ESAB has been running, managing and maintaining multiple, disparate and disconnected web and portal environments. ESAB needed one, seamless digital customer experience that enabled customer self-sufficiency. They needed a seamless and globally connected experience.
Former commerce solution falls flat; ESAB starts from ground zero
For ESAB, their ecommerce setup had become unmanageable. Running multiple, contrasting and disconnected digital experiences result in no services of functions being consistent across the different sites. Moreover, the onus was on the customer to know where to go for information or to complete transactions. In the age of customer-centricity, this digital experience was failing user expectations and damaging the brand.
Ultimately, this issue was impacting the bottom line. The former ESAB commerce solution was not a substantial revenue driver for the company, and having paid attention to market trends, ESAB realized a replatform was necessary to stay in front of the competition and keep pace with market demands.
“ESAB is a self-aware organization – they were fully informed about the long-term implications this challenge would cause,” says Zaelab Account Executive Mark White. “They wanted to provide a better customer experience, and with existing software licenses being sunset, the time was now.”
ESAB sees the future with ZCommerce
ESAB wishes to go-to-market with a best-in-class solution. They elected to move forward with SAP Commerce Cloud on account of platform reputation, cloud modules and key integration abilities.
That said, ESAB had a long list of desired functionalities. SAP tagged in Zaelab to help.
Zaelab reviewed a document of use cases that outlined ESAB’s vision for the future. Immediately, Zaelab knew that their ZCommerce product would meet 100% of ESAB’s needs.
“ZCommerce is a digital customer experience that sits on top of your commerce platform,” says Evan Klein, CEO, Zaelab. Working with over 100 leading manufacturers and distributors, Zaelab assembled proven best practices into this modern UX and progressive web application. ZCommerce allows businesses like ESAB to select and deliver componentized feature widgets customers need including: enhanced search, multiple carts, and robust insights and recommendations – like Amazon. “Designed for B2B sales and customer self-service, ZCommerce was meant for businesses exactly like ESAB. In other words, they could go-to-market with everything they wanted from day one.”
ESAB was wowed by Zaelab’s ZCommerce product and consultative approach. “They had a high level idea of their objectives,” says White, “but it wasn’t until Zaelab demoed ZCommerce that ESAB realized exactly what the future would look like.”
ESAB was ready to overhaul their digital experience, with the help of SAP and Zaelab.
ESAB goes to market with SAP Commerce Cloud + ZCommerce
Working with ESAB, there has always been a clear path to success. And by focusing on MVP, Zaelab had environments, release pipelines and accelerators up and running on the first day of the engagement.
Zaelab took an advisory approach with ESAB. “We started by validating our understanding of ESAB challenges to inform a proof of concept,” says Chris Rigo, Senior Project Manager at Zaelab. “From there, we took the detailed scope of pages and associated functionalities that ESAB provided and called on years of experience to create industry-leading designs for the client.”
The project was dynamic, with constant collaboration. With a full understanding of the software ecosystem at ESAB, Zaelab recommended that their ERP own the shopping cart and checkout, with SAP Commerce Cloud platform acting as a storefront with limited data stored locally. From there, most features and functionalities like pricing, availability and cart, were stored in M3.
“Every project has its challenges,” says Rigo, “and with ESAB, we worked hard to ensure that backend systems ESAB was building were completed in tandem with the launch of their digital experience.” The result: the MVP was completed in 120 days.
Businesses don’t have finish lines: What’s next for ESAB
For ESAB, this is just the beginning. The initial roll-out has been in North America, but business needs in Europe and India have escalated. With a vision to consolidate all global ecommerce portals on one, unified platform – SAP Commerce Cloud – ESAB will continue working with Zaelab to deploy this digital experience in 15 more regions via ZCommerce.
