CoreMedia’s roots in the IBM WebSphere Commerce ecosystem are deep and well established. We first partnered with IBM and WebSphere Commerce (WCS) back in 2013. Our integration with the IBM WebSphere Commerce (now HCL Commerce v9) software platform launched the same year. We love the company and its platform!
But many people don't know this: CoreMedia and HCL have teamed up to become leading B2C eCommerce partners for luxury brands and global high fashion.
A DIGITAL CATWALK FOR ONE OF THE LARGEST GLOBAL APPAREL COMPANIES
Our first major fashion win was a company with a portfolio of famous consumer brands. They're one of the world’s largest lifestyle apparel companies with annual revenues of more than $9 billion. They provide products for many of the world’s most popular department stores. They also sell directly to customers through more than 700 outlets. Their digital commerce presence spans 40 countries and 20 languages.
They wanted to improve customer experience and direct sales with rich media and brand content. So their marketing and developer teams chose CoreMedia over Adobe Experience Manager application because it supported their IBM eCommerce platform. This meant they wouldn't have to migrate from WebSphere Commerce software or redevelop any storefronts.
We kicked off the project with their European team. (The company’s North American properties were added later.) The benefits of the CoreMedia and IBM/HCL approach included: shorter time to market, better customer experience, and reduced support costs – all running on WebSphere Commerce technology.
RAPID COMMERCE GROWTH FOR THE WORLD'S LEADING ONLINE FASHION RETAILER
This project led to a multi-site deal with a European B2C and B2B eCommerce leader. This company manages the eCommerce experience for some of the world’s hottest names in fashion.
They operate multiple WebSphere-powered stores under their own name for both in-season and out-of-season items. As a B2B player, they operate a SaaS platform for managing online flagship sites and other web services on behalf of their luxury brand partners.
But they needed to move fast in order to meet their goal of 20% growth per year and build a multi-billion euro business by 2020. They needed open, API-driven CMS and DAM capabilities – fully integrated with WebSphere Commerce – that could deliver great content-driven experiences and a fast time-to-market. It also needed to be built on a scalable cost base.
Finally, shoppers needed to be able to quickly locate relevant products and content via the existing SOLR search engine. This was the only way to acquire more customers and deliver more value to shareholders.
This client serves buyers in 180 countries and 10 languages. Their marketing and merchandising teams needed a solution that could manage translations and regional variations. And their developers wanted a CMS partner committed to its existing WebSphere Commerce technology and order management systems (OMS) as well as the broader IBM ecosystem.
According to Sarath Singamsetty, director at Nisum, "a successful API strategy is a key element of digital transformation." Unlike so-called all-in-one DXP suites from companies such as Adobe and Liferay, CoreMedia enables integration with legacy and emerging best-of-breed tools via our open integration framework.
CoreMedia helped them pull off a big win with our award-winning, vendor-validated CMS and digital experience solution. Our deep integration with WebSphere Commerce allowed them to blend content and e-commerce more easily and for less money. And their WebSphere Commerce developer team was excited that our application supported their mobile strategy by managing both mobile sites and apps.
WALK THE WALK WITH AN ICONIC SHOE COMPANY
A final example is a luxury footwear firm that sought a content management solution which was pre-integrated with the latest version of their WebSphere Commerce application. Their IBM WebSphere Commerce developer team wanted to transform their store into a true destination site. Our application server had to integrate with their WebSphere Commerce Server to provide new features that were better than a typical “shop-the-grid” store of its competitors.
It also had to support international stores, collections and marketing sites. And it all had to be built on a common Docker and SOA-based platform that was easy to deploy and allowed them to share assets across properties. Because our integration is a product rather than a project, this was the perfect match. They greatly reduced total cost of ownership when compared to the competition.
NEXT STEPS
CoreMedia is proud to partner with HCL (formerly IBM WebSphere Commerce) to drive success in the fashion segment. We look forward to working with HCL Commerce (WebSphere Commerce) – along with the IBM developer, WebSphere, and IBM Watson Commerce communities – to take this success to the next level. We expect the popularity of this approach to grow as more WebSphere customers migrate to v9 and beyond.
Are you a WebSphere Commerce developer? To find out more about this partnership and our support for multiple WebSphere Commerce versions (including WebSphere Commerce V9), check out our software factsheet.
