On-Demand Webinar: Spryker Excite Deep Dive - B2B Special

Angela Meyer: Welcome to our diva-e webinar: Spryker Excite Deep Dive - B2B Special. In this Spryker and diva-e webinar, Jan Stöckel, Christian Ankert and Michael Türk from Spryker will show you how a close integration of content and commerce can be realized with the integration of Spryker's Bloomreach CMS via a connector developed by diva-e. Let's start with a short round of introductions. My name is Angela Meyer and I am part of the diva-e marketing team. Jan, Christian and Michael, would you like to say a few words about yourselves?

Jan Stöckel: Yes, hello, welcome to today's webinar on Spryker and B2B. I've been working at diva-e for ten years now and I'm currently answering questions about e-commerce consulting and I look forward to answering your questions about Spryker, e-commerce and how to integrate SAP and handing over to Christian.

Christian Ankert: Yes hello, I've been Expert Consulting and Team Lead at diva-e since 2014. In recent years, my focus has been on designing and advising on our content management solution and coordinating and managing our development teams in customer projects. Together with our customer STAUFF, I recently worked on the STAUFF digital platform and also implemented the Reach Connector.

Michael Türk: Yes, then I'll join you straight away. My name is Michael Türk, I'm Director Solution Consulting at Spryker. I was also involved in the STAUFF project together with diva-e in the preparation phase, advising our customers on system architectures, project processes and so on. At Spryker for three years, three and a half years there. Yes. I'm delighted to be here today with Jan, Christian and Angela to take another in-depth look at the topic.

Angela Meyer: Very nice. And now we'll start with your insights. I would now let Jan take over the screen. Yes.

Jan Stöckel: Wonderful. It works. Everyone sees it. Exactly. Then I'd like to move on to today's agenda. In the first part, the longer part, we will look at the current challenges facing B2B platforms. These are essentially experiences that we have gained in the course of projects. We will then move on to the topic of technology. There, of course, we again highlight Spryker and the advantages of B2B as well as the integration into CMS systems such as Bloomreach, but also the deep integration into SAP and in particular our SAP Integration Suite, which then facilitates faster integration at the start of the project. And in the last part, we will talk about the current trends that we have derived from studies and surveys and would be happy to discuss these with you and with our colleagues.

I would now start with the challenges. The challenges in the area of B2B platforms are often similar. The most common ones are essentially the complex products that challenge us here and there. In this respect, the products often do not offer sufficient quality in our company to present the products online. We also have a specialist audience as a customer at the B2B company on the other side, as well as other stakeholders who need to be served via the platform and who are often completely different in their daily work requirements. This ranges from information procurement and approval processes to purchasing and downstream processes, and we should take a closer look at how we can find answers to this.

We have the issue of visibility, of course. As a company that wants to launch a B2B platform on the market, we naturally also want other new potential customers to see the platform as well as existing customers who use it. Individuality is also important. This means that business conditions in the B2B context are often characterized by individual prices, availability, specific article numbers and the like. We would like to shed light on how the whole topic can be implemented in a platform. And the last topic, which certainly plays a role everywhere, is the topic of specific customer journeys, because a B2B customer doesn't usually buy like a B2C customer who searches for something, then goes to the web store, chooses a color, size and orders and perhaps pays with PayPal. Instead, the processes are often very different, so that other aspects are mapped in a B2B platform, and we would like to show you some examples of how this can be done. Yes, Michael, what do you see as the main topic where you are now finding solutions? Or offering solutions with Spryker?

Michael Türk: Well, you can see all of them and I think every project is a bit different. I think you can undoubtedly emphasize the complex products and the second, and perhaps the biggest for me personally, is individuality. I think there is virtually no B2B company that doesn't already have some form of customer-specific conditions, customer-specific product catalogs, whatever, and you actually need them to get started in order to create acceptance among customers. So I would say that there is definitely one. These two are my priorities.

Jan Stöckel: Very good. We would start a short survey before we go into more depth. Angela is starting our survey on this, we look forward to your participation.

Angela Meyer: Exactly. I'm going to start with the first question for you, and it's about whether you've already thought about digitizing your sales channels? Yes, no or you haven't thought about it yet. I'll give you a few moments and then Jan, Christian and Michael will comment on the results.

Michael Türk: You almost have to think about it, does anyone here really dare to say no or not even think about it. So I'm curious, so don't be ashamed of it. I think there are still more than enough of them. But I'm curious.

Angela Meyer: I'll show you the results now. And indeed, 63 percent say yes, but 38 percent also admitted that they haven't discussed it yet.

Jan Stöckel: It would be interesting to discuss the reasons why people haven't talked about it yet.

Michael Türk: But in general, I think you can see here that B2B is definitely not as far along as the end consumer business, yes? And accordingly, the potential in the B2B market is huge, both for the companies, but of course also for the service providers and system providers, as you call yourselves.

Jan Stöckel: Yes, that's exactly where we come to the issue of complex products. In initial contacts, I often hear opinions from the sales department who say that our products are so complex that they can't be sold online. Michael and Christian can certainly confirm that here. But we have brought along a few examples that show that even complex products can be sold online, or rather it is not the product itself that is sold, but service processes or similar that are digitized.

One example that shows relatively well that it is possible to deal with a high level of complexity is the topic of how to create the interesting-. In this case, we have an example on the right, an optical designer who ultimately develops optical instruments such as microscopes, binoculars and the like. In his process of developing a new product, he is concerned with what kind of glass to use. And glass is also highly complex because it can never be reproduced exactly as it should be in the melting process, it always has deviations and here, in order to best support the optical designer, we have displayed a diagram online as part of an e-commerce theme app from Schott to enable access to the optical designer's ideal glass accordingly.

Ultimately, this is a filter system that is behind it and displays the lenses that fit him among a variety of defraction data, i.e. light refraction data. And he can use this to either limit his search via text search and parameter search using parameter filters or to specifically identify the lenses that are suitable for his application. And then he can also see, for example, what quantities are available, because if he wants to produce an optically high-quality product, he has to choose from one glass batch and cannot go through different production cycles, but has to manufacture the product from exactly this production batch in the end.

And this is a good example of how customers can be supported in finding or identifying their products through appropriate research processes, and for this it is necessary to look at the working context of the individual target groups, the end user groups and develop these in-depth approaches. This is usually done in workshops and then we develop an information architecture to map this out. We've brought along another example, which Christian will now show you what it's all about.

Christian Ankert: Exactly. With the products, you can tell at first glance that they are complex products because they are not self-explanatory. I don't think anyone would know what that sensor on the left actually does if they looked at it. In this case, it's a temperature sensor and the filters on the right from our customer STAUFF are also complex products that can be used in different dimensions. And in order to guarantee access, you may also have to come up with navigation mechanisms to help the customer - especially a new customer who is not yet familiar with the portfolio - get to the products in the first place. As you can see on the next page, we have an approach that our customer IFM has taken, namely to explain the context. In other words, where and in which processes are the products used. The user can then select sub-processes and can then navigate down to the individual sensor and add it to the shopping cart, or perhaps compare it with other sensors that can be used in this application. Exactly, just a nice example of how you can simply visualize an extremely complex topic by putting it into context, just like with your app diagram, Jan, so that you don't have, let's say, the standard mechanics of a B2B store. So I click three times and have it in the shopping cart, it's not that simple in a B2B context.

Michael Türk: I think at this point you also have to think about who the respective target group is, yes? I mean, B2B has extreme differences in the areas. So, if I'm in the area of “I'm looking for the right product”, yes, then of course what you say is extremely important. On the other hand, we often have something like, “I have to order the same thing over and over and over again”. Then this “I actually need three clicks” is simply far too much. It's these extremes that make this happen and it's often important that the price isn't as important to the customer as the need to be extremely sure that the product I'm buying will solve my problem because the machine is right there. And that's why I think the presentation you just had, the one you just had, is extremely successful at the point where, yes, this is the machine that's standing right there and I zoom in step by step, so to speak, and at the end of the day I find exactly the right part that I need to solve my problem. I think that's extremely important.

Christian Ankert: Exactly. Jan will come back to the topic of content and commerce later, but as a little foretaste, it's also important not just to use graphics to get the context, so to speak, but also to have explanatory content for the products. This is where our Content Connector comes into play later. In other words, image and video content, or simply offering a direct point of contact for a B2B customer. With our customer STAUFF, we have come to realize that a live chat, which is integrated with direct contact not with some Asian call center, but with experts who work for the customer, is a key decision criterion in the purchasing process for a B2B customer. The fact that you can find information in the content and also ask an expert directly, “Is this the right solution for my current situation?”. And then the customer remains in the context of the online store and can go straight on to the ordering process. And that's incredibly valuable because it avoids media disruptions and guarantees the flow.

Jan Stöckel: Yes, that's a good example, you can see that, as Michael says, it really depends on the audience. In any case, we always have a specialist audience on the customer side. They are experts and need to be addressed accordingly. This means that they all have different expectations of the portal, perhaps different from B2B. Of course, there are always women and men who have different requirements for such online stores. We can see that there are also small differences, but the main difference in B2B is that individuals usually have individual tasks. There is a buyer who clearly makes purchases and at best buys with an article number. And how he sees an article number directly in his order list, for example, we'll see another example from STAUFF in a moment, but there are also influencers and decision-makers and, as before, there are perhaps engineers who have more influence and say, I'd like to have this product from this manufacturer in here. And these work tasks that each of these individual employees ultimately has in the company, you have to do justice to them and create added value for them by providing them with functionalities and information, and in some cases these are also small interactions that you enable, such as a configuration or really go in the transnational direction when the final order is placed.

And there are various things we can do for this - we've already talked about product education. Customer review is an important topic. Personalized content, which means that when I log in and I'm in an industry, I only see areas or news and information that are ideal for my industry. I can find out about campaigns, subscribe to specific specialist newsletters. I can plan things like when a delivery will arrive and this whole topic of outdoor tracking, tracking trace is a very important topic. Current studies also show that this is important in the purchasing process and that the general process of buying is also becoming increasingly important. And B2B, as we discussed at the beginning, is not always just about buying a new product, but also about reordering. We also have the fact that these repeat orders, these last orders, are generated again using order templates. These are functionalities where Spryker also offers good solutions as standard. Michael, can you perhaps go into more detail about what you have in the shopping cart?

Michael Türk: Yes, recurring orders make up a large proportion of B2B orders. These 75 percent who buy online, I think it's often about satisfying recurring needs and simply reordering last orders. Sure, it can be done by default, but also something like “I create different templates for weekly orders, monthly orders or if this or that situation arises, then I simply use the following order as a template”. Yes, a new person joins, needs a new workstation, but the workstation consists of ABCDE and you have things like “I upload entire files, Excel sheets and the system automatically transfers them to the shopping cart”. These are all things that are expected nowadays and these are all things that are provided by Spryker by default.

Jan Stöckel: Exactly, we actively use them and that is also a whole topic: order history, details. Spryker also offers many possibilities in this area. This is where our SAP integration comes into play again, because SAP or EAP integration is often necessary, especially for the whole topic of small documents and information. Yes, we are also familiar with the topic of specialist audiences in our own company. Christian will now explain to you again what is important to highlight.

Christian Ankert: We have noticed that many B2B companies also have a challenge when it comes to getting content for such a complex specialist audience into the system. Especially when you serve different stores and different languages, it's a topic that becomes very complex relatively quickly and where you might even need a larger editorial team to handle it in the past. And it's pretty important to build a system that I'd say sets relatively strict guidelines for the processes and does things as automatically as possible.

At STAUFF, for example, as you can see on the left-hand side, they have different stores in different languages and we have, for example, built a way that content written in English can be displayed internationally for all English-language websites. This means that I write content that then applies to all stores in English and these are processes that allow even a small editorial team to efficiently maintain content in the multi-store setup. In addition, in the B2B context, it is also worth thinking about dictionaries or technical terms so that editors can also store specialist knowledge so that it is immediately clear when providing information what this is actually about. Our Digital Experience CMS system also offers the option of scheduling content so that things can be taken online and offline automatically. I think that's simple - these are all topics that you need to be able to efficiently maintain many stores in many languages.

Jan Stöckel: Yes, and we can now see once again that this content is particularly important, because companies naturally want reach and reach is generally generated by providing content. Dictionaries that a company or perhaps a student searches for certain search terms, then comes to the site and finds out more. The importance of building up content on your own website is also shown by a study that once again highlighted where buyers start their search for a solution, perhaps without a product in mind, but looking for a solution. This is traditionally the web search, which is certainly extremely dominated by Google in the European-American region. But here it has to be said that the provider website and the whole topic of review are in second place. This is also reflected in what we are also propagating in terms of content creation, which I will come to in a moment.

Ultimately, it is also important to provide contacts at an early stage, as STAUFF does with the chat. However, personal contact still plays an important role from our point of view. Content commerce, how is that anchored? You can see this again on the right-hand side with our three main areas that we recommend mapping.

Firstly, the whole thing has to add value, in terms of content. That means no blahblah, but the one solution of the product must be described from the customer's point of view. This means that if the customer has a problem, it should be formulated in an industry-specific way.

The whole thing has to be verifiable, so success stories or testimonials that explain what the specific problem was and how it was solved are a good idea. And finally, of course, the credibility, the story must be verifiable, perhaps by including pictures of someone or testimonials in the success story.

This definitely strengthens customer loyalty, enhances the image, increases profits, increases market transparency and ultimately also achieves better visibility. Spryker certainly does this quite well, as you can see. The last video, Michael, which you published for your birthday, shows a lot of reference customers, very well presented, for those who haven't seen it yet: It's published in the FAQ.

Michael Türk: Yes, but at this point we also agree with what you are presenting here. So you say we have a CMS, of course, as an e-commerce system you can't start without a CMS. We try to provide virtually everything you need to be able to offer an e-commerce experience. But we are focused on the commerce part of these things, on transactional business models, and we are also focused on best of breed. We now have the big verse Best of Breed. In other words, we are fully aware that we are not an enterprise CMS, which is why it makes perfect sense to question how much content I need, how many processes I need in the content, how many languages, how many markets I want to offer. And then it also makes sense for us to say that we're going to offer the CMS part with a system that focuses exclusively on commerce.

Jan Stöckel: Yes, from our point of view, it's important to start with one platform. This means that content and commerce are closely interlinked. We can also see this here on the right with the example that we have picked out again from ifm electronic, where the products are displayed directly in line with the temperature monitoring below. You have immediate access to the prices. If a customer is logged in, prices can be displayed for each individual customer, availability can be checked if necessary, prices can be compared and, ultimately, products can be compared with each other to see why one is more expensive and the other cheaper. You can also see the individual advantages of the solution directly, have a consistent presentation of how we have seen it and really everything bundled on one page and that is particularly important to optimize the reading flow, to ensure the reference to the product. Christian will show you again how we ultimately ensure that this is an important SEO topic.

Christian Ankert: Exactly, at diva-e we naturally have the advantage that we have one of the leading SEO agencies in Germany with diva-e Advertising. For us, this also means that all of these technical SEO structures, as you may know them, are already part of our system and are already very well supported by Spryker as standard. In other words, where previously you might have had to spend weeks on SE optimization, we can start from a completely different level here. In addition, we always incorporate active SEO support into our projects and it is particularly important to have intensive support for the go-live when it comes to the domain concept and when changing the system, if this is pending for you, in order to be well positioned in terms of SEO.

We also build various components that help your editors to think about SEO when creating the content. Here below, for example, the Keyword Recommendator, which simply checks the texts and says how many keywords you have already worked on in your text. Exactly. So just as an example, I'll say that we think about this in a very integrated way, from SEO to technology to keyword creation. I don't think it needs to be said anymore that this is important.

Another important point in the challenge is individuality. I think that's actually - Michael, you said it at the beginning - the crucial difference between a standard store and a store that wants to establish its own presence, its own brand. And we brought along a few examples of what individuality actually means for a B2B store and how you can approach it. Let's take an example from a product page. It contains a lot of things that are optimized for the target group. For example, STAUFF customers can give each product its own material number. So they can say that we need this number in the purchasing process and if we don't have the number on the invoice, the whole chain won't work well. And then each customer can individually number each product with their own number. We then take this into account in our entire process. This makes the process easier for the buyer and therefore also more successful.

We have different price structures compared to the B2C store. Here in the example, it says per piece, but it could also be per 100 pieces, per half, per meter, which are attached to the prices and we have to take this into account each time and calculate the prices differently. And that's where Spryker helps us, because you can configure the price calculation very finely, but these are things that have to be taken into account in a concept that you set up for a business customer, that the price structures are not always just price times quantity.

Direct price queries are also possible here. In other words, when logged in, the customer can query their individual customer price directly in the SAP system. Of course, our connector plays a role in making this work. And shipping information is also provided directly, as this is particularly relevant for customers ordering large quantities. And all of this together should simply mean that the buyer has to think as little as possible when they are on this page and have all the information directly to hand. Exactly. It's also important to think about the structure and presentation of the product data, especially at the beginning of a project like this. B2B products are complex and customers are looking for very specific features that they expect and the mapping between data that they may have in their ERP system or in some tables needs to be aggregated and presented on the website in the best possible way so that the end customer can then find the product they are looking for. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges in a new B2B project. Or Jan, what would you say?

Jan Stöckel: Exactly, that's definitely the topic, we've just been talking about it, the whole issue of the target group. What information does who need on the platform and on what information basis is a purchase decision or a recommendation of the store or something similar made and that's where we come to the topic of specific customer journeys. In other words, how can the customer journey of the target group really be mapped and you have to explore this with the customer. In other words, you have to get to grips with the customers of B2B companies and understand and discuss their internal purchasing processes. And not just in the purchasing process, but especially the upstream processes.

As we saw earlier with the optical designer, who is ultimately more involved in a planning process or in the planning for a new product. They also have to find information for a new product so that Schott's own glass is really taken into account later and the glass is ordered from Schott and not from another company. Other important issues include deep integration into existing processes. The whole thing can be solved via an OCI catalog, for example, where the company's catalog is ultimately anchored directly in the customer's ERP system and in merchandise management and is then transferred to the e-commerce system via Punch Out and the shopping cart is ordered automatically.

We have already mentioned self-service, so here is another example of what can be mapped. Quotation processes can also be solved very well in Spryker using the standard functionalities. And also integration into SAP, as I said, we have services as a topic in itself, i.e. downstream services, service requests, SRA topics, also processes that we map. And single sign-on is also an important topic in B2B, because it is often not just the store, this portal as the only solution, but there are many third-party solutions. Be it in the context, let's say, that certain additional applications such as download centers and filter assistants and the like are also integrated into an SSO landscape and it is important to take this into account from the outset, to give the customer a log-in so that they don't always have to search. And then you can also personalize very well.

Current studies also show that the whole thing has to be simple. And it goes without saying that the shopping process should be smooth and intuitive. And we also brought along an example from STAUFF of how you can get involved in the purchasing process very quickly, and that is a topic that STAUFF is addressing. They provide the CAD data for their products.

This means that a company like Liebherr, for example, which is planning a new excavator, can load the CAD data for the clamp from STAUFF directly into its touch system, can then plan the excavator with this clamp and, as soon as a parts list is generated, this clamp is then ultimately provided with a STAUFF article number. This means that you can also enter the process with the customer at an early stage by providing corresponding added value such as a CAD drawing and then ultimately have a good opportunity to be taken into account when it comes to the pure purchasing process.

As far as service is concerned or is more specific to this, I have brought another example of companies that do not use the platform purely for transactions, but rather to manage call-off orders and the main focus, which you can see on the left-hand side, is to ensure the provision of means of transport. In other words, the customer takes care of the logistics himself and ultimately drives to the plants as a customer and wants to have the individual means of transport, be it a container or a truck, loaded in such a way that he can unload them ideally on his routes. They then drive to different locations, different plants, where they need the products and so they have been provided with a combination of means of transport as a solution, where they can decide in which order the means of transport is loaded, pallet by pallet and package by package, and so have an ideal opportunity to call up their routes.

In this context, we are dealing with products that are relatively fragile, let's say, and this often results in breakage, be it during loading or the like, and also to ensure fast subsequent delivery and complaint management, an app has also been developed that makes it possible to reorder or register a complaint very quickly via the barcode scan on delivery. This is also an end-to-end process in one system, as you can see from the tabs at the top.

Delivery is one topic, service is another, as is the whole topic of complaints management, which is also shown here on the right-hand side. So the portals are not always just about the purchasing process, but also about upstream and downstream topics that reflect the needs of our target group, depending on their customer journey. Christian will now show you that the distribution process itself is also important and what we take into account in many processes.

Christian Ankert: Exactly, just two more small examples. On the right-hand side, Michael, you're probably very familiar with the click order that you just mentioned. So Spryker offers a very good standard for those who don't want to make these three clicks, that they can upload a ready-made list and order immediately. On the left-hand side, you can see once again that the sales process also takes customers' wishes into account. Here they can specify when they would like the product to be delivered, whether the product should be delivered individually or whether the order should be delivered as a whole. And the ERP then responds immediately as to whether this is possible or not and in what quantities, or the weight of the delivery that arrives. These are all issues that need to be configured and implemented with the customer.

Jan Stöckel: Very good. Then we also have examples.

Christian Ankert: Exactly, there's a second example, where if you imagine a standard B2C store, then you somehow choose between shipping options called DHL and express delivery. In this case, there are really separate delivery options offered per customer, per country, per condition. This means that we are talking about thousands, hundreds of thousands of combinations that are possible. And you can only implement this if you have an e-commerce system that is flexible in its application.

Jan Stöckel: Before we look at the system with which we can ideally implement such things, let's go back to a short survey that Angela is starting.

Angela Meyer: The question now is whether you feel prepared for the challenges in the B2B market. Yes, no or you haven't even dealt with them yet.

Michael Türk: If you think about the movement in this whole topic, then the question is, can you ever feel fully prepared? After all, nowadays you are constantly on the move.

Angela Meyer: That's right. Let me show you the results. So, 56 percent say yes, they feel prepared, but 44 percent are still uncertain.

Jan Stöckel: Okay, of course we can support that. Right, Michael?

Michael Türk: It's interesting that nobody voted no. So it's either yes or I don't know. That is perhaps also a result of this complexity, perhaps also a lack of transparency, which simply lies ahead. And it's interesting that someone says, yes, I don't really know how it is now.

Jan Stöckel: Okay. Then we'll talk about the technology. And I'll hand over to Michael to explain the system behind the whole thing.

Michael Türk: Exactly, so of course we are driven to provide this clarity. So together with diva-e, we are of course trying to provide very, very strong commerce sites in B2B. I think there are two things that are important here. Firstly, nobody wants to reinvent the wheel. Accordingly, Spryker is a system that has grown over the years and provides a great deal of functionality out of the box. There are 900 modules. If the number 900 scares you a little, you should know that it is organized in so-called Packages Business Capabilities, i.e. with compiled components, where something like Request For Quotation or the shopping cart and e-procurement you just mentioned. These are all self-contained functionalities. At the beginning you can say, I need that for my New Scale, I don't need that, I'll just leave it out, it doesn't need to be maintained, etc., etc..

But beyond that, it is also important - and I think this has also come out in challenges - to always be able to respond to the individual needs of the individual industry, the respective company, perhaps even different target groups within one and the same customer, and that is why we are convinced that, beyond this control functionality, you also need the flexibility to build what you need in each case. Nobody knows exactly which interfaces we will be using in the future. The demo store or boilerplate, as we call them, are always good starting points. We also have one for B2B, where virtually all the standard functionalities for B2B are included. STAUFF has also taken these as a basis, integrated the corporate design, integrated its own functionalities, integrated background systems and then at some point made the whole thing available comparatively quickly in just a few months, so that it went live relatively quickly with an optimized experience.

In addition, we are working on many things that we see as the way forward. So we've just seen this briefly, marketplace approaches, everyone wants to go in the marketplace direction to some extent. Everyone might want to think about how I can perhaps better showcase my branches digitally, how I can get my local stock processed and so on and so forth. These are all things that we are working on, which are also provided as part of the solution, so to speak. And as I said, you could then go and say, okay, I'll roll out this online store experience in other digital channels too.

There's a lot of talk about IoT in B2B right now. Yes, where intelligence is planted in certain devices so that the machine sends a message home, so to speak, saying I'm entering a wear window, a maintenance window, I need the following parts, which are then simply stored as part of this intelligence. And then perhaps the store will also be used proactively to schedule appropriate maintenance work for the customer and transfer the corresponding parts lists. And then perhaps also to make an appointment. These are things that are very easy to implement with Spryker because the system is a so-called headless system. This means that we are completely agnostic as to which front end ultimately uses this commerce functionality. There is a so-called API layer in between, which allows any front end to be created accordingly.

Jan Stöckel: Well, we would like to go into detail about how this looks in the context of an integration between Bloomreach and SAP. And that's where I'll hand over to Christian.

Christian Ankert: One more slide back, please. Michael, as you just said, we have chosen the best of breed approach. So the best system in terms of functionality and Spryker naturally takes on the topic of stores, of the seller, but we have installed two connectors for the customer at this point, which is only possible because you have already provided for the possibility of docking in, I would say. One is the Bloomreach Connector, which I'll go into in more detail in a moment, is an enterprise content management system. And the SAP Connector, so that you don't have to start the connection to SAP from scratch again and again, but can start there based on experience.

The Bloomreach Connector on the next page is a digital experience platform, which means that this is where the content maintenance takes place, where all these internationalization processes that I just mentioned take place. Asset management, image management is placed there. The players can create content there, create webpages and I think it is also very important for a modern system that a live preview function is also possible. In other words, you can check content before it goes live. That roles and rights are also integrated into the workflow. The whole thing is linked to Spryker in the sense that content that editors create internationally is synchronized to Spryker and Spryker is then responsible for delivering this content to the end customer. In other words, displaying it on the product pages, displaying it on the homepage, with all the e-commerce functions that connect a product purchase and also offering the content that the user is looking for in the topic.

The important thing about the connection, which I would like to convey from a technical point of view, is that these themes run completely independently of each other. As soon as content has been synchronized from the CMS to the store, the content is active Spryker content and the CMS system no longer has to become active and no longer has to deliver it. And I think this is very important because Spryker has a very high-performance delivery and you can simply integrate into it very well. A very brief example on the next page. I'm not going to go very deeply into the topic of content management. I think you could do a whole separate seminar on that. But here's a simple example of live editing. The editor sees the Spryker store in the preview on the left-hand side, can edit the text on the right-hand side and sees his changes immediately. Or at the bottom right you can see very briefly that you can also integrate your own processes, for example to embed translation agencies that can then automatically translate the content.

We then have another technical image for integration. Since we don't know exactly who is on the call, it's probably difficult to find the right depth to choose here. For the technicians among us perhaps, we can send messages to Spryker here and RabbitMQ then manages these messages and saves them once in Spryker because they are indexed in the search and also cached in your high-performance front-end cash so that when the user accesses the page, the content loads as quickly as possible. And this live view of the page is integrated into the CMS via an interface.

Der nächste Connector ist die SAP-Integration Suite. Da sind die Aufgaben so verteilt, dass Spryker im Prinzip immer noch das verkaufende System ist. Das zeigt die Produktdaten an, es macht auch die Preisberechnungen im Warenkorb. Es bindet eben auch Payback-Anbieter an im Check-Out Prozess und unsere Integration Suite kümmert sich drum, dass die Daten, die vom ERP System kommen, aufbereitet werden, dass sie eventuell transformiert werden. Dass vielleicht auch Daten aus unterschiedlichen Quellen miteinander verknüpft und dann erst an Spryker geschickt werden insgesamt als Produkt. Dass eben auch Updates geschickt werden können. Und in der anderen Richtung, wenn eben in Spryker vom Kunden eine Preisabfrage durchführt wird oder eben eine Bestellung getätigt wurde, leitet unser Connector das eben an die entsprechende SAP-Schnittstelle weiter. 

Jan Stöckel: Auch da haben wir noch mal ein technisches Bild mitgebracht, das zeigt, dass die SAP Integration Suite erst mal über entsprechende SAP Bibliotheken arbeitet und dann mit verschiedenen ERP Versionsständen arbeiten kann. Also mit dem S4 genauso wie mit dem R3. Das basiert jetzt auf der JCo Library, die wir da nutzen und die ermöglicht eine synchrone sowie eine a-synchrone Verarbeitung von Daten. Also wir können da auf Hubs zugreifen zum Beispiel, über RFC Calls, aber auch auf IDOC und Co. Daten aus dem SAP ziehen und dann in unserer Integration Suite im Endeffekt harmonisieren, beziehungsweise auch anreichern. Und so Richtung Spryker schicken, beziehungsweise antworten.

Wir haben hier zwei Beispiele dargestellt. Das eine Thema ist das Thema Stammdatenverarbeitung, in dem Fall Materialstammdaten, die wir über IDOC aus dem SAP erhalten, die werden dann so verarbeitet und über RabbitMQ an Spryker geschickt, dass der Materialstamm dann im Endeffekt initial über den Delta Handling auf Basis der Veränderungen aktualisiert wird. 

Und wenn es um Bewegungsdaten geht, wie zum Beispiel das Thema Bestellung absenden, da ist SAP relativ restriktiv, das heißt, Bestellungen werden dann nur im System verarbeitet, wenn sie den entsprechenden Datenstrukturen gerecht werden. Das heißt, auch die Preise und so etwas müssen vom SAP angenommen werden und dafür gibt es einen sogenannten Order Simulator. Das ist eine Auftragssimulation und die wird über einen RFC Call abgerufen. Das heißt, auch dieser RFC Call läuft über unser System. Das heißt, wir starten mit einer REST API Call in die SAP Integration Suite und die ruft wiederum einen RFC Call auf und simuliert einen Auftragsdatenanlage auf Basis der Informationen, die wir im Shop zur Verfügung gestellt bekommen. Die basieren in der Regel auf Stammdaten, Preisen und dergleichen. Und SAP liefert uns dann zum Teil auch spezifische Informationen wieder über RFC Calls zurück und wir können dann sicherstellen, dass der Auftrag, so wie wir ihn dann im Warenkorb haben, auch über das SAP projiziert werden kann. Denn wir haben den vorsimuliert und wissen dann auch noch spezifische Details, die vielleicht jetzt im Vorfeld im Shop vielleicht noch nicht angezeigt werden, wie wann wird das wirklich geliefert, muss eine Teillieferung gesplittet werden, gibt es eventuell Preisanpassungen und dergleichen. Und der Kunde kann dann den Warenkorb absenden und hat wirklich dann im Endeffekt ein richtigen SAP-Auftrag bestellt und wir haben im nachgelagerten Prozess keine Schwierigkeiten mehr. Man sieht, es ist sehr durchdacht. Ist natürlich auch basiert auf entsprechenden Standards. Wir haben dadurch eine sehr schnelle Möglichkeit, mit einer SAP-Integration im Projekt zu starten. 

Wir gehen davon aus, dass man ungefähr 70 Prozent Entwicklungszeit da einspart, sagen wir mal, wenn man von Null startet. Wir sind jetzt auch ungefähr bei einer Tiefenintegration bei drei Wochen und haben vorher ein, zwei Monate, manchmal sogar drei benötigt, um die Basis erst mal herzustellen. Und dadurch, dass wir die meisten unserer Projekte auch als ERP auf dem SAP treffen, sehr breiten Erfahrungsschatz aufgebaut. Und deswegen auch die SAP-Integration Suite hier gebaut, um als Standard dann eine schnelle Integration zu ermöglichen. Nichtsdestotrotz hat natürlich jedes SAP-System eigenständige Prozesse. Auch Hubs, auf die wir zugreifen, sind individualisiert, es gibt Z-Tabellen und ähnliches. Das wird alles im Projekt berücksichtigt. Wir haben dafür auch SAP-Berater im Haus, die sich dann mit Ihnen auseinandersetzen, in Ihr SAP-System reinschauen und da die Individualisierung durchführen und dann auf Ihre entsprechenden Preisespezifika eingehen und dann auf Ihre Bedürfnisse das System anpassen. Wir freuen uns da auf Ihre Rückfragen Richtung der Integration. 

Ansonsten haben wir eine lebhafte Spryker Community im Haus. Das heißt, wir diskutieren sehr viel intern mit den 40 Entwicklern und auch die Berater untereinander über neue Technologien, auch Integrationsszenarien, durch den Best of Breed Ansatz integrieren wir natürlich hier und da auch andere System noch. Da nehmen wir auch in dieser Diskussion die Kunden natürlich mit rein, denn wir arbeiten in der Regel über gemischte Teams, nicht Michael? Das kannst du ja bestätigen, dass auch die Kunden in der Regel Entwickler aufbauen und das ist auch ein Thema, das wir empfehlen, um kleine Änderungen selbstständig durchführen zu können. Und als letztes nochmal Fakten zur Partnerschaft, wie schon erwähnt, wir haben momentan knapp über 40 Entwickler, haben jetzt acht Projekte, Projektleiter auf das Thema geschult, haben einige Consultants und eine Vielzahl an Projekten schon live gebracht und, denke ich, eine sehr gute Zusammenarbeit. Das sieht man auch das bei Michael und Co. auch immer wieder uns so tolle Webinare macht und da sind wir auch beim letzten Thema. 

Kommen wir zum Thema B2B Trends und was wir so an Zukunftsthemen sehen. Da würde ich mal auf die Folie eingehen und mit dem ersten Thema starten. Das ist ein Thema, was jetzt sicherlich im Rahmen von Covid-19 sich auch nochmal verstärkt hat, dass ein Unternehmen also direkt an die Endkunden in ein sogenanntes D2C einsteigt. Da sieht man im Markenumfeld, wie es hier beispielhaft beschrieben ist mit der Firma Nike, die da durchaus auch sehr ambitioniert ist und sagt, 2023 laufen 50 Prozent ihrer Verkäufe direkt und ob das dem Einzelhandel so gefällt sei mal dahingestellt, aber den Trend sieht man auch zunehmend im B2B, wo zum Beispiel auch STAUFF sagt, sie wollen den Endkundenzugang nicht verlieren und über ein Thema, wie man es unten am Marktplatz, den Zugang beibehalten und ihre Partner in der Distributionskette mit einbeziehen, um sie da letztlich auch partizipieren zu lassen und den Kundenzugang zu erreichen. 

Wenn man sich vorstellt, eine Schelle für den Bagger geht kaputt, dann will STAUFF die nicht unbedingt immer selber verschicken, sondern da wollen die lokale Partner haben, die sich dann um die Distribution kümmern. Also das Thema Marktplatz nach wie vor ein absolutes Trendthema, insbesondere in Richtung Vertikalisierung, also Verbreiterung der Wertschöpfungskette, sei es durch Zusatzservices wie bei STAUFF, wo für den Bagger auch gleich die Schläuche in der richtigen Länge geliefert werden und die Vormontage, der Austausch durch die Partner passieren kann. Das heißt, wenn wirklich einem Bagger eine hydraulische Leitung platzt, dass dann relativ schnell jemand vor Ort in der Lage ist, die ganzen Sachen zu beheben und nicht nur ein Paket nach zwei Tagen geliefert bekommt. Jedes Gerät, was irgendwo steht, kostet Geld.

Christian Ankert: Das ist auch ein Fokusthema für euch, Michael, oder? Customer Market-?

Michael Türk: Klar. Also sowohl Direct to Consumer als auch Marktplätze-, also gerade auch in Kombination zueinander, sind sicherlich sehr interessant. Ich glaube, grundsätzlich-, hier steht ja auch schon "beschleunigt durch Covid-19". Das sehen wir genauso. Und deswegen, die Leute haben Schwierigkeiten über ihre bestehenden Kanäle Dinge zu vertreiben. Mitunter müssen jetzt Nike und Co. auch schauen, wie schaffen sie ohne direkten Zugang über Händler ihre Dinge an den Mann zu bringen. Und da ist Direct to Consumer über die Marke Nike-, das gilt für jede andere, auch für STAUFF, die sicherlich in ihrem Bereich auch eine große Marke ist, sehr wichtig. Und an der Stelle ist halt auch wichtig, das geht hier nicht gegeneinander, sondern das kann auch durchaus sein, dass über so eine Marktplatzgeschichte Direct to Consumer über bestehende Partner laufen kann, wo man gemeinsam auch das eigene Produktportfolio erweitert. Man wird zum Go-To Player einer Branche. Das ist eine Win-win-Situation für alle im Endeffekt, weil der Kunde hat Zugriff auf ein größeres Portfolio an Produkten und Services. Der Betreiber der Plattform wird eben zum Go-To Player und mit dem Partner profitieren alle zusammen von der Reichweite der gemeinsamen Plattform. Also deswegen muss es nicht zwingend gegeneinander sein, was da passiert. Ich denke, also eine Sache, die hier noch steht, also Microservice Architekturen, da bin ich immer skeptisch. 

Ich habe in der Vergangenheit viele Leute darüber reden hören und es kommt ein bisschen darauf an, wie tief man nachher gehen möchte. Sicherlich, manche Themen lassen sich ausklammern, aber viele Unternehmen verheben sich auch mit der Komplexität, die dieses Modell eben auch mit sich bringt. Gerade auch in der Kommunikation zwischen verschiedenen Architekturen. Spryker erlaubt grundsätzlich Microservice Architekturen, wir fühlen aber den Drang, sich da ein Stück weit wieder zu konsolidieren. So zu sprechen den Mittelweg zwischen dem alten Monoliten und den extremen, kleinteiligen Microservices zu gehen. Wir sind so ein bisschen auf der Schiene der Package Business Capabilities, die ja auch von Gartner gerade als der neue Mittelweg gekennzeichnet wurde, um beide Dinge miteinander zu verheiraten ein Stück weit und vielleicht auch von beiden Vorteilen ein Stück weit zu profitieren, dass man eine flexible, anpassungsfähige Softwarelandschaft hat, die aber gleichzeitig wartbar bleibt, um das mal extrem kurz zusammenzufassen.

Jan Stöckel: Ja, gebe ich dir völlig recht. Das ist auch so das Thema, was wir in vielen unserer Projekten an Erfahrung sammeln konnten, dass der Mittelweg es ist im Endeffekt, modular oder flexibel zu bleiben, aber auf der anderen Seite natürlich mit gewissen Standards aufzubauen und zu starten. Dass künstliche Intelligenz in unseren Alltag Einzug hält, sieht man sicherlich mit vielen Sprachassistenten, die da auch das Thema haben und auch der Kundenzugang B2B wird da beschleunigt, denn ich sage mal, wenn man da einen Chat integriert wie STAUFF, das ist dann der erste Schritt. Wenn man genug Kommunikation gesammelt hat, kann man den Chat auch automatisieren. Das heißt, über gewisse Logiken im Endeffekt Antwortbäume-, das ist noch keine KI, aber Zwischenschritte integrieren und letztlich dann die Antwortzeiten verringern. Auch die Kundenzufriedenheit erhöhen und die Kundenbindung verbessern, in dem der Kunde relativ schnell auf entsprechende Fragen Antwort findet.

Michael Türk: Ich bin grundsätzlich da auch hundert Prozent deiner Meinung. Ich glaube, in fünf, sechs, sieben Jahren, dass Künstliche Intelligenz Commodity, also notwendig wird, um irgendwas zu tun. Wichtig an der Stelle ist mir aber, Künstliche Intelligenz wird oftmals zu früh diskutiert. Also, um Künstliche Intelligenz sinnvoll betreiben zu können, brauche ich ein bestimmtes Level an Basisfunktionalität und vor allem an Basisdaten. Und dementsprechend Künstliche Intelligenz ist eines der absoluten Trend- und Zukunftsthemen, um das niemand drum herum kommen wird, aber ich bitte darum: Leute, baut euch erst mal eine allgemeine, geile E-Commerce Experience für B2B. Das ist der erste Schritt und der notwendige Schritt, um die Basis zu haben, um dann Künstliche Intelligenz dann nochmal anzugreifen und ja, sehr gerne diskutieren wir das dann auch gerne im Trio. Der Kunde, diva-e und wir. Ich glaube, das Package ist extrem interessant und dementsprechend reden wir drüber.