What you’ll learn:
Since the early days of composable commerce, many executives have had misconceptions about how complex and time-consuming this new approach could be. Scores of professionals have recognized the benefits of composable but fretted that they’d need to hire tens — if not hundreds — of developers with deep expertise in emerging technologies, causing IT costs to skyrocket.
While those concerns are understandable (composable technology is a paradigm shift, after all), as more organizations modernize their tech stacks with composable solutions, it becomes evident that those perceptions aren’t really aligned with reality. In other words, composable commerce isn’t as complex, time-consuming or resource-intensive as many initially believed.
The realization that implementing composable commerce can be a straightforward affair is crucial for the B2B sector. Traditionally, B2B organizations are less digitally mature compared to B2C retailers, and many of those firms lack an eCommerce presence altogether. Even today, a significant portion of B2B enterprises conduct transactions with buyers primarily via sales representatives.
As the imperative to digitize commerce grows, manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers making the move to digital aren’t choosing the supposedly “easier” solutions advertised by all-in-one platforms. On the contrary, many B2B firms have come to understand that legacy platforms are actually much more complex than composable solutions. While legacy, aka monolithic, platforms may provide a lower barrier of entry with standardized templates and features, they ultimately become too inflexible to perform changes and updates with ease. As a result, there’s a massive impact on developer productivity, increased technical debt and a reduced rate of innovation releases.
As we were developing it [the monolith], we just knew it wouldn’t work. It wasn’t a good fit for our team. We have a small team, so we have to find technologies that drive the business forward with new ideas instead of following the same path everyone else is on.
CLOUD ARCHITECT & DATA PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, HENRY SCHEIN
Recent data from Forrester Research supports this argument. 81% of B2B practitioners cited that they’re utilizing eCommerce platforms that lack features, can’t handle the complexity of products, collect customer data, or scale effectively. Consequently, 65% of respondents cited that eCommerce is broken within their organizations.
While B2B enterprises are now embracing composable solutions in larger numbers, attracted by the benefits they can reap now and in the future, concerns about implementation times and developer resources are still part of the conversation. Let’s take a deeper look at how long it took for B2B enterprises such as ACE Southern (a Henry Schein company), Normet and Tekton to transition to composable commerce — and the developer resources they needed to make that move.
How ACE Southern simplified the path to eCommerce success with composable
Project type: Migration from Adobe Commerce.
Implementation time: 7 months.
Technical resources: Via a system integrator partner and one full-time developer.
A leading manufacturer and distributor in the dental surgery space, ACE Southern is the result of a 2022 merger between ACE Surgical Supply and Southern Anesthesia and Surgical (SAS), both subsidiaries of Henry Schein. After the merger, each company had different versions of Magento (now Adobe Commerce), which needed to be upgraded and combined into two instances of the same version.
However, even after the upgrade, the company realized the system still couldn’t support its goals. That’s when ACE Southern’s leadership decided to adopt a composable infrastructure to automate commerce workflows and become more agile, in order to compete with larger organizations.
Initially, the company’s leadership had concerns about the perceived complexity of composability, especially regarding the ability to seamlessly connect with a separate PIM, ERP and frontend, as well as a homegrown application for taking orders. However, after signing up for the commercetools Free Trial, the developer in charge created a proof of concept (POC) that proved that implementing a composable solution can be as easy as 1, 2, 3.
The initial reaction [from leadership] was. 'Oh, a move to something like commercetools, that’s not like the monolithic platforms we're used to where it's a one-stop shop. This is more complex, this is harder.' For us, it was simpler. It actually simplifies our processes — we offload all that complexity to commercetools. Everything is an API now.
CLOUD ARCHITECT & DATA PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, HENRY SCHEIN
ACE Southern signed a deal with commercetools in January 2023, and seven months later, went live with its new composable system. Since then, the company has been able to move at a much faster pace than in its monolithic days, 100% focusing on crafting customer experiences instead of fixing bugs or maintaining an old system. As a result, ACE Southern is seeing returns on the average order value size 2.5 times what they had pre-commercetools.
How Normet digitized an extensive product catalog for the first time in only 4.5 months
Project type: New-to-digital organization.
Implementation time: 4.5 months.
Technical resources: Via system integrator partner Columbus Global.
Backed by over 60 years of experience, Normet is a manufacturer and service provider of underground mining and tunneling equipment. The Finland-based company has had decades-long relationships with customers, nurturing those connections through one-on-one interaction with sales reps involving emails and phone calls. Predictably, the ordering process was inefficient and time-consuming for customers and sales reps alike.
With a 65,000-product catalog of highly specialized spare parts, it was time for Normet to deliver improved experiences by enabling customers to find and order products online. As a first step, Normet digitized the extensive product catalog and automated the purchasing process. It enabled customers to order, but also check availability and pricing for single products quickly. Finally, Normet is also collecting customer feedback on the new digital experiences continuously so that they can iteratively develop new features molded to their buyers’ needs.
You need to have the agility to adapt to your changing requirements and needs. I believe that the MACH® approach suits that quite well. If we are thinking about 2… 3… 4 years into the future, we need to be prepared in case something changes, for example, in customer behavior or connecting to IoT. If we would have built the system with a traditional monolith eCommerce system, we would have lost that agility for the future. This is why we chose composable architecture.
DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL SERVICES, NORMET
Normet’s implementation process with partner Columbus Global — from the first line of code to full production deployment — took only 4.5 months and stayed within budget. The system integrator partner delivered two weeks earlier than planned.
How Tekton transitioned from legacy to a unified commerce platform for B2B and D2C
Project type: Migration from SuiteCommerce Advanced.
Implementation time: 5 months to launch an eCommerce solution for D2C and 4 months to migrate the B2B site.
Technical resources: 5 in-house developers.
Tekton’s move to commercetools was driven by a need for speed and flexibility. As the company shifted from a B2B model to direct-to-consumer (D2C), its legacy platform, SuiteCommerce Advanced, couldn’t keep pace. Critical features like Apple Pay proved impossible to integrate natively, delaying go-to-market efforts and frustrating customers. Realizing that innovation was being stifled, Tekton chose commercetools for its modern, API-first architecture and ability to support rapid deployment. With just a small in-house dev team, they launched a fully functional D2C site in under five months, dramatically accelerating their time to market.
The results quickly validated their choice. Freed from the constraints of its old monolith, Tekton could now iterate faster, respond to customer feedback in real time and unify both B2B and D2C operations on a single, scalable platform. The modern tools energized developers, while customers benefited from a faster, more seamless experience. By adopting commercetools, Tekton not only solved immediate technical roadblocks — it laid the foundation for long-term growth and agility across all channels.
Talented individuals are drawn to opportunities involving cutting-edge technologies. Offering such a platform as the foundation of our operations became a compelling incentive for attracting the best developers and professionals who thrive in modern frameworks. As a result, we've been able to recruit some of the top talent in the field, individuals who are enthusiastic about working with this platform.
Chief Information Officer, Tekton
Composable commerce implementations are getting EVEN easier
Numerous B2B enterprises have already implemented composable commerce within a short timeframe and with lean development teams. To minimize the inherent B2B complexity through even faster and more efficient implementations, explore the benefits that composable commerce can unlock for your B2B digital transformation.