After the boom of webshops and platforms in the B2C area, the trend has now also become a permanent fixture in the B2B sector. The challenge here is usually to connect the web store and the ERP system, as well as other functionalities such as payment modules, product information systems and CRM systems, in such a way that the data can be exchanged quickly and without disruptions.
In order to implement such a project well thought through concerning technical and process-oriented issues, economical requirements and with a short time-to-market, appropriate preparatory work is necessary. Cooperation with a specialist in the field of integration does the rest to quickly make the project a success, both in the market and in the company's balance sheet.
At the very beginning of the journey to the ERP-integrated B2B store stands the definition of goals, processes and additional components. All of these factors have to be harmonized with the ERP system, e.g. SAP. One challenge, for example, can be the consideration of sales partners abroad. The potential customer can get information about the products in the webstore, but orders through the local sales agency. The customer has maximum convenience due to the advance information in the store and the sales agency is not bypassed in the sales cycle. These processes must be taken into account accordingly during implementation.
Depending on the requirements of the store operator, a variety of integration processes must be included in the planning of the integration. Likewise, the question of whether on premise or cloud hosting plays a major role, because in the latter case, setting up the servers must also be considered. In short, there can be a multitude of secondary conditions that must be taken into account in advance. And so far, the SAP architecture has not even been mentioned in this context!
PROCLANE has been dealing with the topic of connecting webshops to ERP systems, with a focus on SAP, for many years. The processes were refined more and more through the growing experience and continuously optimized, using specially developed function modules and a middleware, the IntegrationMan. Due to the already existing basis of the integration processes, special customer requirements are addressed already after a short time of working on the project.
