Building a Global E-Commerce Platform for Integrated Product Data and Digital Sales

Our team was responsible for creating a global E-commerce platform based on Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) and SAP Hybris Commerce that aims to provide seamless customer experiences and sales processes.

Client

Our client is a U.S.-based developer, manufacturer, and supplier serving automotive, commercial, aerospace, marine, rail, off-road, industrial, agricultural, and power-generation markets. The company employs more than 10,000 people across over 50 locations worldwide and manages a portfolio of more than 30 aftermarket brands.

Challenge

The client needed to create a more consistent global digital commerce environment while improving the way product data was collected, synchronized, and used across regions and brands. Existing catalogs and data sources were fragmented, making global analysis slower and increasing the effort required to maintain current product information.

• Product catalogs were distributed across regions, limiting centralized visibility into sales performance, customer preferences, and market trends.
• Data synchronization across disparate sources required significant time and resources and delayed access to current information.
• The existing U.S. product catalog required modernization, along with the client-facing digital experience.
• The client needed to establish a reliable flow of SAP data to Microsoft Azure to support business intelligence, trend analysis, and seasonal forecasting.
• Adobe Experience Manager required version updates to improve platform reliability and security.

Solution

LeverX developed and enhanced a global e-commerce platform built around SAP Hybris Commerce 6.4 and Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). The project combined commerce customization, catalog and content modernization, data integration, and analytics capabilities to support digital sales across multiple brands and regions.

Commerce platform development and customization

LeverX customized SAP Hybris Commerce 6.4 around the client's sales processes and digital commerce requirements. The work included:

• A customized shopping cart and checkout flow
• Authorization and access-control functionality
• Tailored product catalogs and storefront capabilities
• Commerce functionality adapted to the client's business requirements

Catalog and content modernization

The team migrated the customer-facing catalog experience to Adobe Experience Manager and created new product catalogs for several brands in the client's portfolio. LeverX also supported the transformation of the corporate website and migrated AEM to newer versions to improve platform reliability and security.

Data integration and analytics

The project included establishing a data flow from the SAP environment to Microsoft Azure to support advanced analytics and seasonal forecasting. Business intelligence capabilities supported data aggregation, visualization, trend analysis, sales forecasting, and informed decision-making. RESTful APIs were used for application communication across the broader solution landscape.

Technology Stack

The solution combined commerce, content management, application development, integration, search, and analytics technologies.

• Commerce platform: SAP Hybris Commerce 6.4
  Provided the core commerce functionality for product catalogs, cart and checkout processes, storefront logic, and client-specific commerce customizations.

• Content management: Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
  Supported digital content management, catalog presentation, and the corporate website. LeverX also migrated the platform to newer AEM versions.

• Cloud data and analytics environment: Microsoft Azure
  Served as the target environment for SAP data used to support analytics workloads, including seasonal forecasting.

• Business intelligence: BI tools
  Supported data aggregation, visualization, sales analysis, and forecasting.

• Frontend development: AngularJS, Vue.js, Less, Webpack
  Supported development and delivery of the customer-facing web experience.

• Backend development: Java, Spring Core, Spring MVC, Spring Security
  Provided the backend application foundation and security framework for custom commerce functionality.

• Search: Apache Solr
  Supported search functionality within the commerce platform.

• Integration: RESTful APIs
  Supported communication between applications and services across the solution landscape.

• Commerce development and build tooling: FlexibleSearch, Groovy, Ant
  Supported SAP Hybris Commerce data access, scripting, development, and build processes.

Results

The project gave the client a more integrated foundation for digital commerce, product data management, and analytics across multiple brands and regions.

• The solution streamlined data synchronization and structuring across multiple sources.
• Analytics capabilities supported trend analysis, sales forecasting, and more informed decision-making based on available data.
• The new digital storefronts provided a more consistent and user-friendly customer experience across the supported brands.
• The migration of Adobe Experience Manager to newer versions improved platform reliability and security.
• BI-based data aggregation and visualization gave business users better access to sales and trend data.