EXCLUSIVE CHART
Compare Corevist To The Alternatives
Day 1 integrated, flexible roadmaps, fully managed—Corevist is quite different from the competition. Compare now and decide if Corevist might be a fit.
As you’re evaluating B2B portal options, a crucial question comes up:
How do you solve your customer experience problem without creating an IT problem?
This is where Corevist really stands out. To demonstrate, we’ll compare Corevist to alternative solutions. We’ll help you decide whether to include Corevist in your consideration set.
Corevist |
The Alternatives |
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Strategic considerations |
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| Does the solution allow you to launch a simple B2B customer portal without full eCommerce functionality? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution allow you to start with a portal for post-order care, then add ordering and eCommerce catalogs when you’re ready? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution give you a roadmap to master B2B eCommerce through iterative rollouts, rather than doing an expensive “Big Bang” project? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution include prebuilt, managed SAP integration that keeps your ERP as the system of record? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution support multiple “spinoff” sites that reuse the SAP integration and architecture from the flagship site? | ✔ | ✘ |
Impact to customers and customer service |
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| Will the solution empower customers to track orders, shipments, and invoices online—without calling or emailing? | ✔ | ?* |
| Does the solution support self-service payments for invoices, as well as full invoice history and credit status? | ✔ | ?* |
| Will the solution relieve the burden on your customer service reps to handle mundane order inquiries? | ✔ | ✘** |
| Does the solution support online ordering without a product catalog? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution support online ordering with a product catalog? | ✔ | ✔ |
Impact to IT staff |
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| Can you launch the solution with minimal help from your IT staff? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Can you run the solution after launch with minimal support from your IT staff? | ✔ | ✘ |
Technical debt footprint |
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| Does the solution read and write SAP data in real time under a multi-tenant SaaS model that doesn’t store any business data? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Can you launch the solution without increasing technical debt? | ✔ | ✘ |
User experience flexibility |
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| Can you achieve a unique branded look within a template-based UI? | ✔ | ✔ |
| Can you customize every aspect of the UI to create a totally unique look and feel? | ✘ | ✔ |
Project difficulty and risk |
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| Does the solution come with a single partner who takes full responsibility for your SAP-integrated B2B portal? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Is the solution “ready to go” out of the box, with a firm implementation timeline? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution include prebuilt SAP ERP integration to eliminate the biggest risk to the project? | ✔ | ✘ |
Security and backup recovery |
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| Does the solution come with a single partner who handles security and backup recovery? | ✔ | ? |
| Does the solution store business-critical data that may be lost? | ✘ | ✔ |
Financial impact |
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| Does the solution allow transparent cost forecasting? | ✔ | ✘ |
| Does the solution offer a transparent ROI timeline? | ✔ | ✘ |
*This answer is “yes” as long as the solution 1) includes that functionality, and 2) is integrated to SAP. However, conventional B2B eCommerce platforms typically don’t include the deep post-order care functionality of Corevist. Also, note that alternative integration methods will create many IT problems, as listed in the chart.
**We say “no” here because the complex integration will inevitably create problems. Whether it’s order errors, lost orders, or conflicting information from different systems, the alternative architecture won’t relieve the burden on customer service staff. It may even increase that burden.
The alternatives to Corevist
As you can see, Corevist is an unusual solution. Because it’s managed and integrated with SAP ERP, it looks quite different from the alternatives.
So what do those alternatives look like?
They’re conventional B2B eCommerce solutions (like Salesforce, Adobe, or Bigcommerce) with middleware solutions passing data back and forth between SAP and eCommerce.
You could say Corevist and the alternatives are like apples and oranges.
With a conventional B2B eCommerce platform, you can’t launch basic customer portal functionality without also investing in eCommerce. If you just need a portal for tracking orders and invoices, you’re out of luck. This is especially true if you need deep SAP integration to show all that customer data.
You’re also out of luck if you want to start with a customer portal, then scale up to catalogs and online ordering. That starting point isn’t available with alternatives to Corevist. You have to launch the whole package.
This is why we say that most alternatives to Corevist have several things in common.
- The solution will force you to do full B2B eCommerce or nothing. You can’t launch a simple B2B customer portal for post-order care. You also have to create a product catalog and populate it with images and content.
- The solution will push you to an end-state of digital maturity before you’re ready. Even if you do intend to graduate to a full-featured B2B eCommerce program, your organization may not be ready to go from 0 to 60 in B2B eCommerce.
- The solution will try to “own” all your business data. To keep you wedded to the solution, conventional B2B eCommerce platforms try to act as the system of record for all business data and logic. This creates a fundamental problem if SAP ERP is already the system of record for your business.
- The solution will require a gigantic project. Add in the requirement for SAP ERP integration, and your complexity (and number of vendors) just gets bigger.
- The solution will place a significant burden on your IT team. After launch, you’ll have 3 systems to support (B2B eCommerce, integration middleware, and SAP ERP).
- The solution will create net-new technical debt. Customization and complex integration architectures will introduce new risk and complexity to your data landscape.
Who is Corevist for?
As you can see, Corevist is a great fit for a certain kind of organization. Manufacturers who need to move customer service to a B2B portal won’t find solutions on conventional B2B eCommerce platforms, and Corevist is a great fit here.
Likewise, some manufacturers want to excel in B2B eCommerce, but they can’t go from 0 to 60, and they don’t see a clear path forward. Corevist is a great fit here because it allows you to start with a B2B portal, then add online ordering and catalogs when you’re ready.
Corevist is also a perfect solution if your IT team can’t take on the burden of supporting a B2B portal or B2B eCommerce. In fact, Corevist is specifically built to minimize the impact to IT. That’s why our prebuilt packages include full SAP integration—and it’s why we manage the entire technology stack. You maintain responsibility for SAP alone.
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