In this day and age, e-commerce has become a main driver of revenue and growth for many B2B enterprises. In order to stay competitive, enterprises need to be hyper focused on innovation, operational efficiency and delivering user experiences that exceed customer expectations. 

It’s not uncommon for an enterprise to come to the realization that their legacy, monolithic platform is not flexible enough to meet evolving business needs. Many enterprises fail to consider the risks associated with choosing the wrong commerce platform. Between costly implementations and the lack of flexibility, monolithic software can hold an enterprise back from reaching business goals, meeting customer needs, and achieving operational efficiency. 

So what should an enterprise look for when choosing a B2B ecommerce platform? The key is to choose a platform built with modern architectures such as APIs and microservices and with flexibility and extensibility at its core. Sitecore® OrderCloud® modernizes ecommerce and gives enterprises a future-proof way of building an ever-growing portfolio of new digital experiences. 

4 ways to minimize risk and reduce time to market with Sitecore OrderCloud

1.Solve instability and performance issues with infinite scale and flexibility

Commerce platforms with modern architectures take on the age-old technology question, “will this scale with my business?” Platforms like Sitecore OrderCloud, built with microservice architecture, break up the application into smaller, manageable services. Because of this, the application becomes faster to develop and easier to manage. 

Sitecore OrderCloud is built with the ability to maintain and scale in ways that aren’t possible with monolithic ecommerce software. Adapting to changing buyer needs becomes easier than ever - enterprises are able to use real-time analytics and make simple modifications rather than searching for a new software or requiring intense integration with a new feature or service. Beyond that, scaling to new markets doesn’t involve years of technology projects and approvals. And the flexibility of a headless platform makes rolling out a new customer application a task that can be completed in weeks as opposed to months. 

2. Gain competitive advantage by improved time to market

Speed has become one of greatest assets a company can hold to be competitive. APi-first platforms like Sitecore OrderCloud represent a new form of simplicity, enabling a new level of speed. Sitecore OrderCloud gives enterprises the power to modify, edit, and customize applications as continuously as needed in an uncomplicated manner. The ability to create an application “on the fly” is vital in the constantly evolving business world. 

In the past, enterprises had to undergo extremely expensive projects over multiple year-long timelines requiring large teams of people in order to create the experience they hoped to build. Sitecore OrderCloud includes complex B2B-first back-end business logic, functionality, and capabilities. This type of headless commerce platform allows enterprises to start from the point of completion. This means that enterprises and development teams can shift the focus to the user experience and deliver a final solution for far less cost, time, and effort.

3. Minimize tech debt to reduce total cost of ownership

Typically on-premise solutions are sold in the form of core-based licenses. As an enterprise grows and more hardware is necessary to handle that growth, more licenses must be purchased. Additionally, monolithic software vendors typically release new versions a few times a year, and typically these changes are fundamental to the core. So, enterprises wanting to take advantage of these upgrades need to constantly review and rewrite parts of custom code to make sure it works with the new version. 

Significant budget is required for running and maintaining a monolithic application. Beyond that, enterprises are potentially missing out on new revenue streams and market expansion due to the limitations of monolithic software. With Sitecore OrderCloud, much of the cost savings stem from rapid implementation, simplicity, and flexibility. When modifications or customizations are needed, new user experiences or changes can be made on the fly. And since Sitecore OrderCloud has a cloud-based architecture, updates are instantly rolled out to all customers eliminating the need for spendy upgrades. 

4. Meet long term business goals with future proof architecture

Replatforming or choosing a commerce platform should be viewed as a long-term investment for any enterprise. Technology decision-makers should be sure to look beyond the initial features and capabilities a platform can provide and instead think about the long-term impact that it can have. Platforms built with modern commerce architectures like Sitecore OrderCloud have the ability to adapt to changes in the market and will still meet needs if new, disruptive technology is introduced.

Since Sitecore OrderCloud is headless, multiple frontends can be connected to the same backend. You can run and manage multiple user experiences across multiple devices without managing a mess of different systems. With headless, you are starting from the point of completion which is allowing you to focus on the user experience and deliver a final solution for far less cost, time, and effort.

In the B2B world, it’s uncertain what the future will bring. However, it’s clear that enterprises will always need technology that is agile enough to respond to changes in the market and customer expectations. The question is: does your commerce platform provide the tools to respond to those emerging experiences? Or, will you miss out on those opportunities because you are handcuffed to legacy software? With Sitecore OrderCloud, you get limitless customizations and endless freedom for growth. 

Want to learn more? Get our guide, "The commerce risk mitigation playbook."