The modern digital commerce ecosystem is quite different from what it was a decade earlier. Where once product quality and free delivery was an impressive factor, today they are categorized as secondary.
So, what matters the most to your customers, if it’s not quality products and services? The answer is product experiences. Unless your online store offers a differentiating and immersive experience to your customers, right from first interaction to support, it won’t be long before your competitors submerge you under water and take over.
A unified experience across all touchpoints is what your customers admire and desire. However, several online merchants and retailers struggle to realize the omnichannel eCommerce vision. Quite frankly, managing an online store is an arduous practice, mostly because several retailers don’t invest or own an integrated eCommerce platform that supports their front-end and back-end and facilitates an efficient connection between them.
- The retailers struggle to provide consistent inventory and pricing information to both staff and customers in real-time leading to overselling or underselling.
- They raise the already exorbitant operational costs by getting additional staff to handle transactions.
- And, they fail to maintain a steady and consistent flow of data such as shipping, tracking, order fulfillment, customer, product and inventory to their independent system.
All such inefficiencies and more result in a mismanaged, broken, and segmented eCommerce system that isn’t able to handle the dynamic customer and market demands.
To break this circle and to achieve complete unification and transparency in eCommerce operations both immediate and long term, while delivering impeccable end-to-end customer experiences across all breakpoints, eCommerce integrations is a must. In fact, Gartner predicts, by 2022, a digital commerce experience will contain over 30 integrated applications. It further states, over 50% of costs and efforts in eCommerce platform programs will be spent on integrations with internal and external systems alone.
In this blog, we discuss one such powerful integration between the world’s #1 CRM platform, Salesforce’s eCommerce offering, Commerce Cloud, and a market-leading ERP platform, SAP. Commerce Cloud Salesforce integration with SAP is particularly attractive to B2C and B2B businesses since it encapsulates everything from customer information to product specifications under one umbrella.
So, without further ado, let’s delve into the specifics of Salesforce Commerce Cloud and SAP integration.
Why Commerce Cloud Salesforce integration with SAP?
A lot of times, businesses ask this question from our experts, ‘Why should I integrate my Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform with SAP’? Or better, ‘What difference can a Salesforce Commerce Cloud SAP integration make to my online business?’
Here we discuss the top reasons why you must go for Commerce Cloud Salesforce integration with SAP.
#1: A single source of truth about your business’ data
When you have a separate Salesforce Commerce Cloud and SAP system, all data entries have to be made twice. Often, these systems have data entries that the other one needs. It means that data related to finance, inventory, order, shipping, or accounting is being stored at two places at once. Not only does this hassle complicate your workflow, but someone from your team must take out the time to manually perform data sync.
When you integrate SFCC with SAP, you eliminate the part of operations where you have to re-sync data manually. Suddenly, order details, customer information, or shipping details are sent from your SFCC solution to SAP ERP and vice versa. There is no data duplication, no batch updates between systems, and no more finding errors in data entries. This real-time bidirectional data flow offers a multitude of other benefits, all of which eventually improve your day-to-day operations.
#2: Personalized product pricing and catalogs on a customer-to-customer basis
Personalization is all the rage in digital commerce. In fact, it is a crucial differentiator between any two businesses. Salesforce integration with SAP becomes vital for businesses that offer customized pricing based on order quantity, product combinations, customer or company login and previous order frequencies. Personalized pricing norms in an SAP Salesforce integrated system prevents price misquotes, enhances sales productivity and profitability.
Similarly, Commerce Cloud Salesforce integration with SAP assists with personalized catalogs as well. For instance, suppose a customer owns machinery for which you sell the replacement parts. As a business owner, you obviously want to show them your personalized catalog consisting of the parts relevant to their machines when someone from their company logs in. A seamless Salesforce Commerce Cloud and SAP integration will provide that information by porting that customer’s details and purchase history stored in the SAP to the SFCC solution.
#3: Simplified and transparent inventory management
It is no secret that the online retail space is a dynamic and competitive ecosystem. There are millions of transactions conducted everyday and almost the same number of products are sold. So, if you aren’t better than your competitors’ pricing or if you don’t follow the market trends, or if your products aren’t able to satisfy your customers, then you aren’t making the full use of your eCommerce platform.
Commerce Cloud Salesforce integration with SAP takes a step into this direction. SFCC SAP integration streamlines order processing, allowing customers to manage their orders in real-time. It means that as soon as a customer places an order on the front-end, the integrated system updates the same in the back office inventory and accounts. Since your inventory is maintained as soon as an order is placed, it helps you forecast accurate product demand and volumes and prevent popular material shortages, overselling and underselling based on historical data utilized from SAP.
#4: Simplified order management for customers
When customers are able to track their order and your inventory in real-time, they can and rest assured that the order will be placed without a hitch. With Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s customer-friendly order management, you can even assign orders automatically to a relevant sales rep and they can work to resolve the query as soon as possible. It also allows customers to give special instructions regarding their order, which will be easily carried to the ERP for faster and reliable processing.
Even when occasionally problems arise, customers can easily reach out for support and your integrated SFCC SAP system will make quicker query resolution possible. Even if an order is placed by a customer non-existent in your system, Salesforce Commerce Cloud SAP integration will automatically create one for you. As customers handle their accounts online, your support staff can handle and resolve issues online accurately and quickly.
#5: Reduced operational costs
Automated data entry can drive more sales and reduce operational costs than you can imagine. As orders, when placed, are updated simultaneously on the SFCC and SAP platform, warehouses receive the information right when they need it, reducing time-spent on processing orders to a customer’s doorstep. It also means that your eCommerce website is updated with out-of-stock information, which will also save you the hassle of back-ordering in cases when a customer purchases goods that they shouldn’t be allowed to in the first place due to non-availability and poorly synchronized inventory systems.
Another way to reduce operational costs lies in not needing IT staff to build or maintain the solution. A real-time Salesforce integration with SAP allows you to handle inventory, order and distribution easily on a unified system without needing any additional staff.
Power up your digital commerce offerings with Commerce Cloud Salesforce SAP integration
The idea of Commerce Cloud Salesforce integration with SAP is to create a system that works for your digital commerce business and can easily scale as you grow. Your eCommerce business needs a more real-time solution that makes data management easy, reduces labor costs that otherwise would be spent on maintenance and review, and indulge in an error-free automated workflow that supports your customers. It is where Salesforce Commerce Cloud SAP integration can help you.
However, to reap its full benefits, you need someone who will work hard to understand your needs and set it up in a manner that maximizes profits. Our experts are all-ready to offer you a free consultation to discuss how Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration with SAP can fit your needs and what it can do for your business.
