When it comes to S/4HANA migration and B2B eCommerce, conventional wisdom says, “Wait until your migration is complete before you launch eCommerce.”

That reasoning makes a lot of sense if you’re looking at a platform that doesn’t include prebuilt integration for ECC and S/4HANA. If you’re going to need a middleware solution sitting between the ERP and eCommerce, it’s wise to wait. Otherwise, you may have to build that integration once for ECC—then build it again for S/4HANA. That project could be quite complex. 

In the case of Corevist, there’s no need to wait. That’s because Corevist’s prebuilt integration easily follows you from ECC to S/4HANA with minimal heavy lifting.

How Corevist follows you from ECC to S/4HANA

You might be thinking, “Great, we would love to launch B2B eCommerce before our S/4HANA migration, but the technology problems are too big. If we have to rebuild the integration for S/4HANA, it just doesn’t make sense to launch now.”

This is why the Corevist Platform includes prebuilt ERP integration that easily migrates with you from ECC to S/4HANA. We have certified add-ons for both systems. If you have no business process changes as part of your S/4HANA migration, migrating your Corevist integration to S/4HANA is quite simple. If you have process changes, we might have to reconfigure the Corevist add-on, but the end result is the same.

Through all of this, there’s no impact to the front-end experience in your Corevist B2B eCommerce solution. It just keeps running, serving your customers’ needs.

Want the technical details? Check out this article: Should We Wait For Our S/4HANA Migration To Launch Corevist?

If you’re migrating to S/4HANA, then this is all good news. Because your S/4HANA migration is actually the perfect time to launch B2B eCommerce. 

How B2B eCommerce aligns with your cloud transformation

…if you don’t have B2B eCommerce today

If you don’t already have a B2B eCommerce solution, then your S/4HANA migration can serve as a catalyst to transform customer experience. The move to S/4HANA often reflects a larger cloud strategy within the organization—and cloud-based, managed SaaS is the ideal delivery model for B2B eCommerce. 

Why? Because it doesn’t create significant new work for IT.

The key is knowing when to launch B2B eCommerce. If the platform includes prebuilt integration that works for ECC or S/4HANA—as Corevist does—then there’s really no reason to wait until you’ve completed your S/4HANA migration. (More on that below.)

…if you’re replacing an existing B2B eCommerce solution

If you have a B2B eCommerce solution today, is it hosted or cloud-based? If you’ve committed to the cloud, it’s worth examining how B2B eCommerce fits into your cloud strategy. An existing hosted solution may require too much support from IT, and it doesn’t offer the security and uptime of a cloud solution. 

If your current B2B eCommerce solution is integrated to ECC, chances are, you’ll have to source an all-new third-party integration for S/4HANA. That’s why it’s worth replatforming now—to a solution that includes prebuilt integration that migrates with you from ECC to S/4HANA.

With this approach, you can knock out the B2B eCommerce transition now and eliminate one more facet of the S/4HANA migration project.

This is good news, because waiting to get B2B eCommerce ROI may set your organization back competitively.

Why you shouldn’t wait to get ROI from B2B eCommerce

Customers don’t have that patience

As Avionos reported in their recent B2B Buyer Report, customers experience significant pain with suppliers who don’t offer excellent digital experiences. Here are a few startling takeaways:

• 85% of B2B customers will abandon suppliers with lackluster digital experiences
• 97% of B2B customers are fed up with inadequate eCommerce technology
• Branded portals are tied with Google Search for first place when B2B buyers are deciding where to start their purchasing cycle

You’ll miss out on gains in revenue and profitability

It’s no secret that B2B eCommerce drives revenue and profitability. The discoverability of products, the ease of order placement, the fact that the buyer remains in control, and the lower cost of customer interaction—all of these factors contribute to revenue growth and increased profitability.

But B2B eCommerce also drives growth outside your digital channel. Consider these use cases:

• A customer peruses your B2B eCommerce catalog, learns of new products, and places an order through a traditional channel like email. The order doesn’t get attributed to B2B eCommerce, but the eCommerce store empowered the customer to order more.
• An EDI customer checks price and availability in B2B eCommerce before placing an EDI order. They find out that a certain SKU is in stock—one they weren’t expecting to be available. They include the SKU in their EDI order. Without real-time availability in B2B eCommerce, they would’ve sourced that SKU from another supplier.
• A sales rep uses B2B eCommerce on a mobile device to educate a customer during a sales call. With comprehensive product content, real-time availability, and the customer’s personalized pricing, B2B eCommerce empowers the sales rep to sell better. (The rep can even place the order through B2B eCommerce, on behalf of the customer.)  

You’ll miss out on efficiency gains

B2B eCommerce transforms customer experience with self-service. Your customer service reps get a lighter load from routine inquiries, which means they can transition to higher-value, strategic tasks.

Here are just a few ways that B2B eCommerce drives efficiency gains:

• Reduce or eliminate manual order entry from phone, fax, and email
• Automate email orders so they post directly to SAP ERP
• Reduce or eliminate routine status checks for orders, shipments, line items, and invoices
• Reduce or eliminate routine requests for documents
• Transition to self-service digital payment processes

The takeaway: Don’t wait to get ROI

B2B eCommerce is the future, and it offers great ROI—not only within the digital channel itself, but across all channels. The key is to find a solution that launches now, then migrates with you to S/4HANA. That’s the thinking behind the Corevist Platform.