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Andy Martin
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I run a software company. Not every problem needs my software.
Let’s start with the obvious: I run a software company. We design and sell enterprise software. I have a perspective on how companies choose platforms. Some of that comes from building. A lot of it comes from watching customers live with the consequences of those decisions.
There is a natural assumption that every vendor believes their product fits every situation. In practice, some of our best sales conversations end with us recommending a different product, because not every problem is a Corevist problem.
If the goal is running complex, marketing-driven storefronts, a top digital commerce platform – the kind frequently found in analyst quadrant reports – is often the right choice. These systems support brand storytelling, content, product discovery, promotions, campaigns, and anonymous browsing. They are built to attract and convert new buyers. I even keep a short list of the ones I tend to recommend.
However, with these platforms, everyday post-order interactions run on a much heavier system than the task requires.
Commerce platforms acquire customers. Operational systems service customers.
Those are different problems.
The Influence of the Implementation Partner
Many of these projects begin as digital transformation initiatives led by an implementation partner. Those teams specialize in customer experience platforms, storefront design, and marketing workflows, so the problem is naturally framed in those terms.
That is not wrong. It is a different lens.
When you solve a service problem with a commerce platform, complexity follows. Organizations implement a digital experience platform to answer order and account questions that already live inside the ERP. The result becomes expensive to maintain and slow to adapt.
Good partners solve the problems they are best equipped to solve. The important step is confirming the problem before choosing the platform.
When a Portal Clearly Beats a Storefront
Most companies buy commerce platforms to solve a service problem. If your customers already exist, you are not trying to persuade them, you are trying to operate efficiently. The fastest way to reduce service cost is to stop mediating information the ERP already knows.
Orders arrive through phone calls, emails, spreadsheets, and EDI. Status lives in the ERP. Pricing is complicated. When customer service teams spend their day answering questions like these, the challenge is operational rather than commercial:
Where is my order?
Can I get a copy of the invoice?
Did pricing change?
What shipped?
What is backordered?
Can I place or repeat this order without starting from scratch?
These are not merchandising problems. They are operational ones.
You do not need campaigns or personalization engines to answer order and account questions reliably. You need secure, accurate exposure of ERP data with minimal latency and minimal maintenance. This shifts routine questions away from customer service and back to the customer.
That is where we operate.
The Hybris Replacement Conversation
In mature SAP environments, another pattern appears. A company implemented a commerce platform years ago for digital commerce. Over time, usage shifted. The platform now serves mostly logged-in users checking orders, invoices, shipments, and pricing rather than anonymous shopping. The system still functions but feels oversized for the job and expensive to evolve.
In those cases, the problem is no longer digital commerce. It is customer self service.
Replacing one commerce engine with another rarely fixes that. Simplifying the architecture usually does.
A Practical Rule of Thumb
If your initiative starts in marketing, you probably want a commerce platform in the lead.
If it starts in customer service or operations, you probably do not.
Sometimes the right answer is a pure commerce platform.
Sometimes it is Corevist.
Sometimes it is something else entirely.
As the old saying goes, “Never use a cannon to kill a mosquito.” The mistake is not choosing the wrong product. It is solving the wrong problem.
