Today Tercera announced an investment in Myplanet (now Orium), the largest composable commerce consultancy in North America, and a top-level partner of commercetools, ElasticPath, Contentful and Contentstack. This will be Tercera’s sixth investment, and it’s our bet on the future of commerce.
You can read the official announcement here, but since a press release only tells part of the story, let me give you some context into why we believe so strongly in this space and, most importantly, this team.
Why commerce technology?
The market for commerce technology is enormous. Global e-commerce spending alone is $3.3 trillion and by 2026 it’s projected to grow to $5.4 trillion. However, it’s not just the size of the market that attracted us – it’s a space that is ripe for disruption.
Consider this:
- Twenty years ago, Amazon made $60 million in revenue. Today, the company brings in more than $470 billion!! (source)
- Fifteen years ago, Instagram and Tiktok didn’t even exist. Social selling meant adding a link to your website on Facebook. In 2021, US social commerce sales were more than $36 billion. In China, social sales reached $352 billion (source)
- Ten years ago, e-commerce penetration was in the single digits. Today, it’s nearly a quarter of all sales globally, and continues to climb (source)
- Ten years ago, subscriptions brought to mind magazines not razors. Today, more than 50% of software spending is through a subscription model. By 2026, that will reach ⅔ of all software spending (source)
To say a lot has changed in 20 years would be an understatement. As Myplanet’s CEO Jason Cottrell is fond of saying: “Commerce used to be a shopping cart and a buy button; now it’s experiences, subscriptions, consumption and connected devices.”
“Commerce used to be a shopping cart and a buy button; now it’s experiences, subscriptions, consumption and connected devices.” – Jason Cottrell, CEO, Myplanet
Retailers and B2B sellers are all trying to figure out how to provide a consistent, stellar customer experience across multiple channels, multiple brands, multiple geographies and languages, multiple currencies, and multiple commercial models. However, most are saddled with systems built for a different era — slow, silo’d, monolithic platforms that weren’t architected to handle the “multi-problem”.
Why composable commerce?
A growing number of retailers have begun shifting to a new architecture called headless commerce, which essentially means the front-end user experience (the “head”) is separated from the back-end commerce functionality (the “body”). It may sound like a Breaking Bad episode, but decoupling these elements gives customers more flexibility and more control over the customer experience.
In the last few years, headless has evolved to MACH (Microservices, API-centric, Cloud-native, Headless) or composable commerce. Composable is a step beyond headless. It separates not just the front end storefront and the back-end commerce engine, but every component within the commerce stack. This includes search, checkout, content management, inventory management, data & analytics, fraud protection, in-store experience, etc.
Composable is a step beyond headless. It separates not just the front end storefront and the back-end commerce engine, but every component within the commerce stack.
This level of modularity provides even more flexibility, and enables businesses to add (or retire) new capabilities without disrupting the customer experience or having to re-platform as technology advances. You can see why this could be a game changer for sellers who need to adapt quickly to new trends, and having a services partner that specializes in this modular, third-wave architecture can make a huge difference to customers and how successful they are in this new model.
Why now?
This evolution has been happening for a while, but we believe it’s about to accelerate. Commerce trends will continue to evolve, and sellers have to adapt. When COVID hit, companies invested (a lot) in e-commerce solutions, but many of those hastily implemented solutions have exacerbated the cost and complexity of back-end systems and processes. Not to mention making a mess of customer data. In a tight economy, where retailers need to provide an experience that sets them apart, while balancing growth and profitability, that’s not sustainable.
Technology has also greatly matured. Vendors and customers have been moving quickly to cloud and API-first architectures, making them open to a more modular approach to commerce technology. Gartner predicts that by 2023, 50% of new commerce capabilities will be delivered as an API-centric service.
Gartner predicts that by 2023, 50% of new commerce capabilities will be delivered as an API-centric service.
Gartner saying “composable” is the future of business also helps.
Why this team?
Now comes the biggest question – why Myplanet? In short, Myplanet has the vision, team, technology and partnerships to become the category leader in composable commerce.
Myplanet has the vision, team, technology and partnerships to become the category leader in composable commerce.
Vision: Myplanet is crystal clear about its mission to be a pioneer in adaptive experiences. Adaptive experiences start with a composable architecture and require insight into human behavior. Both areas where Myplanet has expertise and continues to invest. The Myplanet team intuitively knows the customers they serve, the partners that are leading this space (more on that shortly), and the value Myplanet’s services, technology and expertise can bring. That kind of vision and focus is rare, but it’s what creates great services firms.
Team: Myplanet is just as purposeful about its culture. The company was one of the first consultancies within Canada to become a registered B Corp. It has an incredibly diverse leadership team – 40% of which is female (double what we typically see in tech services firms). This is a team you want to work with – driven but humble, diverse but aligned, and extremely customer-centric.
Technology: Myplanet has invested nearly $2 million in accelerators that make moving to a composable architecture faster and easier for customers. Its Composable.com Accelerator now has 35+ integrations to the leading MACH vendors, and is being used by 80% of customers. This includes retailer Harry Rosen, which won the Best Retail Project at this year’s MACH Awards.
Partners: Myplanet has established close partnerships with the leading headless and composable ISVs, a number of which are named in our Tercera 30 research. Myplanet is an Elite partner for commercetools, the company that invented the term headless and founded the MACH Alliance (of which Myplanet was also an early member). Other notable partnerships include ElasticPath, Contentful, Contentstack, Fluent, NewStore and Twilio – a who’s who in composable commerce.
These are just a few of the reasons why we believe we’re at a tipping point in commerce and why we’re so excited to partner with Jason and his team. What cloud did for computing, composable is doing for commerce, and for companies like Myplanet that are helping to accelerate that shift, it’s a huge opportunity to do something big!
