data, provide personalized experiences, and optimize product recommendations. AI-driven automation will streamline processes and enable real-time decision-making, enhancing customer satisfaction and conversion rates.
- Integration of Emerging Technologies: Composable Commerce will embrace emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), voice commerce, and Internet of Things (IoT). These technologies will enable immersive shopping experiences, voice-activated purchasing, and smart, connected devices, blurring the boundaries between online and offline commerce.
- Security and Privacy: The rise of AI in technology will be challenging for legal and privacy laws. Companies need to stay secure and flexible at the same time (recent example: Italy banning ChatGTP). As e-commerce continues to grow, ensuring robust security and protecting customer privacy will be paramount. Composable Commerce will evolve with enhanced security measures, including stricter authentication protocols, encryption standards, and compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.
- Composability will expand into the organizational space to form what Gartner calls the “Composable Enterprise”. Many teams in an organization will work like a project rather than a department.
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
Firstly, it is crucial to establish a setup that aims for as much standardization as possible while still allowing room for individual experiments. This balance allows for consistency in processes and systems while fostering innovation and agility.
However, the organizational setup is equally important as the technological aspects. Companies should look to Asian best practices, as they have demonstrated the ability to maintain speed and efficiency even as they grow. In contrast, Western companies tend to become slower and less adaptable as they expand. One management approach that many of the leading Chinese firms follow is called DEDA (Digitally Enhanced Directed Autonomy). The three core features of the DEDA approach are
- granting employees autonomy at scale
- supporting them with digital platforms
- setting clear, bounded business objectives
I recommend starting with the DEDA approach alongside the existing organizational structure. Trying to integrate digital transformation and composability into a century-old organization can be a painful and slow process. DEDA facilitates this process as it embraces experimentation and agility and naturally inclines to assess and adopt new technologies and solutions regularly.
What is Spryker's offering in terms of Composable Commerce?
Spryker was recognized as #1 of all vendors in the Composable Commerce Use Case of the August 2022 Gartner® Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce report, which is the companion report to the renowned Magic Quadrant, and evaluates the vendors’ capability to meet customer use cases.
In addition to Spryker’s technical capabilities that have been tailored for composability from the get-go, we offer our Composable Value Services as a set of tools, resources, and expert support provided by Spryker and our partners. Together, these services help businesses on their journey towards Composable Commerce, and ensure faster ROI and accelerate the timeline from adoption to achieving business outcomes. Whether you are a customer or not, our team of experts can work with you to identify the challenges and outcomes specific to your business – and support you in finding the right composable strategy and tools to address them.
At Spryker we always go beyond technology. We consider it our mission to enable our customers to become future-ready as an organization. With our own Success Enabling Services we guide you through every step of your digital journey. This customized, hands-on approach covers everything from Business & Technology Strategy to Implementation and Scaling. It has been designed to ensure effective results and a shorter time to value.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
Composable Commerce offers a range of benefits over traditional e-commerce approaches. One of the main advantages is the ability to create personalized and flexible customer experiences. With a modular approach, businesses can quickly and easily add or remove functionalities as per their business needs, allowing them to adapt to changing customer demands and market conditions. Additionally, Composable Commerce offers greater flexibility and control over the technology stack, allowing businesses to leverage best-of-breed solutions rather than being tied to a single vendor or platform (best-of-suite).
Another key benefit of Composable Commerce is the ability to reduce time-to-market and lower costs. By leveraging pre-built components, businesses can significantly reduce development time and costs, enabling them to bring new products and features to market faster. Furthermore, the modular approach allows for greater agility, enabling businesses to respond quickly to market changes and customer needs.
Finally, Composable Commerce provides greater scalability and future-proofing. With a modular approach, businesses can scale their technology stack as their business grows without having to re-platform or migrate to a new solution. This can help businesses avoid costly and time-consuming re-platforming projects, providing a future-proof solution that can adapt and grow with their business.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Composable Commerce is a relatively new approach to e-commerce, and its potential is only just beginning to be realized. In the future, we can expect to see Composable Commerce evolve and mature, with new trends and developments emerging in the field.
One trend we are likely to see is the continued growth of headless commerce. As more businesses look to provide seamless omnichannel experiences, the need for headless commerce solutions that can deliver content and commerce across multiple touchpoints will only increase. Composable Commerce, with its modular approach and API-driven architecture, is well-suited to support headless commerce initiatives.
Another trend we can expect to see is the emergence of more specialized composable solutions. As businesses look to differentiate themselves from their competitors, we may see more niche solutions emerge that cater to specific industries or use cases. These solutions may offer pre-built components tailored to specific business needs, enabling businesses to quickly and easily build custom solutions that meet their unique requirements.
Finally, we can expect to see continued innovation in the area of AI and machine learning. As businesses collect more data about their customers, they will be able to leverage AI and machine learning algorithms to provide more personalized and relevant experiences. Composable Commerce, with its flexible and modular approach, is well-positioned to support these initiatives, enabling businesses to integrate AI and machine learning capabilities into their existing e-commerce infrastructure.
Overall, the future of Composable Commerce looks bright, with exciting new developments and trends emerging in the field.
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
If you're considering adopting Composable Commerce for your business, there are several best practices and factors to consider when evaluating different solutions:
Firstly, it's important to start with a clear understanding of your business needs and requirements. What are your current pain points, and what specific functionalities do you need to improve your e-commerce capabilities? Make sure to evaluate different Composable Commerce solutions based on how well they can address your specific needs.
Secondly, consider the flexibility and modularity of the solution. Look for solutions that offer a wide range of pre-built components (also called Packaged Business Capabilities, PBCs) that can be easily integrated and configured to meet your specific requirements. Additionally, consider how well the solution can scale as your business grows and whether it can support the integrations and customizations you may require in the future.
Thirdly, evaluate the vendor's track record and customer support capabilities. Look for vendors that have a proven track record of delivering high-quality solutions and providing excellent customer support. Make sure to ask for references and case studies to gain a better understanding of the vendor's capabilities.
Finally, consider the cost and ROI of adopting a Composable Commerce solution. While Composable Commerce can offer significant benefits in terms of flexibility and scalability, it's important to evaluate the total cost of ownership and the potential ROI of the solution. Make sure to consider both the short-term and long-term costs and benefits of adopting a Composable Commerce solution.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
valantic is a leading provider for digital transformation that offers a wide range of services and solutions for businesses across various industries. In terms of Composable Commerce, our offer covers a wide range of capabilities such as business consulting, e-commerce platform selection, UX and design, API management, integration and data management, content management, and ongoing optimization and support. By leveraging the latest technologies and best practices, valantic's end-to-end approach ensures that businesses can create flexible, scalable, and personalized commerce experiences that meet their specific needs.
Spryker and valantic have been successfully working closely together for many years, sharing a common vision for the future of e-commerce, which is focused on flexibility, agility, and innovation, to provide commerce solutions for even the most sophisticated transactional business models. By leveraging Spryker's modular architecture and valantic's expertise in digital transformation, businesses can achieve a competitive advantage in the e-commerce space and deliver seamless customer experiences across multiple touchpoints.
What do you see as the key benefits of Composable Commerce over traditional e-commerce approaches?
A Composable Commerce approach allows an organization to select independent components from a variety of third parties and connect them together to build a flexible, scalable solution that addresses the organization's unique business need. This provides flexibility to replace or enhance their platform by adding on and swapping out components as business needs evolve.
For instance, businesses which have a simpler, more geographically limited business might be able to integrate a simpler, lighter tax engine to support their business. But as their business grows both geographically and in terms of the channels they sell through, they will need to upgrade and pivot to a tax engine that can meet more complex needs to support cross-border commerce, new channels such as marketplaces, a D2C channel, and/or subscription services. With a composable architecture, businesses can more easily integrate and connect the new tax engine and reduce the impact on operations, while supporting the growth of the business.
In the end, taking a composable approach helps to make the business more agile, reduces time to value, and leaves it better able to adapt to changes in the market, tax, and compliance regulations and/or technology. And able to provide the best possible customer experience.
How do you see Composable Commerce evolving in the future, and what new trends or developments do you predict in the field?
Customers will continue to demand a unified experience, regardless of how, where, and/or when they engage with a retailer or brand – from the high-street shop to social commerce, from the metaverse to a global online marketplace. Even this will continue to evolve.
Organizations will need to be able to react and adapt their solutions quickly to keep up with the pace of change and meet customer expectations – agility will be key. This will be common across industries, both B2C and more increasingly in the B2B space. Consistency in the customer experience irrespective of channel will continue to be important and will drive the need for a strong omnichannel strategy. In some cases, this will drive businesses to re-architect existing solutions to meet the need. This will make a Composable Commerce platform even more strategically important.
What will not change? The need to provide a seamless, consistent experience for customers before, during, and after a sales is completed. And the need to ensure that tax is accurately and consistently calculated across every system that supports these transactions.
Can you provide any best practices or advice for companies looking to get started with Composable Commerce, and what they should consider when evaluating different solutions?
The adoption of a Composable Commerce approach is a strategic decision for an organization. An investment in time and resources is required – the right technical and business stakeholders must be at the table. The solution must be considered from a holistic, end-to-end perspective to ensure the technology choices made support the needs of stakeholders across the business. This includes folks from tax and finance, who will need to understand how the solutions and architecture will impact their processes and ability to meet tax and compliance requirements.
Flexibility and scalability are important considerations when evaluating different solutions. Seamless integration and ensuring access to the right data at the right time across the solution is important to drive automation, empower strategic decision making and optimize business performance.
Organizations need to have a strategic vision to not only support their current operations, but also set the foundation and help to future-proof the business to support future requirements for tax and compliance, geographic and channel growth, and even new business units and acquisitions.
What is your offering in terms of Composable Commerce, and why is Spryker the right partner for you?
As the leading global provider of indirect tax and compliance solutions, Vertex works with our partners to ensure that our solutions can seamlessly integrate with the transactional platforms, solutions, and components that our customers rely upon to support their businesses. The integration of our solutions with Spryker’s e-commerce and marketplace platform will help to enable our joint customers to meet their tax and compliance obligations regardless of how, when, or where they transact. Removing barriers to business growth, and enabling them to provide a more unified and consistent customer experience.