Lately I’ve been frequently asked how our 21webmerce solution distinguishes from the big players like IBM or Oracle. You could call me insane to compare ourselves with those big players, because they have huge development teams and unlimited financial resources to develop their solutions. And let’s not forget their experience. But why not give it a try?! Challenge accepted!
How to beat the giant?
It’s true these are giants, I don’t argue with that. I’m also aware of their recent expansions and acquisitions. Take for instance the ERP and CRM provider SAP and its recent hybris take over.
Once, the strategy to have their own e-commerce solution didn’t work, they did have enough resources to buy hybris for their own. According to Forrester research hybris will work as an independent business unit, but still under SAP’s wings. And, how will we compete with the unlimited work, office and technology force?
I bet you know the fairy tail “Little Thumbling” and you probably know how that ended. The daughters got eaten and the little guy won against the giant.
That’s why we believe we can beat the giant doing it AGILE!
Their way of doing things
The big players’ main aim is still the same, to drive more revenue and extend their product portfolio. And to extend the portfolio there’s nothing easier than to buy, if you have the budget obviously. However, this approach causes the issue with integrity.
These giants have one product that they have developed from the start and clients who use it. After expanding and getting bigger, their software slowly became outdated but they became big and popular enough to continue with it.
Once they see an urgent need in the market’s air, which they are not able to satisfy with their own solution, they just buy and acquire some well-doing business.
The offer made to clients then consist of a package of different solutions, provided by different integration partners that may not know a lot about each other and may not be integral with the clients’ needs, but are under one capital group.
Nevertheless the product portfolio and revenue grows, while unfortunately individual needs are lost.
A light in the tunnel
And here’s a passage for a business like 21webmerce to enter. A small but flexible team that can choose modern solutions and decide on the go that a change needs to be made. Moreover the advantage of a free choice for a client, who can choose from a variety of ERP or CRM solutions to be integrated with, because we don’t need to push the client towards our software only.
Good news for everyone!
In the Agile way, in which we speak and listen, hence we cooperate with the clients on a daily basis, there’s also a time to care for their business. In e-commerce this means providing perfect customer experience. However, this experience differs from the type of a shop, its offer, stock management, specific product availability.
The adjustments to such details are very often ignored in case of complicated business models, but simply cannot be left out in an Agile approach.
Concluding, SAP acquiring hybris and the expansion of other big software vendors is actually a good thing for us. This just leaves us the market of non-standard or innovation oriented clients. Thanks to them we also develop and grow, but unlike huge businesses we grow creative!
This post was originally published on our solution’s blog: blog.21webmerce.com Feel free to visit for more e-commerce insights!