An interview with Elastic Path‘s Chief Experience Officer, Bryan House, following their recent rebrand and new product strategy announcement, diving into what they mean by the the era of the “Unplatform”.
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Tl;dr
- Why Elastic Path’s new marketing mantra is the “Unplatform”
- Understanding the role of a modern ecommerce platform
- Under the hood of Elastic Path’s new product strategy and positioning
- Product roadmap for Q423 and beyond
Our industry has a habit of thrusting new buzzwords on the market that create more confusion than clarity! Elastic Path has refreshed its brand identity and is now talking about the 3rd wave of ecommerce platforms being the era of the “Unplatform”.
We’re playing devil’s advocate: this feels like marketing spin on what’s been a common theme in SME and enterprise for several years, reducing the role of the ecommerce platform and focusing on best in breed. We asked Elastic Path on to talk us through what they mean by Unplatform in relation to systems architecture & the overall technology stack, as well as operational implications for ecommerce teams.
Whilst we agree that the role of the ecommerce platform is narrowing, as businesses focus more on a connected technology stack simplifying the ability to isolate and retire specific components with much less effort and risk, we’re not sure the industry needs a new buzzword to hang its hat on. Elastic Path has a lot of knowledge and experience guiding merchants through their technology evolution, so this episode provides a useful insight into their perspective on the market.
Tune in to hear directly from Elastic Path’s Chief Experience Officer.
Discussion notes
- How are you seeing the ecommerce platform needs of merchants evolve, where are the main pain points with ecom stacks they’re trying to solve?
- Elastic Path was one of the early proponents of composable commerce, yet as a concept many ecommerce teams have struggled to grasp what it means and how to approach it; why do you think that is and what has Elastic Path moved on to a new focus?
- We’re definitely seeing smarter thinking in terms of phasing and avoiding the traditional big bang replatform rip & shift: is this consistent with what you see, and how much has this been driven by advancement in technology capability and interoperability vs. natural evolution of business needs?
- You’re now talking about the 3rd wave of ecommerce platforms being Unplatform: can you talk us through what you mean by Unplatform in relation to (a) systems architecture & tech stack (b) operational implications for ecommerce teams
- You talk about connective tissue, isn’t this the same as open APIs & microservices, or is this fundamentally different in terms of solution architecture?
- You’ve recently rebranded and announced a new product strategy, from a merchant POV what has changed, and what does it mean for people using the platform?
- You describe your Composer product as the only “commerce-intelligent platform-as-a-service” – break this down please, what does commerce-intelligent actually mean and can you give some practical examples?
- What does your CX Studio offer – to what extent does it enable key CMS features including visual editor, publishing workflows, preview in staging etc.?
- And let’s focus on the roadmap: what’s coming in the next quarter, next year – what platform changes, new features releases?
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