This year we saw a growing interest in Magento from the biggest companies. This is for sure connected with Magento soaring into the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Magento has also recently been named a Leader in Forrester Wave for B2B. This is very important because, until this moment, Hybris was perceived as “the big boys’ toy for B2B” and now Magento is leading. Probably 50% of Hybris’ income is from B2B clients, using SAP. So Magento is really stealing the show right now.
Suddenly, the biggest companies have realized that Magento is the most popular eCommerce engine among the Internet Retailer TOP1000 and Internet Retailer B2B TOP 300 – there are 202 Magento based stores in IR1k and only 10 Hybris based stores.
When Decision Makers in large companies dig deeper it occurs that TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of Magento is much lower and the dynamism of the platform is much higher – especially when you realize that Hybris is part of SAP and Magento is backed by VC and is investing a huge amount of money to development, M&A and marketing. They must grow and will grow faster than anything else. I think that only Demandware (now Salesforce) with massive support from Salesforce can be a real competitor in the long run.
But getting back to my topic. Why do companies ask us about migration from Hybris to Magento, and how does it make sense?
Cost
Hybris license costs start at about 50k and implementation costs could easily start at 500k. Magento license costs start from 20k and typical implementation costs are probably about EUR 100k for an enterprise-level client. So this is a strong argument for Magento migration.
Developer availability
There is very limited number of Hybris developers, especially when you think about independent companies or freelancers. There is no community like for Magento. Java developers are in general about 30% more expensive than PHP developers. This creates a huge problem when you try to hire a Hybris developer. Without the manpower it would be hard to develop as fast as you need.
Focus on large Enterprises – not yet
Magento still lacks the ability to play political games in large organizations. Sometimes I see that people in these organizations really need help to convince their bosses of Magento, and for sure, SAP is much better at building rapport with C-Level people. Magento is doing their homework here and some SI and Digital Agencies can help you here instead.
Complexity
Hybris, as a part of SAP, can offer more or less every function that Enterprise People can think of. With Magento you need more external solutions. Sometimes to migrate from Hybris to Magento you must also think about PIM, Order Management, Loyalty Solutions, etc. This is still a Hybris advantage but there are more and more solutions integrated with Magento or into Magento. For example, Magento added Order Management, Content Management, and Business Intelligence. There are also powerful PIMs that could be easily integrated – like an Akeneo or Pimcore. We have added a small piece of the puzzle here, building a standalone Loyalty Program – Open Loyalty.
Integrators and Digital Agencies are developing Hybris and Magento
We used to be a SAP Hybris Partner and many Magento Agencies are still Hybris and Magento partners at this same time (eg Arvato, Razorfish). Such agencies know both products really well and can reassure their clients that the Magento solutions they offer can match the functionalities provided by both Hybris, and the platform that clients are currently using.
So for sure there are many situations when it is a good idea to think about Magento as a more flexible, modern and lighter solution. For some other situations, it would be safer to stay with SAP Hybris, which is maybe not so dynamic but a very stable solution.
Read more: What did we learn by implementing a large B2B in Magento 2?
Published October 10, 2017
