Lusill Gebauer, Customer Service
+49 3641 3 16 10 20
The BERNER Group is one of Europe's leading B2B trading partners for professional users in the mobility, construction and industrial sectors. With over 100,000 premium products, innovative in-house developments in the field of specialty chemicals and a broad service portfolio, the company supports its customers in making their work efficient and successful - whether in the workshop, on the construction site or in industry.
As an omnichannel specialist, BERNER offers a seamless shopping experience across five sales channels - online, stationary, in the field, via telesales and e-procurement. More than 12 million personal customer contacts per year testify to the trust that BERNER enjoys in 21 countries.
With a strong network of modern logistics centers, local depots and a nationwide sales team, the family-owned company stands for proximity, reliability and speed.
To customer
The BERNER Group planned to set up a central B2B commerce platform that would meet the requirements of 23 national companies. The aim was to combine individual catalog structures, pricing logic and purchasing processes in a common solution that could be adapted regionally and controlled centrally.
Smart Commerce developed the platform on the basis of SAP Commerce Cloud. Standard functions were extended and existing SAP systems were connected. In order to map the complex pricing logic with over 60 million variants and flexible approval processes, Smart Commerce added individual extensions and created a product data architecture that efficiently merges data from different sources. Smart Commerce was responsible for the technical design, implementation and long-term development of the platform throughout the entire project.
The result is a powerful and future-proof B2B commerce platform that flexibly maps the requirements of the entire BERNER Group. The solution combines central control mechanisms with customizable functions for regional markets and thus enables a uniform yet differentiated customer experience.
The platform forms the technical basis for the Group's international e-commerce and supports both traditional purchasing processes and individual workflows. Thanks to the connection to existing SAP systems and the addition of company-specific functions, BERNER now has a stable architecture that can be further developed and adapted to new market requirements.
Smart Commerce has thus created an infrastructure that is sustainable in the long term and contributes to the strategic goals of the BERNER Group.
At our customer BERNER, SAP Commerce Cloud (Hybris) is at the center of the digital sales architecture. The platform is closely interlinked with numerous third-party systems, which together ensure smooth processes and a consistent user experience.
Product information is managed via the Stibo STEP PIM system. Orders are automatically entered into SAP R/3. Marketplaces, payment providers and a connected media server enable an end-to-end e-commerce process. Tools such as Fact Finder or Google Analytics provide valuable data for targeted further development. The setup is supplemented by systems for data quality assurance and the integration of additional portals.
This system landscape forms the backbone of BERNER's digital strategy. It creates the basis for efficient processes, high scalability and a clear customer focus.
The platform processes complex product hierarchies and classifications as well as product data from different sources. Standard SAP Commerce Cloud functions, such as product models with subcategories and classification classes, were supplemented by individual customizations. Additional cross-connections were developed to enable a consolidated display and bring together numerous data sources in the system.
BERNER manages a large number of prices that arise from product- and location-specific conditions and scales. Standard functions of the SAP Commerce Cloud were expanded and adapted. In addition, an existing pricing engine in SAP R/3 was connected. The result is a technical basis for a uniform pricing policy across all sales channels.
The different requirements of the local stores in terms of purchasing processes and workflows were taken into account through special developments. Among other things, special shopping cart processes were implemented that SAP Commerce Cloud does not offer as standard, but which are of great importance for the shopping experience and customer expectations.
The decision to migrate existing on-premise systems to the cloud is often the first step towards a more flexible and scalable IT infrastructure. Before moving to the cloud, however, it is important to carry out careful planning and preparation. An experienced implementation partner not only ensures short-term cost savings in this process, but also offers many long-term benefits. With our step-by-step guide, you have everything you need to successfully carry out your own SAP cloud migration.
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