NEW: Following was released to Singapore media on hybris launch
 at Online Retail World Conference 2012.

hybris 4.6 Enabling Commerce Anywhere

…boosting sales in today’s omni-channel world...

Singapore – 24th April, 2012 hybris, a leading provider of multichannel commerce and  communication software, today announced the availability of hybris 4.6, for the first time in Asia, a software that allows any enterprise to set up an e-commerce presence on any Internet-enabled device or platform, including mobile applications, social media and even Internet-enabled TVs.

The hybris 4.6, incorporating Omni Commerce Connect (OCC), is completely programming language independent, and can commerce-enable any device, application or channel outside of the hybris Multichannel Suite.  This makes integration with non-hybris technology simple and straightforward. Hence, hybris OCC can be the ideal tool for creating a commerce hub for exposing all of an enterprises’ existing commerce functionality to other systems and platforms. It thus increases the speed and lowers the costs of providing new transactional interfaces.

A key benefit is that hybris OCC is not restricted to human user interfaces; it can easily integrate with other systems and even provide interfaces to partners and other organizations. For example, as an alternative to the native hybris capabilities, hybris 4.6 delivers out-of-the-box integration with Google Commerce Search, enabling you to utilize Google’s latest innovations in search and navigation technology – and all the power and scalability behind it – with an experience tailored specifically to online product discovery.

Its new functionalities help merchants to overcome the three fundamental commerce challenges: speed of innovation outside of their organization, channel driven processes that fail to scale and lastly, process heavy IT.

According to a recent report by Forrester[1], the open Web will result in a second web economy that will eclipse the first Internet economy in size and scope. Fueled by companies such as Apple, Samsung, Facebook and Foursquare, speed of innovation is progressing at a staggering rate.

Ariel Lüdi, CEO of hybris, explained; “With the incredible growth in innovation, so too is customer adoption on a rapid rise, be it consumers or buyers purchasing from other enterprises. As such, the commerce challenges faced by merchants are magnified and exposed by demanding customers who are empowered with new devices, better know-how about the competition, and knowledge made available by the Internet - whenever, wherever. In many cases, businesses have spotted the opportunities arising from new customer touchpoints; however investment must be small and risk off-set as predicting which touchpoint will be successful and which will vanish again can be difficult. Enterprises of any kind are simply struggling to keep up with the exponential growth of customer touchpoints.”

 
·            Plug & Play commerce processes easily into existing commerce infrastructure - Technology agnostic, hybris OCC allows enterprises to add new, missing functionality efficiently and quickly by connecting hybris with other - including non-hybris - software packages. Enterprises can also create a hybris hub with this technology that essentially orchestrates an all-point solution for a channel free customer experience.
·            Reuse business process and data across touchpoints – Processes and software in many organizations have been built with the channel, not the customer in mind. They are point solutions, lacking integration and ultimately failing the enterprise to deliver value to the customer first and often lack functionality required in today’s omni-channel world. With hybris OCC, enterprises can offer faster and cheaper new transactional interfaces to their customers. Since the interface is universal in its usage and not just restricted to human user interfaces, they can also provide their processes and data more easily to external organizations or other software packages.
·            Leverage an army of external developers - hybris OCC provides IT with the option to offload the burden of enabling new devices or integrating with new business partners by making these processes and data available to 3rd parties or external developers. This speeds up the process whilst reducing pressure on internal IT whose function is not necessarily to build user interfaces for particular devices.

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Said Mr Burghardt Groeber, Vice President of Asia Pacific, hybris: “At present, hybris e-commerce solutions are enjoying very good acceptance in the United States and Europe. The introduction of the hybris 4.6 is its first foray into Southeast Asia and we expect to do very well in Southeast Asia especially in the Retail, Manufacturing, Consumer Brands and Telecommunications industries.. E-commerce rates are growing in this market, and we want to help enterprises maximize their offerings.”

Local implementation partner in Singapore and South East Asia  for  hybris 4.6 include arvato systems, Sapient and iGATE Patni.

hybris 4.6 is centred on best in class multichannel commerce features and puts the end-customer in the centre of an organisation’s multichannel strategy. hybris 4.6 comes with a full range of standardized features to support businesses to increase conversion rates and grow revenue. Some of the features include:

eCommerce

 Provide a fully functional, field-proven, best-practice storefront.

 Drive higher average order value with integrated promotions and cross-selling opportunities.

 Enable customers to easily find items with robust search and navigation capabilities.

 Production ready multi-everything web storefronts.

 Increase conversion rates with rich product information, including reviews and zoom-in capabilities.

 Offer convenient ordering with user-friendly checkout.

 Leverage mobile commerce via SMS, smart phones, and tablets.

 Provide business users with easy-to-use tools

Multichannel

 Build a solid multichannel commerce foundation for communicating and selling consistently across channels, including online, in-store, mobile, and beyond.

 Ramp up quickly with fully integrated Web, order management, and call centre functionality.

 Boost in-store traffic with an integrated store locator.

 Support cross-channel purchasing and fulfilment with integrated order management.

 Integrate with external systems to simplify product and stock data uploads.

 Leverage social commerce by sharing with social networks.

 Incorporate Customer ratings and reviews

 Display Brand news and social media activity tickers

Product Content Management

 Enable effective collaboration among content owners.

 Aggregate product data from multiple sources.

 Streamline product content management workflows.

 Efficiently manage “long-tail” catalogues.

 Deliver information that is always accurate and up-to-date

The hybris Omni Commerce Connect is a new kind of machine-to-machine interface, which helps merchants to mitigate these challenges in the following ways:

hybris 4.6 is immediately available and further details can be found at:  http://www.hybris.com/release46

About hybris

www.hybris.com

hybris is a leading vendor of next generation end-to-end multichannel commerce software based on a single platform including managed and hosting services. Its clear vision about the need for consistency, coordination and personalization of information across all channels and throughout all phases of the customer lifecycle has resulted in the development of an integrated, agile solution enabling businesses to communicate and sell across all channels – online and offline - in a consistent and effective way. hybris has 14 offices around the world located in the economic capitals of North/South America, Europe and Asia and supports over 380 global customers. Customers are brands from retail and manufacturing industries, including: Bobcat, Clarks, Coca Cola Beverages, Conrad, Grundfos, Hornbach, Iomega, Kaiser+Kraft, Levi´s, Lufthansa, Migros, Nespresso, Nikon, P&G, Rexel, Timberland and Toys´R´Us.

For further information please contact:

 Burghardt Groeber,  VP APAC, hybris      burghardt.groeber@hybris.com

[1] Here Comes The Open Web — Embrace It (January 24, 2012)

Unhygenic Practices in Food & Hawker Centres - do you feel the same way?

Unfortunately, many feel the same way as Straits Times reader, Ho Chee Khuen, who wrote to its Forum page on 5th Jan 2012 (page A37).

He ends the letter with a request for the "relevant authorities" to do something about it. In fact, there IS something that can be done. If NEA can take a look at Synnovate Solutions that tackle many of the problems faced by F&B operators in Singapore - labour shortage, cleaning effectiveness, productivity and operational costs - Synnovate can go a long way towards solving the type of problems described by Mr Ho.

Below is the full text of the letter:

Eight dirty reasons he's resorted to takeaways
(from Straits Times Forum page 5th Jan 2012)

As a frequent patron of coffee shops and hawker centres, I have gradually resorted to takeaways rather than eating-in because of the increasing prevalence of these unhygienic conditions:

- Crockery and cutlery are washed with only plain water and are often oily when used to serve food.
- Cups are dipped once in soapy water and then plain water, and taken out ready to be used again.
-  Sweaty sellers with sleeveless shirts bending their bodies over food when cooking or serving.
-  Washing of dishes on dirty floors near toilets.
- Coffee shop toilets are filthy and cannot possibly provide food stall workers with hygienic conditions.
- Cutlery is placed directly on trays that are wiped with cloth used for cleaning dirty tables.
- Servers holding the eating part of chopsticks or other cutlery with the same bare hands that hold table cleaning cloth or dirty dishes.
- The same person who handles cash transactions, handles food as well - with his bare hands.

Can the relevant authorities consider prescribing and enforcing higher standards of food stall hygiene so that eating out does not feel like a public health risk?
By Ho Chee Khuen