SAP SaaS Solutions | eCommerce Integration

What is a SAP SaaS Solution?

SAP SaaS solutions give companies cloud-based ERP and CRM from SAP, and connecting them to an eCommerce store keeps orders and customer data in one place. SAP’s cloud platform, formerly known as SAP HANA Cloud Platform, is now SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), which connects and extends SAP’s SaaS applications such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Commerce Cloud.

Based on the quote “seize the day”, SAP is offering the chance to seize opportunities, if you trust your business to their cloud solutions, as so many businesses already do. SAP has made sure the world knows their name and their services, with a large share of global transactions passing through a SAP eCommerce system one way or another, and SAP being recognized as “Leader” across the software, analytics, digital supply chain, finance, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and CRM sectors. Choosing SAP is not a bet, it is a decision towards improving your business and the relationships that come with(in) it.

Benefits of an eCommerce SAP Offering

Every company offering SaaS solutions is offering a promise of specific benefits to their clients. In many occasions those benefits can be along the same tagline (faster, better, cheaper services), but there are some specific advantages when clients choose to trust their eCommerce to a SAP solution. Below we elaborate on some of them.

Powerful Toolbox

Similar to Salesforce having the AppExchange, SAP is offering their curated collection of powerful tools to help you with your business. Including SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Concur, SAP Sales Cloud and Service Cloud (formerly SAP Cloud for Customer), and SAP SuccessFactors, these tools offer you the chance to reach out beyond your company’s walls and use some of SAP’s precious resources, either to improve your eCommerce platform, or to improve the back-end of your business.

Flexible Infrastructure

Flexibility, perfect fit around your needs, and individuality are attributes that SAP is taking seriously when it comes to SAP SaaS solutions. Their solutions allow you to meet your platform requirements without the hurdle of having to buy a different package. Furthermore, they support innovation, by removing any constraints posed from your commerce platform and allowing you to capitalize on potential opportunities.

End-to-End eCommerce Support

Ever been in a situation where a website does not display well on a mobile device? Or you could not find what you were looking for due to insufficient SEO? Or even somehow you lost your way while browsing for products? You will not have to worry about situations like that happening on your eCommerce platform when integrating with a SAP SaaS solution, as they support commerce capabilities across all channels, offer improved and tailored search capabilities, make sure to show the right product at the right time, and guide customers from start to finish, enhancing conversion rates for your platform.

Rock-Solid Security

No company wants to ever be in a position of defending itself over a data breach scandal. Security incidents can occur with any cloud-based solution, so SAP invests heavily in preventing them. SAP was one of the first companies to receive global BS 10012 certification for data protection and privacy from BSI (the British Standards Institution), and builds its products to help protect private customer data.

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Integrating a SAP Solution to Your eCommerce Platform

When investing in a SAP SaaS solution for your eCommerce, it should be integrated with the rest of your business, in order to offer maximum benefits. Successful integration can lead to better communication across departments, more efficient data handling, higher visibility of your products, workflow efficiency, more effective collaboration across teams, and overall reduced bureaucratic labor and costs. Integration does not have to be a laborious or time-consuming process, and once the SAP SaaS solution is integrated to the central ERP system of your business, front and back-end operations will be streamlined and seamless.

SAP Solution Integration: Are There More Benefits... We already covered some important, unique benefits a SAP eCommerce integration can offer to your business, but it does not stop there. SAP can do more for your eCommerce based on their experience and expertise:

Commerce continuity: make your customers come back for more, by offering re-order alerts, auto-replenish schemes, household bundles and more.
Strategic product placement: a SAP solution can help you meet your sales targets, by adjusting product placement strategically, on a continuous manner, based on predefined business goals.
Easy edits: want to make changes on-the-go? SAP provides simplified editing of your storefront, using a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get tool.
Transparency: SAP is offering visibility of your inventory to potential customers, as being transparent with your clients can lead to trust and improved conversions.

Issues You Should Watch Out For During Integration and How to Avoid them... One issue that might prevent successful integration of a SaaS-based SAP solution to the ERP of your business, is software language. If the ERP (or other APIs used) and the SaaS solution cannot communicate efficiently, then there might be issues with real-time data processing, updates, or even data handling, leading to potentially dangerous situations. A way to solve this problem is by having an “intermediate” program, to connect your ERP to the eCommerce SAP solution.

Another issue you might encounter is making a decision on how to integrate the chosen SAP eCommerce solution. Common avenues include file exchange, intermediate documents (IDocs), remote function calls (RFC/BAPI, SAP’s proprietary interface), and the OData and SOAP APIs that SAP’s cloud applications publish. There is not a universally correct choice, as each option has its benefits and limitations, but there is a correct choice for your business, which you need to make in order to achieve successful integration. Furthermore, once a decision on which integration tool should be used is made, you should decide for the available options within the tool (for example, which IDOCS or RFC to use).