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Yes. In the same way that iOS or MacOS do, Spryker as an operating system offers a range of features, called capabilities, which come in modules. These features can be either used as-is or extended; just as iOS offers its notepad and calendar apps as bases for other apps, the features can be used in their original state or taken as a basis and extended for individual use cases. As such, Spryker as an operating system offers both turn-key features and its own range of demo apps as bases.
By apps, we mean everything that is customer-facing. An app could be, a B2C or B2B shop system, an Alexa voice skill, an order status update function. An easy repeat-order function could also be considered an app. So would a chatbot for customer service. Other examples would be, a native or web-based mobile customer interface, EDP interfaces, and IoT installations. For example, communication between elevators or communication from an industrial saw requesting a replacement component or even a booking service are types of services and functionality that can be obtained through apps.
Yes. We refer to third-party integrations as industry partners, and they include services for payment, shipment, on-site search, recommendation engines, tracking, social, BI, loyalty, chat, and other services which can be integrated into the OS.
As vendors of an operating system, our task is to make it possible to develop apps as quickly as possible; as ROI timescales shorten increasingly and technological developments happen in ever quicker succession, it is difficult to look ahead even by 12 months. Spryker focuses on this and provides a starting point from which to develop applications in areas such as voice, chatbots, blockchain, AI and other areas.
In our world, onmnichannel is a collection of apps in use, i.e. a webshop plus POS plus mobile as one possible combination. Within the operating system, we are trying to offer an increasing number of pre-installed capabilities and demo apps so that every customer can put it to work to reflect their own use case as quickly as possible. In order to avoid duplicating logic such as search, discount, payment etc. per individual channel, these items are offered by or stored in the operating system; this means significant improvement on cycles for building and testing customer-facing apps.
No. Spryker is an operating system for commerce. In our world, a B2C shop is only one of many apps; customers who only need one app will probably be able to reach their goals faster with a standard, set-in-stone legacy system.
The choice is all yours; you can do either. One way of proceeding is to divide up tasks neatly and work in the OS internally, using agencies to build specfic apps; alternatively, you could handle each app separately (i.e. agency builds webshop and you build voice/chatbot).
Capabilities are modules such as PIM, cart, check-out, search, customer, stock, CMS, discount, order management, and another 120+ modules which are being continually added to in order for you to be able to build apps faster.
That depends entirely on the number of apps and on the type of app concerned. As a measure of the best practice, it should be possible to build and deploy a single slimline app for most standard use cases (i.e. a voice app for Alexa or a simple chatbot) within a few weeks. The aim is to keep each app simple and relevant and to lock away as much of it in the OS as possible. This means that a standard, run-of-the-mill webshop does not take longer when using Spryker than with other systems. Spryker's real strength, however, is the variety of apps. So building a B2C case with 4-5 apps (e.g. shop, web app, chatbot, voice, and POS) would, using a standard system, be a highly complex, very expensive, and frustratingly slow undertaking - and one that would stand in absolute contradiction with the overall architecture of the system applied. This kind of use case is part of Spryker's DNA, however, and in IoT scenarios, Spryker is actually better than most other solutions due to the overall lack of dedicated technology.
All you need to do is to define a new app from a business point of view and get started.
Absolutely. You can use other tools for individual apps (e.g., the shop, EDI link-up) or swap out specific OS capabilities, e.g., replace the whole native OS PIM module with your own PIM solution.