Tag Archives: technology

So we’ve implemented hybris, what’s next?

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With hybris leading out as the most widely selected enterprise e-commerce platform more and more organisations have moved to implement the platform into their business.  This job is often no simple undertaking, but with the promise of great rewards both in terms of functionality and future proof capability, it will have driven your passion and rigour to get the first instance of hybris into your business. However once the platform is there up and running, where do you turn your strategy and thinking to?

Naturally the answer should be trading, merchandising and optimisation.  This in itself is an ongoing job that will continue for the next 5 years and will involve constant testing and evolution.  However if I’m a CIO, is their a roll for me to think outside this cycle of improving sales conversion and optimising revenue.  To understand this it is essential to understand the capability of the platform and how it can play a much bigger role within your business. The following is a number of useful considerations to help you formulate your strategy;-

1) Owning the product landscape.

Put a price on your product data. During your journey to implement hybris you would have taken inevitable pain processing, restructuring, understand, designing and enhancing your product data.  You will probably have a set of clear integrations to get your data into the platform and a good set of processes to enrich that data making it a single source of truth for all product information and its associated assets.  This journey ended up in you being able to display that product information in a nice new e-commerce platform for consumers to buy from.

It, however, shouldn’t end here.  We have created this single source of truth of product data and now hybris is the owner of all your enriched product information.  You need to create tools to expose that data to other services.  Whether that’s omni channel feeds to sales apps, pos platforms, mobile apps, omni channel environment or even print channels.  The first step is to make this openly available to your business by developing a set of simple api for subsidiaries, partners or even other departments to call to consume that data.  What this gives you is control, reuse, savings, quality, consistency a single source of truth.  Get this right and you are unlocking one of the biggest benefits of hybris. Get this wrong an you will see your hard work un done with data duplication by other system as your organisation digital evolution continues.

2) Development of a master consumer view

Once hybris is up and running and you are generating sales data you will start to develop a consumer data set.  Each of your consumers will be requested to create an account within hybris.  You may have implemented a loyalty programme alongside hybris again collecting more information on the user’s buying habits or profile.  You may be using hybris’s advanced personalisation module, again collecting more profile information.  This is an important next step in putting hybris at the centre of your single consumer view.  Each hybris consumer needs a dedicated account and because that account is where money is changing hands with the consumer it is one of the most important touch points with your customer.  Hybris will therefore have more authority over other consumer data that is collected within your organisation and ultimately if you are collecting other consumer information elsewhere you are more than likely to drive those consumers back to your commerce platform.

It therefore essential that hybris should look to own the master consumer model, even though the actual data may existing elsewhere such as SAP or a leading CRM platform.  Once this principle is established you should look to extend the master consumer model beyond the basic e-commerce profile, this can be done by considering the following;-

  • Create a global consumer passport id using hybris authentication via an open standard api as as open id.
  • Extend the profile data to authenticate with leading social platform therefore allowing us to harvest their profile data.
  • Extend their profile through loyalty programmes
  • Extend their profile trading and analytics data
  • Extend their profile through third part services and apps
  • Look to create api’s into hybris to allow other services to access key consumer information and also to contribute to their existing profile

I believe that extending hybris to own first the id and then the consumer profile makes it a much easier step to then integrate the data collected back into a global CRM platform. If you where to approach this the other way round or via an independent signon technology you would be left with a much greater integration challenge.

3) Protect your CMS

hybris is an enterprise e-commerce suite, with it comes a comprehensive set of core products such as a pcm(product content management platform), a cms(content management platform, a customer services cockpit, search engine as well as the e-commerce platform itself.  With such an extensive enterprise toolset you will no doubt have challenges to it as a one platform fits all.  Most of the challenge to hybris will come from the traditional content management vendors who themselves have expanded their customer engagement capability as well as their ease of use and agility in handling campaign based content. The two can naturally complement each other with one focussing on customer acquisition and the other focussed on conversion into sales.  However they do not naturally sit well together from an architecture perspective.  For example you cannot unpick a commerce platform so that it is wrapped via a content management platform with the cms platform handling the entire presentation layer.  If you do this you risk breaking the roadmap of each product and cutting out most of the advantage of the e-comm platform for marginal gains in functionality.  There is however a case where the two can exist as long as the boundaries are clearly marked and more importantly respected. So how is this done?

  • Hybris must take the lead, it is the core platform and engine behind your commerce site.  It therefore must take the lead in delivering all content and presentation for the commerce journey, product display, navigation and search. Breaking this will fundamentally undermine your architecture.
  • The content management journey must focus on the engagement of the consumer, whether higher up the conversion funnel via campaign activities.
  • Architecture of the two platforms needs to be clearly planned in advance.  Reliance on apis will cut out the value of both technologies.  Whilst apis do existing in both technology sets you cannot fall into the trap of assuming that they will deliver all elements of functionality that the product suites deliver.  They are there to expose data only not whole suites of technologies such as checkout processes and merchandising capability. Ignoring this will see expensive and constant cost with you initially building swathes of functionality and then later maintaining it to keep it in sync with both products roadmaps.

4) Be wise with mobile

Mobile is overtaking desktop browser environments.  hybris has traditionally been fragmented with accelerators having a clear split between mobile and desktop versions.  More up to date implementations of hybris have led to the partner community adapting one or more of the accelerators and making them more responsive templates.  However this may still lead to older implementation of hybris requiring the need to revisit the front end templates. Our view is that can be done efficiently and not require a major rebuild of the front end.  At Amaze we have utilised the Jeet Grid System into our templates which works fairly effortless with hybris.  Other approaches include Bootstrap and the Foundation framework.  Where to start this process is key,  we do not favour looking to redesign existing templates, we only look to design the degrade options for smaller screen sizes. We then work with existing css elements to ensure they will interoperate with the framework. Our recommendation around mobile is not to open a can of worms which will involve a complete redesign. Work with existing accelerators and your chosen responsive framework as a starting point, do not go back to the drawing board or photoshop as it will lead to an expensive redesign of all templates.

If you are starting out avoid the mobile accelerators for the time being.

5) Reporting

Reporting will be an ongoing theme for you as you get to grips with your data and trading activity.  Reporting will always include a mixture of services including hybris, ERP and your analytics platform.  You will however find all of these services fairly static and as you start to digest your data you will want to dynamically cut and dice that data.  This is where data reporting such as Business Objects, Tableau and Mixed Panel come into the equation.  However when you start to consider such projects you need to understand your data.  In order to do this we recommend grouping your data into pools and investing in the export mechanisms to get the data out of each platform. Again architecture and approaches need to be carefully thought through here as there is a place for an abundance of technology to process your data.  So we recommend not trying to do this adhoc look to create a service to pool all your data flow and maybe combine that with a central data warehouse.

6) Complementary Products

Once hybris has been implemented we need to keep a close watch on the vendor landscape.  There are lots of complementary services that are coming online that enhance hybris capability.  These are either hybris partner product or wider services from the e-commerce market place.  The early winners in this space are the A&B Testing toolsets that look to optimise trading content and merchandising.  Optimizely is a winner in this category and can work well with hybris.  But there are so much more that can benefit your implementations.  My recommendation is to talk to us first, we can demonstrate some up and coming tools and services that may benefit you.

7) Advanced personalisation

Following on from our master consumer view, a natural progression with hybris is through the advanced personalisation module.  This cannot be taken on until you have a clear strategy around your master consumer model.  However once you have an answer to this then hybris advance personalisation module can aid;-

  • An increase in your average order size by collection customer information from all sources, comparing it to adaptable targeting rules, and providing a personalised shopping experience.
  • The definition of meaningful customer segments and dynamically assigning customers to those segments based on online behaviour.
  • Support for behavioural targetting across multiple channels including online, offline and mobile.
  • Monitoring of outputs from rules to assess results and gain insight into customers and their online behaviou to adjust the product mix and develop effective marketing campaigns.

Again looking at the capability of this module within hybris can further underpin the necessity to keep hybris at the core of your digital estate rather than diluting it via competing cms technology, because personalisation can only truly be achieved via the platform that controls the product and pricing data which in all case is your commerce platform.

9) Better search

Hybris utilises the Apache SOLR search engine.  It is fully integrated within hybris and provides a rich set of search and navigation capability. However it can be improved through extension and customisation or via considering other complementary technologies. Enter SDL’s Fredhopper search platform.  The strength of this technology, combined with hybris is its ease of use for merchandisers.  It is a technology for consideration but only with close respect to the overall technology architecture and not to replace the hybris presentation layer.

10) Finally revisit the full specification capability of hybris.  T

There’s some great documents in hybris’s wiki.  You will find functionality and capability that you did not even know existed.  Ask Amaze to show you something new.

More than half of companies providing e-commerce will look to re platform in the next 24 months

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2013 will see significant investment in e-commerce technology and platforms as demand for e-commerce increases and as companies  innovate their multi channel retail offerings. The real winner will be platform providers that provide true commerce suites.   The concept of a commerce suite has evolved out of a driving requirement to combine what use to be very different technology, retail and marketing angles.  Each one of these angles meant that you would end up with a mash up of technologies like content management for your front end promotional and marketing platform, catalog management for your product information and then finally your e-commerce engine to take the order, take payment, check for fraud and pass off to the appropriate fulfilment partner.  To then combine this with all the subsequent technologies that need to be deployed for functionality such as analytics.  This miss match of technologies has meant that it has been difficult for companies to evolve and innovate their e-commerce platforms to take into account different e-trading ecosystems such as being able to work with partners such as Amazon, Apple(app), eBay, Google or even different approaches to commerce as demonstrated in China. It also has prevented them from innovating for different devices, channels and from providing a true omni channel experience between both online and instore worlds.  In addition to this the world of fulfilment has been changing, no longer are companies able to rely on one fulfilment model.

 

Organisations are faced with multiple fulfilment partners, multiple types of fulfilment from traditional ship to consumer models, to ship to store an in store pickup models.  Each require different levels of complexity and even different levels or integration requirements. Today commerce suite platforms provide a one stop platform that bring all this together under one architecture and one technology. Commerce platforms have evolved to combine content management, product information management, order management, customer services, analytics, fulfilment management promotions and campaign capability under one umbrella ecosystem, therefore allowing companies to be more agile and more costs effective when operating their e-commerce infrastructure.  The evolution of these suite of which we rate Hybris as the best is causing companies to think and take on the replatform of their current e-commerce estates.

 

Amaze are seeing a number of our customers and partners now undertaking these projects, however it requires a  unique capability;-

 

1) The right commerce suite platform which has the capability of providing one platform for all commerce requirements from marketing platforms, content management platform, campaign platform, brand platform,  product platform, promotions platform, order platform and finally fulfilment management.

 

2) The right commerce architecture that works with the suite, the fulfilment partners, your e-store design and your multi channel retail strategy.

 

3) The right model that takes into account your consumers, your markets and regions.  But also takes into account economies of scale between your stores.

 

4) The right integration approach that is open and encompass common standards.  Integration needs to be plug play allowing different fulfilment models and partners
5) The right retail control and optimisation approach that works with the site, the commerce suite and the data produced by your consumers to optimise trading, provide feedback and ultimately help provide intelligence to improve sales.
Amaze have developed a unique approach of consortium building, technology capability and the strengths of a traditional agency to provide the necessary one stop approach to re platforming your e-commerce functions. This traditionally is the realm of system integrators, but we have found that, as with the evolution of commerce suites, it requires a new type of business to deal with the challenges of todays e-commerce requirements.
So moving into 2013 we are going to see an 12% increase in online retail growth in the US and Europe but a far bigger percentage increase in e-commerce technology investment.  We will also see agency’s really come to grips with the commerce world with them starting to undertake the challenge of building significant commerce practices.

The connected visitor

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We are working on some interesting connections between user visits to a website and the development of that user’s digital profile.  What I mean is that a visitor to your website generally takes the form of a hit or visit.  But most users are now starting to connect with your website via some form of authentication or single sign on through their social network accounts. This enables us to build intelligence on that user so we can instantly respond to that user’s likes and needs.

Behind the scenes we can use intelligence to join the dots around that user and look to build a digital footprint that enables us to blend content and navigation around the user.  We can also use this intelligence to  understand the user(taking into account their consent) and segment according to their likes and dislikes.

The next generation website will use a combination of big data and connected intelligence to provide a more tailored browsing experience with content that is both more useful and intuitive.

This type of technology plays dividends when built into e-commerce solutions, both in terms of the templates that display product information but also the dashboard technology that enables e-commerce managers to keep track of the performance of their retail operations. It allows them to have a digital nerve centre monitoring all aspects of the commerce site.

The technology to do this exists in the identity layer of the site. We are seeing the development of SasS based identity management providers that can start to provide connected sign on, intelligence and reporting for your digital estate.  We will report more on this in the next few weeks.

Near field communication, can it make life more convenient?

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I’ve been looking into near field communication and possible applications for it.

Its and interesting technology and there is certainly lots of application ideas for it. Obviously the biggest break through will be a move to cashless society using your mobile phone to pay for things with a simple swipe of a sensor. Oyster cards and ticketing are also a logical route especially for people like me who keep loosing their Oyster cards. But there are lots of other applications which will make life simple and convenient.

I’ve been working with NFC with my new blackberry. I’ve just taken delivery of my first batch of sticky sensors. First thing I wanted to do is stick one on my desk. I wanted my out of office and other services such as social network status to change their status when I arrived at work. It proved really easy a simple swipe and my app did the rest. It switched my out of office off and the checked me in on facebook.

Next the car. One sticker on the dashboard, out of site, mind. One swipe. The phone was configured to turn its bluetooth on and switch off the bleeps from my email to save it catching my attention whilst driving.

Saved one sticker for home. Obviously the house isn’t fully automated but I could update some settings. Much more work here.

I guess when you start thinking about convenience and applications there are a lot of things you can use the technology for. Think about it being rolled into all your favourite shops, in the packaging of product, advertising boards, hotel checkins, door entry, flight boarding, immigration, business card exchange, time keeping systems and many more such instances.

Roll on iphone 5 we need to start building apps now.

Building a viable e-commerce business model

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For the last week I’ve spent my time on helping produce a viable e-commerce business model using latest enterprise class commerce platforms, a well informed seo and media strategy and a decent runway to break even. This is not the first time may I add, but it does take into account some new challenges.

The saas world, e-commerce 2, global markets and the improved use of pay per click have made it even more a numbers game to make the business model work. Obviously your product needs to be good, but if it is and you have the right partners in place and the right technology it is simply a case of playing the numbers to get a return on investment? Sounds easy? Not quiet that easy. Its a fine art, where you need to apply your skills and know how to finally tune your system to get the most out of it. Its only through experience and through having the right partners can you guarantee the numbers game will work.

To get it right depends on your conversion path and this starts by having a coordinated approach between brand, traditional advertising, pay per click, social channels and traditional product channels. All need to be identified and a strategy developed to create a buying conveyor belt to your e-commerce cart. It doesn’t start with just your site its starts a lot earlier.

Choosing the right platform and partner to route this conveyor belt through the buying process will lead to successful conversion.

The platform needs to be able to take the feeds of potential customers from all these conveyor belts. It then needs to show case the product well, display options and link to other products to engage the user and stimulate their buying emotions. This is where saas platforms that have one model to fit all fail to deliver. They fail to capture the channels and trigger the buying responses. A wholly owned platform tailored to your product, brand and customer will win hands down when it comes to maximising conversion. It requires multi channelled approach to commerce and there are only a few platforms out there that do this well.

So if you are looking to play the numbers conversion game you need to be in full control of the whole engine from advertising spend, ppc, seo to platform and design. You need to control it all in order to fine tune the animal. This I believe is critical to achieving your business plan. However think SasS when you implement.  Build the As A Service element for your global markets but own the technology yourself.