With the dawn of Omni-Chanel Commerce, these interactions at multitudes of customer touch-points are now customer-centric and way more complex!
This complex system comprises of data-sources which are discreet and provide data items which are pieces of the puzzle that need to be put together.
For such systems which are being fed data from ERPs’, CRMs’, POS and other store systems, a solution which provides a uniform view of the products and processes is the need of the hour!
We sat down with our SAP Hybris consultants to understand the promise of ‘Single Source of Truth’ that is being enabled by Hybris Ecommerce Solution. This blog is our pursuit to understand the technology architecture that powers this solution and learn what a B2C accelerator is?
(Image Source – SAP Hybris)
Technology Architecture that Powers Hybris Omnichannel Commerce:
The following is the single-stack technology architecture that enables a Single View of Products, Customers, and Orders:
Let’s decode these components one at a time!
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- Commerce channels or Customer touch-points: In this hyper connected world, it is essential for the brands to register their presence at various touch-points. However, it is also imperative for the brands to deliver consistent customer experience across all these touch-points.In technology terms, such consistency is possible only if your store-fronts facilitate Single View of products and services. This means that irrespective of the touch-points, a customer should be able to view consistent product pricing, product description and other related information across all the channels.This is made possible by the underlying layers of the architecture.
- OmniCommerce Connect: This layer consists of web-services based APIs’ that serve as an interface between the channels and the back-end modules.
- Modules and Accelerators: Hybris Accelerators are software packages that support functions and features that are specific to a business model (B2C, B2B, B2B2C) and/or an Industry Domain (Telecommunication, Retail, Heavy Equipment, Consumer Goods and more).
During SAP Hybris implementation, based on the project requirements, your Hybris Technology Partner would assist you in defining the architecture and identifying the appropriate accelerators.
Modules are the software packages that are available as bundled solution for all the accelerators. These are sets of common features and functionalities that are necessary for any Ecommerce Implementation (e.g features like Store Locator, Pricing, Checkout and others)
- Order Management and Content Management: Both these modules are an integral part of any SAP Hybirs Omnichannel Commerce implementation.Content Management consists of Product Content Management (PCM) which handles all the information related to the products and Web Content Management System (WCMS), which manages data related to UI/UX of the store-frontOrder Management System (OMS) deals with all the features that are necessary once an order is created in the system. OMS facilitates features like order creation, cancellation, refund, partial refund and more.
What is a B2C Accelerator?
B2C Accelerator is a fast-track solution that helps your brand to become omnipresent. This is a ready-to-deploy software package with customizable web store-front templates and essential business process tools that help you reduce time-to-market and cost.
A B2C accelerator is a base-solution that enables you to build a customized B2C interface with reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
The following are some of the critical components of a B2C Accelerator:
- Interaction Layer: This layer deals with the human interaction with the B2C Accelerator. Some of the important components of this layer include Cockpits, Hybris Management Console (HMC) and Web Services.Cockpits are set of proprietary tools that a Hybris B2C Accelerator provides to business users for performing tasks and actions related to Product management, Warehouse management, Content Management and more. This helps in reduction of maintenance cost (post implementation) as no change in code is needed and there is no downtime.Hybris Management Console (HMC) is a centralized hub for all administrative tasks, actions and processes. These admin related activities are necessary to ensure seamless day-to-day business operations. Generally, only Hybris Admins have access to to HBC.Web Services are communication interfaces between the Hybris B2C Accelerator and third party external systems like payment gateway, shipment plugin and more. Web Services also serve as an interface with the Mobile Application.
- Object Models Layer: This layer consists of Hybris ServiceLayer Framework along with Business and Infrastructure Services.This layer deals with all the Java APIs’ for objects in SAP Hybirs Commerce. These object models are generated based on types.Business Services manage API related to Pricing, CMS and more; while Infrastructure Services manage API related to caching, security, transactions and session
- Hybris Persistence Layer: The Hybris Persistence Layer manages abstraction from database, caching and clustering. This makes this B2C Accelerator a database independent solution.
To learn more about B2C Accelerator and understand how it can add value, please get in touch with our Hybris Consultants at sales@embitel.com
