International online trade and the ERP

According to a recent study, twelve percent of all companies already report generating more than one-third of their sales abroad.

This is particularly impressive because hardly more than half of all companies are even active in non-German-speaking countries. One thing in particular is important for the efficient internationalization of business: the seamless connection of the store system to the corporate IT.

The ERP system represents the core for a monetization of the business. The integration of an online store into the SAP environment allows medium-sized companies to realize a modern e-commerce strategy.

A consistent and continuous process automation from the order to the goods to be delivered is thus achieved. But what needs to be considered here so that the step towards internationalization of the webshop can be taken?

Online retailing knows no national borders. Today, customers shop as a matter of course in online stores all over the world. At the same time, customers expect a simple and convenient shopping experience at all times.

Complicated processes, poor performance and missing payment methods quickly lead to purchase abandonment and thus to lost sales. The retailer faces the challenge of optimizing its know-how and processes to keep complexity and costs under control.

In addition, the speed of the project implementation is of crucial importance, since a modification of the project objectives is naturally associated with an increase in the project duration.

It is therefore important to look beyond the internal system landscape, especially when selecting the appropriate e-commerce process platform, and to examine the suitable solutions in terms of total cost of ownership and time to market.

Internationalization

The procedural design of an internationalization path for online retailing is as individual as the respective corporate structure. Nevertheless, there are milestones in every project that must be considered and, if necessary, implemented.

Bridging language barriers

A central challenge is the implementation of all national language requirements for the retailer: Not only product-specific texts have to be provided in the system, but above all all all linguistic elements that are provided in the user front end, such as transactional e-mails, language modules from the personalization engine, the CRM or any image material with language elements.

But English is not sufficient as a lingua franca for support and call centers either. Here, versions must be offered in the various national languages.

In most cases, PIM systems are used here, from which texts can be imported in all languages and which are usually well prepared for international use. a further aspect is the consideration of cultural/regional differences in the use of web stores.

Cultural diversity

Usability and thus also the design of the web store is a central user acceptance factor that is decisive for success, especially in B2C retail. The operational hurdle in the implementation lies less in the lack of knowledge of the requirements than in the complexity of the system-side implementation of different front ends.

It is therefore not enough to simply set up a multilingual store; country-specific subshops must be established that meet all country-specific requirements without multiplying system complexity.

The silver bullet is an "intelligent inheritance theory" in the store system that enables the operator to migrate all supra-regional system structures to the country-specific stores without effort, and makes all regional requirements easy to customize.

Another important topic is country-specific payment methods. Many local payment methods are now offered by various large payment service providers (PSPs) and can be easily activated in the best case.

In many cases, however, the operator is faced with the question of the technical complexity of a store integration, the actual cost structure for payment processing, and not infrequently also with local administrative, regulatory requirements for the processing of payment transactions.

When preparing the offer, the supplier must take regional differences into account. Different size runs apply in the textile sector, different plug formats in the electronics sector, and the unit systems vary internationally.

The web store must be set up in such a way that customers see the most relevant offers first, depending on the market, and, if necessary, are made aware of the differences from the standard national format.

Legal aspects

On the legal side, differences in data protection and distance selling laws must be taken into account. Payment targets, returns and, of course, delivery times should be stored country-specifically in the processes for purchase processing. Here, too, a suitable store system with appropriate modules provides support.

Link between SAP and store system

For many of the challenges mentioned above, an interface to the SAP system is essential. Item data with inventory, customer data, order data, transaction data, etc. must be able to be exchanged at any time with high performance.

Internationalization of online trading normally means - at least in the successful course - a steady increase of customers and transactions in the store system.

Load scaling an enterprise online store should be easy, but what happens to the connected ERP system?

A significant increase in real-time stock queries or order simulations can significantly affect both SAP users in the company and the purchasing process in the online store due to insufficient performance of the SAP system. It is therefore important to plan the interaction between the SAP system, online store and all other systems at an early stage.

Common practice between SAP and store system

In practice, there are two main types of SAP store connection: The direct connection via SAP board means such as function modules or web services and the intermediate connection of an intelligent middleware.

The use of intelligent middleware as a dynamic data management layer has proven useful in many projects.

The IntegrationMan from Honico eBusiness is an example of such middleware. As a central data hub, it sits between the store and SAP/ERP systems; other applications such as PIM, CRM or payment services can also be connected.

Information from the store is processed directly in the ERP via the data hub. Master data and transaction data are transferred from the ERP to the store. All necessary processes can be time- or event-controlled to conserve resources.

The advantage of the standardized solution: Since up to 80 percent of the processes in e-commerce are always the same, ready-made process templates can often be used.

For this reason, ERP connections can often be implemented much faster and more cost-effectively with middleware such as IntegrationMan than with individual developments. And from the point of view of system security, it can also make sense to use a middleware layer.

Conclusion

A turnkey store solution is much more than just a functioning web front end. If it is based on proven standards, it guarantees the fast implementation of local stores with little programming effort.

Error-free data transfer between the SAP system and the store software is a prerequisite for ensuring that the business customer has a pleasant shopping experience. The flexibility of the solution is important for customization: Predefined functions and modules can be switched on or off.

Modules and processes already include adaptation to the customs and legal requirements of the respective market. Language modules facilitate the stringent and seamless translation of relevant product and business texts.

Thus, the store software not only ensures that the step into the international market is a success, but also that the associated costs, time and effort are reduced.