Middleware between ERP and e-commerce / user-facing software
When a multinational group rolls out a new ERP and centralizes key processes, the specific needs of individual countries often slip out of sight. Local business practices, legislation, pricing rules, and operational realities rarely fit neatly into a single rigid system. The result is frequent disruptions in digital sales during ERP migrations, reduced local autonomy, and a slow ability to adapt e-commerce to market specifics—precisely at a time when digital channels require agility and continuity. This case study shows how middleware between ERP and e-commerce can restore control to local subsidiaries, ensure uninterrupted operations, and enable rapid changes without touching the central ERP.
Why companies tackle this (general context)
A group rolls out a new ERP and centralizes processes. The local needs of subsidiaries (different countries, distinct business practices) often fall out of scope. Risks include:
- Outages of digital sales/availability during ERP migrations/outages, as well as during the ERP production rollout itself,
- Loss of local autonomy (contract terms, tracked KPIs, local legal specifics, pricing, availability, delivery),
- Slow ability to adapt e-commerce (or other parts such as CMS or managerial accounting/reporting) to the specifics of individual markets.
Goal of the solution
Decouple a specific application—such as the fast-changing e-commerce channel—from the rigid ERP, preserve local business rules, and ensure business continuity even during long outages.
Architecture (pattern)
The solution is middleware that provides stable API contracts between the ERP and local software while offering a toolkit for local teams.
Key capabilities (generalized)
- for a middleware solution between ERP and e-commerce (the customer operates wholesale)
Sales platform for partners (distributors/wholesalers)
- Price and margin overrides on top of the catalog (manage commercial terms without touching the ERP).
- Access management for partners’ end customers (who don’t fit the standard permission model), including account creation and delegated permission management.
- Product availability: ability to upload/integrate own stock levels (CSV/API) and control who can see them; fallback to central-warehouse availability.
- Delivery/dispatch: multiple partner branches, shipping rules, and order routing governed in the middleware.
- Assortment governance: optional restriction to an approved catalog (partners do not add “foreign” items).
Identity & Access as a service
- Onboarding of external accounts (partners, their customers), password resets, registration, roles/permission sets, audit.
- Parameterization of catalog behavior for different roles, notifications, last login.
Download center (invoices and documents)
- Expose invoices and internal documents directly in e-commerce.
- Automation (management commands, scripts)—e.g., moving files into the Download center.
CMS for e-commerce
- Banners, content blocks, promotions and top-sale products—without touching the ERP.
Offline mode (business continuity)
- During an ERP outage/planned downtime: uninterrupted ordering; transactions are queued and re-synced once the ERP is back.
- Real-time availability may be temporarily hidden; users effectively don’t notice the outage..
Reference-data integrations
- Connect to reference-data providers (e.g., identification of goods/machines/vehicles via various identifiers).
- Smart search: detect the input type from free text and query the appropriate source; more accurate orders, fewer returns.
Modules (extensibility & entitlements)
- Optional e-commerce modules (e.g., advanced search, specific payment or shipping integrations).
- Entitlements: activate modules for specific markets/partners without impacting others.
Commercial data outside the ERP
- Lost sale reasons, abandoned carts, user behavior—inputs for sales and marketing that ERPs typically don’t capture.
Portability across countries and subsidiaries
This problem is not rare—it recurs in multinational groups where the central ERP doesn’t reflect local specifics. Portability is built on:
- Layer separation: ERP (stability) vs. e-commerce (fast change), with middleware in between.
- Configurability: pricing, availability, delivery rules, roles, and content manageable locally.
- Templates: reusable data schemas, API contracts, standard connectors, and runbooks.
- Extensibility: a module/entitlement model enables different features per market without code forks.
What’s fixed vs. variable
- Fixed: integration principles (APIs, messaging/queues, idempotence), data contracts (catalog, pricing, orders, identities), observability and audit.
- Variable: local taxes/VAT, languages and currencies, carriers and SLAs, pricing rules, module extensions, reference-data sources.
Implementation playbook (for a new subsidiary)
- Discovery & fit-gap: roles and flows (B2B partner, their customer), pricing, logistics, compliance.
- Data contracts: catalog, pricing, availability, orders, invoices, identities; define the offline data set.
- Adapter layer to the ERP: connectors, message bus, retries, idempotence, audit trail.
- E-commerce: modular rollout, CMS, promotions, permissioning and catalog behavior.
- IAM: registration/SSO (if needed), password management, roles, audit.
- Reference data: integrate local/industry providers, validation and fallbacks.
- Modules: select modules for specific markets/partners.
- Offline scenarios: DR plans, testing long outages, re-sync metrics.
- Go-live & hypercare: monitoring, notifications, runbooks, training local admins.
What we need from the client to start
- Source of truth for prices and discounts, definition of partners and segments.
- Logistics and delivery rules (carriers, cut-offs, SLAs), payment methods.
- Requirements for language, currencies, VAT and local compliance.
- Target KPIs and expected NFRs (non-functional requirements)..
Summary: The ERP ↔ middleware ↔ e-commerce pattern is broadly portable across subsidiaries and markets. It delivers sales continuity, local autonomy without forking the ERP, and faster iteration in the digital channel—backed by clear access control, modular extensibility, and measurable KPIs.