Why Companies Should Look Beyond SAP for Their Commerce Future

With SAP Hybris being sunset, businesses face a critical decision: transition to SAP Commerce Cloud or replatform to an alternative solution. While sticking with SAP may seem like the path of least resistance, it may come with limitations that could hinder innovation, agility, and cost efficiency.

Staying with SAP Commerce Cloud: The Challenges

The challenges listed below have been cited in analyst reports from Gartner, Forrester, and IDC within the past two years.

Monolithic Core
Whether utilizing SAP on-premises or in the cloud, customers are still relying on what analysts refer to as its “monolithic core.” It is widely agreed that monoliths can limit the ability for customers to scale flexibly, may slow down innovation, and can increase the complexity of integrating new touchpoints or third-party services. As a result, businesses can face longer development cycles, higher operational risks, and barriers to adopting modern composable commerce strategies essential for staying competitive.

Pricing and TCO
SAP’s pricing may also hinder composable customizations, with the platform reported to have a rigid pricing structure compared to other solutions, particularly if customizations are required. In addition, the monolithic nature of SAP can require a full-stack development team, which may further drive up cost, particularly when considering that SAP-specific skills are reported to be less common and tend to be more expensive.
With one analyst report stating that SAP customers would like to see better cost flexibility, those seeking alternative solutions may find composable platforms not only reduce upfront investment but also make it easier to innovate and adapt without incurring significant additional costs.

Best-of-Suite vs Best-of-Breed
One analyst report details that SAP Commerce Cloud is best suited for complex enterprises with a significant existing investment in SAP ERP. However, in these cases, customers may be constrained by SAP’s best-of-suite approach, limiting their ability to freely select and integrate best-of-breed solutions that may be a better fit for their specific use cases. This can result in reduced flexibility, slower innovation, and missed opportunities to leverage more specialized or advanced technologies.

Why Spryker? A Smarter Approach to Digital Commerce

Why Flexibility Wins

Traditional suite-based solutions like SAP sometimes operate and integrate best with their own solutions. But these solutions may not offer the innovation your business needs. Spryker’s best-of-breed approach offers businesses the freedom to select and integrate the best tools available, fostering innovation and adaptability.

  • Industry-leading vendors specialize in their niches, offering superior functionality compared to all-in-one platforms.
  • Open APIs enable seamless integration, making it easier to evolve your commerce stack without lock-in.

Time-to-Value & ROI

Utilizing a more rigid platform can delay ROI. With Spryker, organizations can respond to market shifts with agility, launching new revenue streams without the IT burden of managing multiple systems.

  • Test, launch, and scale new business models in parallel without disrupting existing operations.
  • Adapt and iterate quickly, capturing revenue opportunities without long development cycles.
  • Leverage industry-specific expertise with Spryker’s dedicated team to maximize business impact.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

A composable, API-first architecture means businesses can launch and scale faster, without unnecessary overhead. Spryker’s modular approach lets companies choose only the components they need, integrate third-party solutions, and customize as required.

  • Short-term benefits: Faster implementation, quicker time-to-value, and seamless integration with existing tech stacks.
  • Long-term impact: Upgrade-safe extensibility ensures smooth updates, cost-effective maintenance, and a platform that evolves alongside business needs.

Preparing for a Successful Replatforming

Assess What Needs to Change
This isn’t just a technology shift—it’s an opportunity to refine your digital strategy. Are you simply replicating old processes or rethinking your business model for growth? Consider how your new platform can unlock new revenue streams and improve customer experience.

Control Scope from the Start
Scope creep is the biggest threat to replatforming success. Clearly define critical priorities vs. nice-to-haves to avoid delays and cost overruns. With a composable platform like Spryker, you can evolve incrementally, rolling out enhancements at your own pace.

Drive Change Management Early
Even when a new platform delivers clear benefits, internal resistance can slow adoption. Engage stakeholders across teams from the beginning, ensuring smooth transition and buy-in. Educating employees and customers on the benefits of your new commerce approach will set the foundation for long-term success.

Customer Example: HORNBACH

In 2020, HONRBACH found that their SAP Hybris e-commerce solution was just too rigid and not customizable enough. It restricted further technological design too much to make the necessary changes possible. Switching to Spryker's modular, headless architecture, HORNBACH gained the benefits of additional flexibility and speed. This now allows HORNBACH to react more flexibly to changing market requirements and implement new business models more quickly.

Several core software development principles played a vital role throughout the implementation process — influencing everything from the overarching architecture to individual lines of code. The focus extended beyond functionality to include performance, scalability, traceability, orchestration, and test coverage, ultimately resulting in a flexible, scalable, and future-proof architecture.

The Bottom Line

Replatforming isn’t just about moving away from SAP—it’s about moving toward a future-ready commerce solution that helps turn volatility into value. Businesses that choose Spryker can gain greater flexibility, lower costs, and faster innovation—all essential for staying competitive in today’s digital-first economy.

Ready to explore what a future with Spryker looks like?

Let’s talk

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About Spryker

Spryker is the leading global composable commerce platform for enterprises with sophisticated business models to enable growth, innovation, and differentiation. Designed specifically for sophisticated transactional businesses, Spryker’s easy-to-use, headless, API-first model offers a best-of-breed approach that provides businesses the flexibility to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating faster time-to-value throughout their digital transformation journey. As a global platform leader for B2B and B2C Enterprise Marketplaces, IoT Commerce, and Unified Commerce, Spryker has empowered 150+ global enterprise customers worldwide and is trusted by brands such as ALDI, Siemens, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Ricoh. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin and New York backed by world class investors such as TCV, One Peak, Project A, Cherry Ventures, and Maverick Capital. Learn more at spryker.com.

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