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SME Sector – Stats and Trends
Did you know that 99.7% of all businesses running in the US are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)? The growth of SMBs is typically higher in 2017 than ever, accounting for 9.3% improvement in net profit margins. What we incur seeing these stats are that SMBs are the baseline foundation of overall US businesses. What’s also interesting is that 64% or $2.2 trillion of all retail sales are made online, or as a result of online promotions through mobile devices. That said, the trend of doing business online is incidentally growing year on year.
Challenges of going Online
74% of small business websites have no eCommerce built-in. What could be the reason for SMEs not opting eCommerce? 
One of the many reasons is that SMBs are struggling to bridge the gap between their existing ERP at the backend and an eCommerce store in the front. SMBs and almost every business use ERP software to handle their financials, purchasing, inventory, sales, project management, operations, to name a few. Without ERP it becomes pretty tough for businesses to survive and compete.On the other hand, eCommerce platforms like Magento, BigCommerce, and Shopify allow companies to set up their eCommerce store without many technical efforts. Establishing a connection between these eCommerce platforms and ERP is mandatory to sync inventory, financials, and other information. This article discusses integrating BigCommerce, one of the eCommerce platforms, with SAP Business One, an ERP software for SMEs.
BigCommerce and SAP B1
BigCommerce is the most-sought-after eCommerce platform for businesses who wish to set up their online store quickly. Having aided $5.6 billion figures and 60K stores, BigCommerce has started to take part in the eCommerce platform game. On the other hand, SAP B1 is a business management software (ERP) specially designed keeping SMEs in mind. It helps in automating financials, purchasing, supply chain, production planning, process and resource management, and report generation.
How does the integration work?
Integration of BigCommerce and SAP B1 is made possible by Cloud Rapid Automation System, CLORAS. CLORAS is our in-house built integration that works seamlessly between the ERP and eCommerce platform. Listed below are the benefits of synchronizing.
Customer batch Sync
For B2B scenarios, existing customers from SAP B1’s master data can be uploaded into BigCommerce as new customers. This allows addressing existing offline customers through eCommerce stores. The master data might include customer ID, ship-to address and other contact details.For B2C scenarios, information on new and registered customers will be synced between BigCommerce to SAP B1, paving ways to generate reports and handle finances.
[POSTCTA]Product batch Sync
Synchronization of products between SAP B1 and BigCommerce get rids of any manual errors. On the other hand, price and information updates can be pushed from the SAP B1 to BigCommerce.
Inventory batch sync
The customers will get disappointed should they find the “out of stock” label. Synchronizing the inventory details between BigCommerce and SAP B1 keeps the inventory count in check and will be updated batch-wise.
Orders and Shipment batch sync
Once an order is placed through BigCommerce, CLORAS gets holds of order details and it automatically creates a customer, ship-to address and contact details in the SAP B1. This allows creating SAP B1 sales order. Later, this sales order can be fed to shipment/delivery department. The order tracking number and status will be reflected in BigCommerce for customer reference. The information furnished above is just a gist and there are a ton of opportunities available for integration between BigCommerce and SAP B1 through CLORAS.
