Customer stories · Supreme Optimization
SAP-integrated eCommerce, without an SAP team.
When a life-science client’s Magento store and SAP stopped agreeing with each other, Supreme Optimization found a partner to own the SAP side.
More than two years later the integration is still running, and Supreme brings CGR in whenever a client runs SAP.
AT A GLANCEAgencySupreme Optimization — marketing and digital agency for healthcare and life sciencesClientA global manufacturer of precision laboratory productsSystemsMagento (Adobe Commerce) storefront, SAP ECC 6.0, Payeezy payment gatewayWho did whatSupreme: everything on the Magento side. CGR: everything on the SAP sideCGR’s roleSAP consulting (card payments in SAP), then CGR SAP Connector (storefront integration)Go-liveUnder four weeks for the storefront integrationResult$60,000-a-year middleware subscription eliminated; in production for more than two yearsThe agency
Supreme Optimization is a marketing and digital agency for healthcare and life sciences: around 200 people, 65 of them PhD scientist-marketers. Supreme runs the whole digital picture for its clients, from brand and demand generation to the eCommerce platform underneath it.
The client
The client is a global manufacturer of precision laboratory products, formed from three long-established laboratory glassware brands. It sells a very large catalogue to scientists and laboratories worldwide through a Magento (Adobe Commerce) storefront, and it runs its business on SAP ECC 6.0.
The problem
A $60,000-a-year middleware that never worked properly
The storefront and SAP were connected through a middleware integration built by a previous partner. It cost $60,000 a year, and it never worked properly.
Parts of the integration had never been finished. The client’s customer service team spent its days reconciling sync failures instead of helping scientists, and the working relationship with the partner who built the middleware had broken down.
- Prices on the storefront were often wrong.
- Stock showed up that did not exist.
- Sales orders went missing between the two systems.
- Orders and new customer registrations moved in batches, so fulfilment and account activation lagged.
Why this was the worst kind of problem for an agency
The failures showed up on a storefront Supreme was responsible for, but the fix lived inside an ERP that Supreme did not manage.
Finding CGR, and the first project
Card payments inside SAP
Supreme went looking for a better way to connect Magento to SAP, and found CGR Software through its own web research.
CGR is an SAP Development Partner whose founders have more than 60 years of combined SAP experience. Its product, CGR SAP Connector, turns SAP tables, reports, BAPIs and function modules into REST APIs from inside the SAP system itself.
Before anyone touched the storefront, CGR’s SAP consulting team took on a harder problem inside SAP: credit card payments. They built a fully integrated card payment process in the client’s SAP system using the Payeezy APIs.
At order creation
The card is tokenized and pre-authorized through Payeezy — for every sales order in SAP, whether it came from the web store or was entered by hand.
At billing
When the client runs billing, SAP calls Payeezy again and the card is charged.
One process, every channel
Every card payment now follows the same process inside SAP, regardless of where the order came from. That project is what earned the next one.
Replacing the middleware
A direct integration between Magento and SAP
With payments running, Supreme and the client asked CGR to replace the failing middleware with a direct integration between Magento and SAP, built on CGR SAP Connector.
The split of work never changed
CGR did everything on the SAP side. Supreme did everything on the Magento side. Supreme’s developers called CGR’s REST APIs from the storefront — they never needed to work within SAP.
Four things now run live
Real-time pricing
The storefront asks SAP for the customer’s price, and SAP’s own pricing procedures answer — including tiered pricing and customer-specific discounts.
Live stock
Inventory comes straight from SAP through the client’s existing function modules: logic the client already trusted, exposed instead of rebuilt.
Customers created at sign-up
A B2B buyer who registers on the storefront is created in SAP immediately, using the client’s own customer creation logic.
Orders straight into SAP
Orders post through a standard SAP BAPI. If one fails, on a credit limit for example, the buyer sees why straight away instead of the error disappearing into a batch.
The results
Live in under four weeks, and still running
Annual subscription removed
$60,000
To replace the middleware
Under 4 weeks
In production since
2+ years
- Live in under four weeks.
- The $60,000-a-year middleware subscription is gone.
- Storefront prices are calculated by SAP, so they match what SAP invoices.
- Stock is live instead of batched, and new customers can order the moment they register.
- About 90% of integration errors disappeared along with the translation layer that caused them.
- Customer service went back to serving scientists instead of fixing sync errors.
- More than two years later, the storefront integration and the payment process are both still running in production.
Most integration errors are not bugs
The middleware held its own mapped copy of the pricing logic — two versions of the truth, drifting apart. Removing the layer removed the drift, because the storefront now calls the actual SAP pricing procedure and gets the actual answer.
What it changed for Supreme
The project did not end at go-live
Supreme now works with CGR as its SAP adviser on other projects. When a Supreme client turns out to be running SAP, Supreme brings CGR in.
Supreme can say yes to SAP clients and its developers stay focused on the work they do best.
The pattern, for any agency
The agency keeps
The client relationship, the storefront, the platform work, the timeline — and its developers stay in the stack they already use.
CGR takes
Everything inside SAP: the connector, the whitelisted objects, the SAP users and roles, and any function module a flow needs.
“CGR Software has been a big help to us and our clients. They fit right into how we work and adjust to each client’s needs, wherever they are with SAP. Having SAP experts we can count on allows us to provide more value.”
Erik Mørk-BarrettSenior Director of Web Development · Supreme Optimization
Key facts
The project in brief
What did Supreme Optimization replace?
A middleware integration between the client’s Magento (Adobe Commerce) storefront and SAP ECC 6.0, built by a previous partner. It cost $60,000 a year and never worked properly. It was replaced with a direct integration built on CGR SAP Connector.
How long did the Magento to SAP integration take?
The storefront integration went live in under four weeks, and it has been in production for more than two years.
Who did what?
CGR did everything on the SAP side. Supreme did everything on the Magento side. Supreme’s developers called CGR’s REST APIs from the storefront and never needed to work within SAP.
What runs live between Magento and SAP?
Real-time customer pricing from SAP’s own pricing procedures, live stock through the client’s existing function modules, B2B customers created in SAP at sign-up, and orders posted straight into SAP through a standard SAP BAPI.
What were the results?
The $60,000-a-year middleware subscription is gone, storefront prices match what SAP invoices, stock is live instead of batched, and about 90% of integration errors disappeared along with the translation layer that caused them.
Running SAP behind a storefront you are responsible for?
CGR SAP Connector is a native SAP add-on that turns SAP tables, reports, BAPIs and function modules into secure REST and OData APIs, with no middleware.