So, I have been seeing for quite a long time now so much opinion out there from a variety of “software” firms and consultancies saying that “Commerce is a Commodity”, to “Build your differentiation and buy the rest” to “Composable architecture is the way to go” that I think a counter view is needed from places where enterprise scale is achieved and driving significant value.
I do know how this commentary all started, and I have very good friends and people I trust have developed this in the industry with massive marketing budgets over the last few years, but I have to say, I respectfully disagree. I come at this from a perspective is both as a provider at large system integrators and digital agencies and as an employee of enterprise software companies.
So consider this: First, what is the definition of Commodity? I assume what is being used is the are C definition from Merriam-Webster “a mass-produced unspecialized product” … https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commodity.
Given that definition, here’s why I see it differently in my experience:
First: Having software a solution that scales and performs is not a commodity. Carts (which for true commerce platforms are modeled really as Orders) are far from Commodity because achieving high-performance to develop an order is critical to drive revenue and beat our client’s competition. Speed matters. Handling order volumes at unexpected peak periods matter. You can’t say “everyone has a cart so it’s a commodity,” because in reality, orders can have many different behaviors – b2c, b2b, b2b2c. Supporting all those order models in the same platform like #HCLCommerce Cloud at HCLSoftware is not a commodity. In addition, getting that to scale is not commodity – it’s really an art form and it’s something that has to be at the core of the platform from inception, as it can’t be added after the fact.
This matters most for firms doing complex pricing, data driven personalization (esp. with CDP’s now starting to drive high speed AI/ML driven insights), and promotion management. And frankly, those are goals of most firms, regardless of online revenue size.
Second: Having common and easy to use business tools that are constantly innovating to manage the behavior of business processes (customer built and packaged) is not commodity. Infusing AI/ML insights to automate behaviors of these course grained Packaged Business Capabilities (Gartner’s definition which we call “Integrated Composable Commerce”) that support the velocity of the customer interactions may seem like a commodity. However, only a robust platform providers know how to do this because they design for it first. HCLSoftware see this as a tremendous opportunity and a major area of investment.
Third: Software Vendor support and accountability is not a commodity – especially at critical online revenue moments. One of our #HCLCommerce Commerce Cloud Clients just had their 5-week peak and had 100% uptime – not a single issue. We were on our typical high-alert like we are for all of our clients (when you drive $220 Billion/ year of revenue you have to know how to do this). This can be contrasted to a narrowly scoped collection of many vendor components (which are usually changing / evolving) which in reality, really means that a single customer journey at the key moment of truth in session (realtime) could traverse across many vendors components. In these situations, clients will have to manage all of that themselves — In short, clients end up in a support nightmare having multiple component vendors on the phone trying to do problem source identification on a performance problem with no one accountable – except the internal customer IT department.
All that said, the thing that really stands out
When you hear, “build your differentiation” well that is “secret code” for the customer ends up in build mode and uses a woefully incomplete set of “component based products” to try to support a horizontal customer journey that touches everything from complex pricing, to promotions to personalized content and, oh, it’s gotta be fast. Trying to paint a picture for clients that “well we provide the commodities so you can build” creates tremendous risk for clients. Further, it’s a Systems Integrators dream to push clients to this as well because it means more billing revenue and much larger run/support contracts that are required. Sorry, I’ve been there. This is even a more acute problem given the shortage in talent and turnover, where all the knowledge of all that custom stuff and “vendor integration” goes with the employee.
So, my point here is not to have a architecture purity debate. Over the years past that didn’t lead to really great business outcomes – Remember SOA, Client Server, N-Tier Architectures – even Headless (which isn’t new – headless was the design we used for DHL’s customer service systems and Wells Fargo’s branch systems from 1992-1998 but that’s another third-rail article for another time). The point is our clients want scalable robust, highly functional platforms that let them design new engagements for their customers. They also want to partner with those providers to drive new innovation.
Frankly, if I summarize this even further – The debate isn’t “monolith vs. composable architectures – that’s architecture marketing buzz (albeit very catchy!!) The debate we should be having is how platforms and platform technology can and does drive revenue growth at speed (both time and experience), scale (business volume + complexity) layered with privacy and security (Trust).
So the alternative?
Clients can benefit more by partnering with software firms like HCLSoftware to participate in what their Commerce Cloud fees pay for – which is to drive the investments we make in the our products to drive their online revenue in new ways at speed, scale, security and privacy. As we say clients should #ExpectMore+ and our clients can create unique and new partnership agreements to drive this value directly. At HCLSoftware and Commerce Cloud, this is exactly what we do.
This is the entire reason we created the #HCLCXStudio for our clients – we are a team of over 450 years of digital agency experience, that for gratis, works with our clients on their actual design challenges for the purposes both of showing how our platforms can solve those design challenges, but also inform our roadmaps for new capabilities while further giving clients insights into areas which can create differentiation.
This approach of Co-Creation is where clients can really get value. Clients need great design first and from there we can co-create – you can hear more about the #CXStudio here.
Why #HCLCommerce Commerce Cloud?
Short version – given we drive $220B+ in online annual revenue for our clients, to me, makes the art and science of what we do far from commodity. Read more about HCL Commerce Cloud Here. What we have learned in the last few years is that the costs of pure composability and taking an approach that commerce platforms are commoditized is wrought with big services bills and higher people costs. Instead, we have found a way to thread the needle of a proven scalable platform, partnering with clients through the CX Studio Approach while delivering a more complete set of functional depth of our business processes that is “Integrated Composable Commerce”.
So, in closing platforms are not dead – far from it. Platforms really mean robust depth of function that scales, is performant, secure, private and allows room for client/vendor partnership to drive new innovation and IP – they are trusted, accountable – they are “The Platform of Trust”
