B2B eCommerce Software Architecture on an eCommerce Platform

Updated April 26, 2024

B2B eCommerce Deployment Architecture Integration Needs

Today’s big data explosion, increased business applications and cloud-based technologies have quickly marginalized older infrastructure and deployment architecture. What worked well for years can no longer keep up with increased processing speeds, proliferating mobile marketing demands, security concerns and thousands of potential APIs that integrate in a B2B operating system’s API layer.

Website architecture deals with three critical elements in today’s B2B eCommerce platforms: aesthetic, functional and technical design. Site architecture is designed to focus on each website user’s needs and deliver reliable connections and navigation while ensuring that the platform’s business needs are also met.

Site architecture defines the site’s ability to generate responsive layouts, provide access to search engines, connect with third-party integrations and process website visitors. When users arrive at a website, they typically have questions that the site’s display should answer in just a few seconds. These include:

• Is this the right place?
• Does the site offer what I want?
• Is this product or option better than what I had in mind?
• Does the company appear to be reputable?
• Does the site satisfy my sense of design and style?
• Where do I go next?

Site architecture is designed to answer these questions, guide the visitor to website areas where they can find what they’re looking for, get answers to questions, become intrigued by links, related products and user-friendly features and take actions to satisfy needs.

Information layout is designed to assuage anxiety, convince people they’re in the right place, build trust and elaborate on what the business can offer each visitor.

Evolving B2B Architecture Needs

B2B platforms no longer function as simple online business cards or static websites but empower an incredible array of user-friendly features such as adjusting to the device each visitor is using, personalizing displays for customer personas, suggesting intuitive navigation recommendations, providing targeted internal catalog searches, generating custom order forms and connecting to research and customized features.

Menus and display content need to offer global site navigation, popular search buttons, quick-connect buttons and other simplified navigation tools and other functional features that are easy-to-find and clearly visible on small screens.

Best Practices for B2B Site Architecture

Each B2B organization has different features, customer demands, and data processing needs that are complicated by increased mobile access. Explosive growth in processing speeds for handling data from multiple databases, new applications, trading partner management B2B software, business services and cloud communications puts strain on aging service-oriented B2B architecture or SOA. Data is time-sensitive and loses value after even minor delays.

For example, delays are common when business applications search through social media or third-party databases for actionable insights. Multiply any slight delays due to inefficient architecture by all users, all website features, all internal process and all stakeholder activities.

The result is real-time delays that slow page loads and produce other inefficiencies that cause users to migrate to different sites. Conducting an audit of B2B hosting, scalability and SOA issues is important when building any B2B eCommerce platform or planning a project to upgrade and expand business capabilities.

How companies choose to configure deployment architecture for better functional design affects everything that a B2B platform does. Upgrades, modifications and platform rebuilds can disrupt business instead of enhancing it, but the right solution architecture generates a fluid process for B2B eCommerce development and carrying out regular business operations, launching new projects, integrating new features, handling routine maintenance and other B2B platform responsibilities.

Today’s enterprise eCommerce platforms serve many stakeholder, internal staff and customer needs, but many companies are dealing with these issues from a weakened position and a big handicap — inadequate functional architecture design.

B2B eCommerce has evolved beyond what Internet developers ever envisaged when computer technology first came online for common usage, and technology advances, exponential increases in databases, evolving marketing needs and increased mobile connectivity have created an environment where companies can feel that they’re stuck with old infrastructure because they don’t want to risk going offline to upgrade their capabilities.

One Forrester Research survey found that 66 percent of B2B IT managers had difficulties exchanging information and that 63 percent reported problems when trying to add new trading partners. There are many potential solutions based on SOA strategies that segregate and consolidate functions for local functions, development environments, staging and testing. The following configuration, which was designed by Clarity Connect, is well-conceived and designed to optimize B2B processes:

• Clarity Connect designed architecture that allows its API layer to reside behind the firewall at MCI and simultaneously within the staging area.
• This configuration supports expanded staging options and integrations with external connections simultaneously.
• Clarity Development and Local Environments can access the Connector securely for security-driven operations.
• Data is continuously synced between the CEF and CRN/AX by using the connector to queue this interaction.
• MCI business rules apply within the Connector for business logic, mappings, etc.

That’s one example of how custom architecture design can create a platform that supports business processes, external integrations, security concerns and a range of B2B eCommerce needs with a common toolset while incorporating modern solutions for onboarding business associates, adding new transaction sets and validating and confirming data without interrupting the regular flow of business.

Enterprise architecture offers B2B companies an extraordinary degree of latitude in their operations to conduct regular business, expand and develop new features for the rapidly evolving technological and social trends, improve relationships with trading partners, and enhance best practices that eCommerce companies need to adopt to stay competitive. Clarity Ventures can help you build the kind of business that can boldly go where others are forced to follow.

Our experience will guide you in configuring an architecture solution that supports a multilevel platform, trading partner management, new B2B protocols, noninvasive integrations and multichannel interoperability. We’ll work with your team to develop an architecture solution that fits your needs precisely today while supporting easy future expansions. Call or contact us today for a consultation on deployment architecture or a price quote.