When SAP announced that it has agreed to buy CRM and e-commerce player Hybris back in June, there was speculation as to what this acquisition would mean to both companies and their customers.
Now that the deal has been completed, it appears that “omni-commerce is at the heart of the future strategy.
Computer Weekly recently spoke to Hybris CEO, Ariel Lüdi. He commented that SAP bought the Swiss commerce platform company to move beyond traditional CRM and enable it to deliver a multi-channel customer experience, in-store as well as through e-commerce, to companies that sell goods and services. InformationWeek elaborated on this, adding that, “Hybris handles the complexities of managing multiple customer touch points, delivering consistent information and consistent customer experience regardless of how the customer wants to do business. The Hybris solution is to stop handling digital transactions and conventional transactions with separate silos of technology.
XConomy quoted Mark Ferrer, chief operating officer of SAP’s global customer operations, who says that this tool will be used by commerce companies who want technology that helps them understand and interact with consumers across multiple channels including mobile devices and computers and in brick-and-mortar stores. V3 noted that SAP is working to add HANA to the Hybris e-commerce tools, in order to allow customers to perform faster, more detailed analytics on the data they store.
Ray Wang from Constellation Research commented on the news. He said, “Ultimately, SAP's strategy speaks to a world where traditional notions of B2B and B2C commerce are dead. It's about personalised commerce. He went on to comment that, while SAP will be able to get a good start with Hybris, there are many other related acquisitions it could still make. "SAP's missing identity, payment technologies, and a few other digital enablers like signatures and mobile wallets."
The Hybris acquisition and other related topics will no doubt be up for discussion at our upcoming 25th Anniversary User Conference in November – so stay tuned!
