The global eCommerce technology provider hybris AG became part of the software company SAP AG in August 2013, and focuses on the development of enterprise software and on-demand solutions for eCommerce and multichannel commerce, besides providing master data- and order management. Fact is that the company is predestined to master the main challenge of retailers that are struggling with customers across physical and digital touchpoints, due to the rapid transition in their interactions.

In the era of digitally empowered consumers, the way in which businesses must engage with customers and ‘manage relationships’ has changed radically. Today’s businesses are struggling to meet these needs with their existing tools, but hybris recognized “that the luxury of a traditional multi-year, big bang approach to solving problems is too costly and often arrives too late to stay current with changing business demands and therefore architected the OmniCommerce solution.

Since today’s customers demand a relevant and contextual digital customer experience across every ecommerce channel, it’s time for organizations to re-evaluate their existing customer journey and move towards fully integrated digital customer engagement.
In one of the latest reports on Digital Experience Delivery Platforms, the global independent research firm, Forrester Research, looks at how vendors can help application development and delivery, as well as professionals select the right products for their digital experience delivery needs.

As you can see above, Forrester rates hybris against other vendors, based on the strength of strategy, current offering, and market presence, emphasizing that “it isn’t just about marketing here, but about supporting the entire customer life cycle in a digitally enabled way.”
In fact, the report names hybris as one of two “pioneers” in digital experience delivery, pointing at the “strong digital experience aspirations” of the hybris OmniCommerce Suite that presents a kind of road map for the ‘future of commerce, including:

• Seamless convergence of digital and physical commerce touchpoints (e-commerce site, search and transactional; physical facilities/stores; direct mail/email; catalogue/phone order; mobile devices; TV/new media; QR/NFC)
• Lifecycle commerce for products and services, within and across industry verticals, that focuses on real-time enablement of the demand chain and associated information flows
• Networked, (near) real-time interactions among all commerce participants, from manufacturers and distributors to retailers and end customers
• Evolutionary future stage of commerce that incorporates components of e-commerce (single channel focused), multichannel and cross-channel (connecting multiple channels) but provides a single, seamless platform for executing customer-facing commerce capabilities and transactions
• Open platform architecture responds to changes in commerce environments
  • Plug and play for adding individual channels, new forms of commerce
  • Suspend/resume in a real-time manner across any channel
  • On premise, on-demand or hybrid for commerce execution
  • Cloud enabled for operation from anywhere to anywhere

The results are increased visits, higher conversion rates, and loyalty across touchpoints:

• Omni-channel. Even before they come to the store, your customers are researching and making their product decisions online. hybris gives an optimal, consistent user experience in store, on the web or on mobile devices, and it works in both directions: hybris gives you one view of your customer and the seamless customer interface gives your customer one view of you and your brand.
• Master data management. A seamless cross-channel experience is impossible without the right master data management (MDM). It allows you to create product and service catalogues tailored to customers, segments, and touchpoints. This approach not only reduces the cost of maintaining all the rich and complex content, but also increases revenue and conversion rates across store types. hybris MDM delivers better search engine optimization, native support for rich content and faceted search, and effective management tools to support your assortment extensions for Endless Aisle, Gift Registry and localized in-store assortment views for your customers.
• Social connectors. Increase conversion rates through “hybris Extend”, a key capability of hybris’ agile software platform for easy integration with complementary business solutions, which includes our social media integration with Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Bazaarvoice and others. Combine your knowledge of customer shopping behavior with individual customer preferences (“small data”) and shared interests.
• Big Data. Connect to “big data” to compare and contrast effectiveness of targeting, communicating, and converting across channels. Find untapped profitable niches. Reduce costs through more effective routing of communications. Reduce churn with "next best offers", real-time recommendations and geo-fenced eligibility.
• Basket sizes. Increase average basket size with powerful, business-user-driven cross-selling and up-selling capabilities.
• Touchpoints. Make your connections to customers seamless across digital and physical touchpoints through hybris’ native commerce capabilities and with OmniCommerce Connect (OCC). hybris OCC makes it easy to reuse commerce processes and data across all touch points, increasing the speed and lowering the costs of providing new transactional interfaces. So, whether you are looking to connect fixed station or mobile point of sale, assisted selling devices or digital signage, you can achieve the seamless experience that your customers are demanding.
• Much more efficient development and operations.
  • Fastest time to value. Full-function sites can be operational in less than three months. With hybris, you can spend more resources on custom innovations. With others, you'll spend your resources just to custom-build what hybris offers as an out-of-the-box OmniCommerce solution.
  • Empower business users. hybris’ intuitive user interface and native content and print management for digital and physical assets enables business users to maintain content and manage workflows on their own, without requiring IT, speeding your response to changing conditions while controlling costs.

Source: http://www.hybris.com/en/industry-solutions/retail