Topcon works with Zaelab to transition off of legacy commerce platform and onto SAP Commerce Cloud to deliver exceptional customer experience.
Life Sciences and Manufacturing
Topcon is a manufacturer of optical equipment for ophthalmology and surveying.
Topcon’s goal was to deliver a robust, digital commerce experience. They chose to move forward with a best-in-class platform: SAP Commerce Cloud. However determining the next steps was a challenge. How do you kick-start digital transformation by implementing new technology and business practices? Digital advisory and solutions company Zaelab helped Topcon with this project’s evolution.
Topcon is a global enterprise, committed to helping their customers’ businesses to grow in efficiency and strength. In order to realize this vision, Topcon knew that they needed to provide a best-in-class digital experience that put their customers needs first. This would mean retiring a legacy system, and implementing a new commerce solution that would serve North America first, and overtime be rolled out globally.
Given the profound reputation of SAP Commerce Cloud, Topcon opted to move forward with this platform, understanding that this solution would scale best with their business. The challenge lay in identifying next steps. Topcon was starting from ground zero when it came to identifying requirements and priority features.
Topcon was introduced to Zaelab, and decided to progress with the partnership on account of Zaelab’s expertise with SAP technology and their consultative approach. Initial conversations helped Zaelab identify how they could help Topcon. “I would describe this project as foundational,” says Hai Ngo, a project manager at Zaelab, “which meant that digital transformation would extend beyond technology implementation.”
Zaelab guided Topcon in identifying business priorities. Starting with an analysis of Topcon’s former site, Zaelab then mapped functionalities to SAP Commerce Cloud features, and conducted deep-dive discovery sessions where SAP Commerce Cloud was demonstrated on a per-functional area set.
Zaelab worked collaboratively with TopCon to establish a backlog of stories for the first release. From there, each sprint we would collectively review the upcoming sprint stories and validate completeness and identify potential gaps.
—Chris Tytler, Senior Functional Consultant and eCommerce Business Analyst, Zaelab
Zaelab and Topcon collectively defined the success path, using SAP Commerce Cloud out-of-the-box features and must-have customizations required to support everyday business. From there, Zaelab prioritized feature implementation, and based this on client needs and upcoming dependencies.
Web services to SAP ECC — To execute this project, Zaelab called upon a number of their advisory services including development, business analysis, solution architecture, project management, QA & training. Ultimately, Zaelab helped Topcon migrate off of their legacy platform and onto SAP Commerce Cloud, by focusing on deploying an MVP.
The project focus was on elevating the customer experience for general users, while still maintaining quick-order features for power users.
Topcon is becoming an expert in how to use the system and will go on to ramp up their internal operations. Once past this learning curve, Topcon will be able to rapidly extend their ecommerce site and operations to other countries where they have business with the flexible and scalable solution that Zaelab has implemented for them.
Throughout the project, many key milestones and wins were recognized:
“Zaelab helped Topcon launch an exceptional digital experience,” says Ngo, “But that’s not all. Our engagement also helped Topcon better understand process flows and challenge a ‘business-as-usual’ mentality. The shift in both technology and mindsets will propel the business forward.”
Topcon went to market with a best-in-class commerce platform in North America. And now, TopCon is successfully set up for global expansion as they prepare to roll-out the digital experience in Europe.
