Exploring Challenges Faced in the current Commerce Solution

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to identify and describe the key challenges and limitations faced by organizations using SAP Commerce Cloud, and explain how these challenges impact business performance and operations.

Delivering the Modern B2B Commerce Experience with SAP

SAP digital commerce slide showing 24/7 customer experience with reliable availability, fast fulfillment, seamless buying, and AI‑driven engagement, highlighting B2B need to match rising B2C expectations.

SAP has been powering digital commerce for some of the biggest B2B and B2C companies in the world for more than a decade. What’s new is that we’re taking that heritage — the scale, the reliability, the deep B2B capabilities — and packaging it in a way that’s lighter, faster, and much easier for mid‑market companies to adopt. If you’re on Cloud ERP, this is the commerce platform that simply makes the most sense. SAP has quietly powered some of the world’s most demanding digital commerce programs; what we’re introducing here is proven capability purpose‑packaged for Cloud ERP customers like you.

Let's start with your customers.

Their expectations have changed dramatically. Whether they’re in the field, on a job site, or at a desk, they expect the same speed and clarity in B2B that they get in their personal lives.

They want instant, accurate answers personalized pricing, real‑time order visibility, accurate delivery dates, and self‑service everything. And with younger, digital‑native procurement teams entering the workforce, their tolerance for waiting on emails or phone calls is almost zero. They want answers instantly.

They are looking for you to provide a digital, 24/7 solution that provide this information and enables them to act. When they can’t get it, they hesitate, they pick up the phone, or they defer the purchase—slowing revenue and creating avoidable workload for your teams.

SAP Cloud ERP slide showing sales and support challenges from disconnected systems, manual processes, and repeated customer queries, highlighting need for automation, better data flow, and improved efficiency.

Now, on the flip side, your internal teams feel the pressure of this shift.

Right now, ERP holds the truth about orders, pricing, and availability — but customers and frontline teams often can’t access that truth without a human in the loop.

As a result, many processes still depend on manual intervention. Sales and support teams often spend a large portion of their time answering simple, repetitive questions such as:

  • "Where is my order?"
  • "Can you send me my invoice?"
  • "What is my price for this product?"

These are not high-value tasks—but they consume significant time.

In addition, disconnected systems can slow down the flow of information, making it harder to provide accurate and timely responses.

The result is reduced efficiency, increased workload, and missed opportunities to drive revenue.

SAP CX strategy slide highlighting business goals like improving customer experience, connecting systems, increasing revenue, and reducing costs, while emphasizing simple, cost‑effective, fast, and user‑friendly technology solutions.

Given these challenges, what are organizations looking for? Most businesses share a common set of goals.

They want to:

  • Improve the customer experience
  • Connect their systems and data seamlessly
  • Increase revenue
  • And reduce operational costs

To achieve this, they need solutions that are:

  • Simple and intuitive, so users can adopt them quickly
  • Lightweight and flexible, so they can adapt to changing needs
  • Cost-effective, with a low total cost of ownership and
  • Fast to implement, so they deliver value quickly

In other words, organizations are looking for solutions that balance powerful capabilities with simplicity and speed.

SAP Customer Experience slide showing integrated Commerce, Sales, Service, and Engagement Cloud solutions, highlighting seamless SAP Cloud ERP integration to drive business growth, improve CX, and accelerate digital transformation.

Before we dive into the details on this new solution and how it will help you address the current situation, it’s worth stepping back for a moment.

SAP Customer Experience offers a portfolio of enterprise-grade solutions, including Commerce, Sales, Service, and Engagement. These solutions are widely used across industries. Today, SAP is making them more accessible by simplifying implementation and enabling native integration with SAP Cloud ERP. This allows organizations to adopt powerful capabilities more quickly and with less effort.

SAP Cloud ERP slide showing frictionless access to customer, pricing, inventory, and order data, enabling real‑time engagement, seamless commerce experiences, and transforming ERP into a customer experience engine.

SAP Cloud ERP already contains the most important business data, such as customer information, pricing, orders, and inventory. With modern commerce solutions, this data becomes accessible in real time, allowing customers and employees to act on it directly. This transforms ERP from a system of record into an active engine for delivering customer experiences.

Summary

  • The digital commerce landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by AI, automation, and rising customer expectations
  • B2B customers now expect B2C-like experiences, including real-time information, personalization, and self-service
  • Many organizations struggle because ERP data is not easily accessible, leading to manual processes and inefficiencies
  • Traditional commerce solutions are complex, costly, and slow to adapt, limiting innovation and agility
  • A new approach is needed to connect ERP and commerce, enabling real-time, efficient, and customer-centric experiences