If you are using antiquated tools in your e-commerce business, you are probably making a mistake. With customer expectations rising, it is always recommended to use robust e-commerce tools to serve customers as they deserve.
If you integrate SAP Commerce Cloud as a robust e-commerce platform, you can benefit your enterprise from qualities like excellent performance, security, scalability, and broad functionality.
Furthermore, it’s a matter of the moment before we decide whether to improve the platform or replace it entirely. Moving workloads to a new version of SAP Commerce Cloud is necessary to upgrade and gain access to additional features, enhanced dependability, and improved performance. However, re-platforming is concerned with replacing the current e-commerce system with a newer one, which means you are moving from on-premise to the cloud to react to the competitive e-commerce world.
In this blog, we’ll examine the advantages and disadvantages of each choice, empowering you to make the right choice for your business.
Benefits of SAP Commerce Cloud Upgrade
Upgrading the current platform allows you to take advantage of new features without affecting the main system. Here are some more benefits:
- Future-Proofing Site: Upgrading the SAP Hybris to the latest version allows you to future-proof your platform and quickly adapt to digital trends. It allows new features to be added to the system while the core system remains unchanged.
- Low Risk: Upgrading the SAP Commerce Cloud will ensure business continuity with the retained information, as opposed to re-platforming, which involves the risk of data loss. Users and administrators can continue without being interrupted.
- Less Expensive: Compared to re-platforming, upgrading the platform is cost-effective as the core system remains the same. You only need to spend on the adaptation, customization, training, and testing of the new system.
- Gain Access to New functionality: With each update release, SAP adds new functionality. Your basic system stays intact when you switch to the upgraded platform, which unlocks benefits like enhanced security, enhanced performance, and personalization.
- Maintaining Data Continuity: When you switch to the new version, your present data structures and workflows will be minimally impacted. Even after you have shifted your workload to the new version, essential elements like order histories, product catalogs, and private client information will be safely preserved in the system.
Challenges of SAP Commerce Cloud Upgrade
Here are some challenges associated with this process:
- Training and Adoption: The users will oppose the new changes, so training becomes paramount. Organizations must employ training methods to familiarize employees with new changes.
- Incremental Innovation: When the upgrades are performed, the overall architectural system will remain the same. While they will introduce new features, they will also limit the ability to harness the latest technologies to proceed with innovation.
- Customization and Extension: In many cases, transforming customization and extensions requires rewriting codes or refactoring, which is an additional effort to ensure compatibility with the new system.
Why Consider Replatforming?
Transitioning to a completely new platform will have the following advantages that you must know:
- Enhanced User Experience: If your present system is challenging to navigate, you risk losing clients. However, thanks to re-platforming, the chances of enhancing consumer experiences are higher when you have a responsive and easy-to-use interface.
- Fast Time-to-Value: Your legal system does not provide any future-proof guarantees, which might kill your business’s potential. So, instead of getting this praised, you can choose a new platform that will facilitate faster time-to-value.
- Performance and Scalability: There are a number of capabilities that replatforming provides for enhancing performance. With the use of cloud scalability, the new system can manage high traffic volumes without sacrificing user experience.
- Capacity to Innovate: Switching to a new platform gives you the chance to take advantage of the newest technological developments, including AI-driven analytics and personalization, which are core to satisfying consumer needs.
- Security and Compliance: Migrating to a new platform can be a good choice because they are built with strong security features. With robust compliance measures, the risks of data loss are significantly minimized.
- Innovation Potential: Integrating a new platform opens up opportunities to make the best AI-driven advancements and utilize the latest technologies to meet market demands.
Downside of Replatforming
Here are some common pain points for SAP Commerce Cloud replatforming:
- Possibility of Downtime: It can involve possible downtimes while the transition takes place, which can lead to business disruption. Customers might feel frustrated with site downtime, and you may lose the opportunity for sale.
- Data Loss: Replatforming requires careful planning around the data migration. While you are transferring your critical business systems, all the important data is on stake and might lead to corruption of data.
- Technical Difficulties: While you are replatforming the SAP Hybris, there technical complexities that might arise on the way such as coding errors and incompatible extensions.
Conclusion
In your effort to maintain a robust e-commerce system, you would either maintain the current SAP Commerce Cloud upgrade or do re-platforming after finding the perfect vendor. Both have their own advantages and challenges. SAP Hybris upgrade will help you make a quicker transition within your budget while re-platform option is perfect for a fresh start for heavy customizations which will support your long-term goals.