How to Build a Commerce Cloud B2C Launch Team

Achieve success by selecting the right team.

XCentium finds that launching your site is only the first step in your Salesforce Commerce Cloud B2C journey. In order to lay the best foundation for what comes next, you’ll need to assemble the right team.

Product Owner/Product Manager

The most important role you can staff to ensure a successful launch on Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) B2C is a Product Owner. This person will have the ultimate responsibility of making decisions about scope and priority of features and functionality. This person will coordinate with all other internal business stakeholders to solicit feature and capability requests and build alignment around the value of each. The person should also be familiar with the business processes around operating the B2C site even though it is not required for this person to be a complete subject matter expert. Ultimately, this role should be empowered to be the decision-maker about the business’s priorities for the SFCC B2C implementation. They should be the single point of contact for the implementation team. If your organization intends to use a System Integrator (SI) Partner to implement SFCC B2C, this role will also function as the single point of contact for the SI Partner or partners. (If multiple SIs are involved.)

This role will likely be a full-time position or very close to it for the duration of the implementation. So, it is very important to ensure they are empowered to focus on managing the product and making decisions. This role continues to be important after the launch of your new storefront but may not be a full-time role after go-live.

IT Partner/IT Manager/Systems Administrator

Your business likely has a number of IT infrastructure systems already. These may include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Product Information Management (PIM), Order Management System (OMS), and other systems. Your Product Owner will need to work with the people who manage these systems in order to facilitate integration between them and the SFCC B2C Storefront. Often, these projects require some manipulation of data in order to prepare it for import or integration with the Storefront application. Sometimes this means data cleanup or data translation needs to occur. Your IT Partner will be critical in supporting these efforts. Additionally, from an integration perspective, your IT Partner will be responsible for creating automation flows to get data into and out of your Storefront application.

One of the most important things an IT Partner can help with is ensuring that you only import the data you need into the Storefront. Often, organizations have many years of product data in their source systems. However, their “active” product data is only a fraction of what is stored there. Your IT Partner should help you filter the data you send to SFCC to only what is necessary to support it’s operations. This is an important element to ensuring your Storefront performs at its peak capability.

Merchandizer(s)

Product data found in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and even sometimes in Product Information Management (PIM) systems can be missing information that is necessary to present them in a consumer-facing fashion. That is where Merchandizers contribute to your success in launching a consumer-facing site. Merchandizers are responsible for categorizing your product assortment, enriching product data, and massaging the way they are displayed in the Storefront application. Merchandizing in SFCC B2C happens in the SFCC Business Manager application. Merchandizers will often begin working in Business Manager well before the Storefront is ready to launch. It can be a lot of work to prepare the Storefront for go-live, so you’ll probably want more than one person in this role. How many will depend largely on the size of your assortment and how much enrichment is necessary.

A good practice for ensuring a successful implementation is to involve Merchandizers early into the process. Especially if you have a team of Merchandizers managing a site on a legacy platform. Their input will be essential for the Product Owner to understand what is needed to ensure business continuity in the new Storefront. Merchandizers will probably have a long wish list of features and capabilities that they’d like to see in the new Storefront application. It is important for the Product Owner to analyze the value of each of these items and prioritize them accordingly.

Content Manager

In modern digital commerce, content is king. Your Storefront’s experience is largely driven by marketing content. Content managers are another role you should involve as early as you can in the planning and implementation phase of your new Storefront. Their experiences, expectations, and ideas can be crucial to bridging the attention gap of your consumers. A great way to ensure success is to get Content Managers early access to Business Manager and the base Page Designer components. This gives them a chance to understand the out of the box capabilities. Then they’ll be able to provide their feedback about any gaps they see in using Page Designer for your organization’s content strategy. For some sites and implementations, it can be helpful for this role to have some HTML, CSS, and JavaScript experience. Finally, depending on skillsets and volume of work, your Merchandizing team may be capable of managing content on your Storefront.

Customer Service

Customer service teams are often the face of an operating Storefront. However, they play an important role in the planning stages of any new Storefront. Product Owners should solicit requirements and feedback from Customer Service early so their concerns can either be addressed by preventing common consumer issues or by providing mechanisms to handle them in the Storefront. Some examples include Live Chat modules, Frequently Asked Questions content, and Order Return and Cancellation self-service. There is plenty of work to be done as a Customer Service agent, so their jobs can be made more efficient by handling the common problems before they become a call or an email.

Executive Sponsor

The Product Owner is going to spend a lot of time trying to gain organizational alignment. However, sometimes they are going to need some help getting buy-in from various team members. It is critical to have an Executive Sponsor available for the Product Owner to escalate to when decisions fall outside of their area of responsibility. Sometimes, the Executive Sponsor needs to help break down walls from other departments. Other times, they need to break through a moment of indecision. The most crucial responsibility for the Executive Sponsor is to define a ‘North Star’ for the Product Owner and the rest of the team to have a unified directive and aim.

Implementation Team

Your implementation team is where your business team’s inputs will be directed. It’s important to have an implementation team with experience building for Salesforce Commerce Cloud B2C. It is a unique platform that can be difficult for newcomers to understand. While Salesforce has done an excellent job making content and trails to help developers learn the basics, it can take years to achieve mastery. XCentium would be happy to fill this role in your organization. We have some of the most experienced SFCC B2C developers and architects in the world. We hope you’ll engage us to build your new Storefront application with our passion for performance and customer experience.