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Delivering Next-Gen Digital Transformation in IBM and Adobe

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In what ways can companies set their customer experience apart by incorporating robust and all-encompassing digital commerce and order management features?

To cultivate a devoted customer base, businesses allocate substantial resources towards customizing experiences, refining merchandising tactics, and streamlining order processing and delivery. By utilizing digital tools, companies can create distinctive offerings that distinguish them from their rivals and cater to evolving customer preferences. This fosters customer loyalty, as satisfied customers tend to return and spend more at their preferred shopping destinations. Hence, Adobe and IBM have joined forces to craft cutting-edge digital customer experiences that captivate and satisfy customers.

The IBM and Adobe Partnership

In the realm of digital customer experience, Adobe, and IBM are prominent contenders, providing various solutions aimed at enriching the customer journey. These solutions encompass innovative experience creation tools, persuasive content, AI-powered customization, and attractive visual merchandising, along with precise inventory tracking and powerful order processing and delivery capabilities.

Through Adobe Commerce, enterprises can fashion immersive and tailored shopping encounters, serving all channels and enterprise models via a unified, adaptable, and expandable platform. The platform harnesses the power of Adobe Sensei AI to fine-tune marketing and merchandising strategies while empowering companies to handle customer data, products, and orders from a single location. Adobe Commerce is an integral component of the Adobe Experience Cloud, and it seamlessly integrates with other solutions like Adobe Experience Platform to furnish businesses with actionable intelligence on customer behavior and real-time context, helping them tailor their marketing approaches accordingly.

Businesses worldwide rely on Adobe Commerce to propel their digital transformation endeavors and achieve swift and significant outcomes. A prime instance is the Alshaya Group, which, with the assistance of Adobe Commerce and Adobe Consulting Services, could launch 30 novel e-commerce sites and 2 mobile applications within 12 months, resulting in a 268% year-over-year surge in online transactions. According to Marc van der Heijden, CTO of the Alshaya Group, “Collaborating with Adobe is a crucial component of our strategy, enabling us to innovate in tandem and execute these transformations expeditiously.”

IBM, on the contrary, furnishes an assortment of order management solutions under its IBM Sustainability Software portfolio. These solutions encompass IBM Sterling Order Management, which facilitates the handling of orders across multiple channels and devices, and IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising, which helps optimize inventory levels and lower expenses via precise, real-time promise and order scheduling. The Order Management suite streamlines the management of orders from the point of purchase to delivery, involving activities such as monitoring orders, updating inventory status, and processing returns and exchanges. These capabilities are indispensable for ensuring that customers receive their orders punctually and accurately. Moreover, IBM Sterling Order Management selects the most suitable locations for product sourcing (with the least order splits), promoting sustainable fulfillment operations, and assisting companies in their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives.

IBM has established its dominance in the Order Management domain via pioneering breakthroughs, notably in integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning to inform sourcing and fulfillment decisions, resulting in quantifiable real-time ROI benefits. IBM’s novel approach to “Transparent AI” garnered recognition, with IHL positioning the company as the top leader in the 2022  IHL Order Management Market study.

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IBM and Adobe: Trust and visibility through an integrated solution

IBM and Adobe have collaborated to create an integrated solution that assists businesses in streamlining and optimizing their supply chain and order management processes while integrating them into the digital commerce experience. This encompasses everything from precise real-time inventory management to sturdy order orchestration and outstanding customer service, reinforced by tools to monitor and evaluate customer data to enhance the overall customer experience. The collaborative solution assumes added significance in a world that necessitates a strong interconnectedness between digital commerce and the supply chain.

An important underpinning for contemporary merchandising strategies that offer pertinent and customized assortments is to understand customer behavior and synchronize supply strategies with projected customer demand. Customers determine the location and mode of purchasing, which significantly alters the inventory availability scenario, necessitating a robust order management solution to anchor the digital customer experience.

The joint solution allows companies to integrate supply chains health metrics, such as inventory positions, velocity, and demand, into real-time marketing and merchandising to effectively engage customers, thereby enhancing experiences and satisfaction by fulfilling inventory commitments. This also enables companies to allocate marketing budgets. Furthermore, real-time recommendations and insights can be utilized to enhance shopper engagement when they collect their orders in-store or interact with customer service representatives.

An important aspect of this solution is its adaptability to integrate with various existing systems and diverse operating models, including ecosystem partners and multiple formats. This allows businesses to strengthen their current operations and reap immediate benefits while also providing a platform for expediting digital transformation and innovation.

One example of the agility and adaptability of businesses was demonstrated during the pandemic, as retailers quickly implemented innovative strategies to navigate the “new normal”. When salons and barbershops were temporarily closed, Sally Beauty Inc. experienced an unexpected surge in demand from adventurous work-from-home shoppers who opted for DIY hair dye kits, including purple hair color.

Thank goodness we have the IBM Sterling platform to help us keep ahead and respond quickly to marketplace demands.” – Sonoma Taylor, VP of Solution Delivery, Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc.

A solution for today’s changing times

The collaboration between Adobe and IBM has yielded an impressive solution that combines marketing and customer engagement with supply chain and order management processes, resulting in improved efficiency and higher customer satisfaction. It serves as an excellent illustration of how two companies with complementary expertise have joined forces to create a solution that surpasses their individual capabilities.

IBM iX, the business design arm of IBM Consulting, offers a wide array of tools and journey maps that companies can leverage to chart their transformation journey.

Adobe and IBM have established a robust network of partners and system integrators with specialized product and domain expertise and a focus on enhancing customer experience. These partners can assist businesses in achieving swift success and time-to-value in their digital transformation journey. Get in touch with us today to initiate the process of effecting change together.


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