For B2B and B2C businesses, eCommerce platforms leveraging the cloud provide new opportunities. For IT professionals, it is not just a technical change, it is a mindset change. Learn how your business can prepare for an upgrade.
For B2B and B2C businesses, eCommerce platforms leveraging the cloud provides both new opportunities and new challenges.
Cloud eCommerce is exactly what the term implies. Those platforms utilize cloud-based software rather than software installed on a local server.
Over the past decade, cloud eCommerce solutions have become increasingly popular due to lower costs for maintenance and less system complexity, as well as challenges unique to on-premise platforms.
Unlike cloud commerce, on-premise eCommerce platforms are not very agile. Working with them can be challenging. Implementation can be very long and costly.
Because on-premise platforms were designed before the advent of digital development, the architecture just isn't designed to be updated and refreshed with ease. Consequently, developers are consumed with a lot of maintenance and development tasks. This is time which can be better spent focused on strategic initiatives.
Yet while on-premise platforms are outdated and lack agility, not everyone is ready for the cloud.
Moving to a cloud-based solution is a radical shift in the commerce business. For IT professionals, it is not just a technical change, but a mindset change.
With changes this significant, businesses using traditional, on-premise solutions understandably worry about making the change. They want to understand the risks with a cloud solution, and how their businesses can prepare for the change.
As with any major implementation, prior to investing in a cloud solution, your IT team must carefully assess existing systems and data.
What programs will need to be integrated? (i.e. fulfillment systems, customer service systems, product data, and more). Are there any programs that can’t be integrated, and how will that impact your operations?
Additionally, they’ll need to identify budget, workflows, business goals, and current staffing capabilities.
Ultimately, moving to the cloud requires a full change management strategy.
Thankfully, cloud-based solutions, like the Oracle software as a service Cloud Commerce, can relieve many of the challenges eCommerce business experience with a traditional solution.
From seamless upgrades to overhead reduction, on-demand scalability, and pay per usage metrics, it’s a viable solution for many businesses.
Even better, Commerce Cloud, specifically, consolidates technology into a single place, including:
But perhaps most significantly, moving to the cloud positions your business to be able to test out new opportunities with little upfront investments.
The agility of cloud platforms, decreased costs to launch new sites, and pay-as-you-go structure means that businesses can quickly offer new products and services to customers. This improves the customer experience and allows businesses to stay responsive.
It also means that if you’re looking to test out new products, expand to a new region, and try a different approach to branding, you can do so with reasonable costs and time investments.
This scalability opens up all kinds of avenues for your business to pursue.
Still not sure how best to de-risk an upgrade to the cloud?
As Oracle partners, we've overseen the successful transition of businesses from ATG to Oracle Cloud Commerce.
