We discuss the following topics in this blog:
- How to Ensure a Consistent & Engaging Experience?
- What are the Limitations of Traditional Commerce?
- Advantages of Headless Commerce
In addition to these topics, we shall also be answering the following FAQs:
- What is WiFi?
- What is an Optical Fibre Cable?
Contents
Overview
The dynamics of CSPs and customers have drastically shifted in the recent past. As the customers are getting more and more hyper-connected, the relationship between CSPs and their customers are no longer the same. The new-age customers expect more comfort and convenience and they want CSPs to deeply understand their requirements, challenges and expectations. They expect all their service providers to offer higher level of personalised services that they get from their much-advanced eCommerce service providers.
How to Ensure a Consistent & Engaging Experience?
To connect with the new-age customers, delivering a consistent and hyper-personalised brand experience is the key for the CSPs. While this brings huge opportunities for CSPs to connect with customers across multiple platforms, it also poses challenges when it comes to effectively engaging with the customers across an increasingly fractured customer experience.
So, how can CSPs find a way to provide consistent and engaging experience to their customers across multiple devices, channels and formats as we head towards the highly-personalised customer-centric digital era?
Headless commerce architecture is built to address the customer-centric requirements of the digital era.
What are the Limitations of Traditional Commerce?
In traditional architecture, the front-end is tightly coupled with the back-end commerce platform and infrastructure. This allows little or no agility and flexibility in providing the customer experience-driven look and feel. The front-end developers face multiple challenges when it comes to the overall process and design. It takes a lot of time to configure the core and front-end systems.
Advantages of Headless Commerce
As the front-end and the back-end systems of headless commerce architecture is decoupled and is integrated by Open APIs, this creates endless possibilities for customisation based on specific needs.
- Drive experience-led look and feel: Content management systems and digital experience platforms present brands in the best possible light
- Provide highly personalised user experience: Continue back-end experiments without disrupting the experience of shoppers who use the front-end for their requirements
- Make rapid updates and gain the flexibility to innovate user journey: Roll-out new offersquickly and innovate customer experience without dependency on back-end system
- Ensure consistent user experience across all touchpoints: All the customer experience pieces like the user interface components are controlled in the CMS. This enables CSPs to provide consistent user experience across all touchpoints no matter how or when the customers interact with them
STL’s digital Engagement Platform (dEP) is one such platform that is based on headless commerce architecture. This cutting-edge platform for both B2B and B2C commerce simplifies customer and partner journeys. The API-driven commerce solution seamlessly integrates with any new customer engagement channels/touchpoints.
With this headless commerce, CSPs can rapidly deliver any new age digital services/offerings that are context-aware and highly personalised. It enables complete commerce experience across digital channels and journeys.
FAQs
What is WiFi?
Put simply, WiFi is a technology that uses radio waves to create a wireless network through which devices like mobile phones, computers, printers, etc., connect to the internet. A wireless router is needed to establish a WiFi hotspot that people in its vicinity may use to access internet services. You’re sure to have encountered such a WiFi hotspot in houses, offices, restaurants, etc.
To get a little more technical, WiFi works by enabling a Wireless Local Area Network or WLAN that allows devices connected to it to exchange signals with the internet via a router. The frequencies of these signals are either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bandwidths. These frequencies are much higher than those transmitted to or by radios, mobile phones, and televisions since WiFi signals need to carry significantly higher amounts of data. The networking standards are variants of 802.11, of which there are several (802.11a, 802.11b, 801.11g, etc.).
What is an Optical Fibre Cable?
An optical fibre cable is a cable type that has a few to hundreds of optical fibres bundled together within a protective plastic coating. They help carry digital data in the form of light pulses across large distances at faster speeds. For this, they need to be installed or deployed either underground or aerially. Standalone fibres cannot be buried or hanged so fibres are bunched together as cables for the transmission of data.
This is done to protect the fibre from stress, moisture, temperature changes and other externalities. There are three main components of a optical fibre cable, core (It carries the light and is made of pure silicon dioxide (SiO2) with dopants such as germania, phosphorous pentoxide, or alumina to raise the refractive index; Typical glass cores range from as small as 3.7um up to 200um), Cladding (Cladding surrounds the core and has a lower refractive index than the core, it is also made from the same material as the core; 1% refractive index difference is maintained between the core and cladding; Two commonly used diameters are 125µm and 140µm) and Coating (Protective layer that absorbs shocks, physical damage and moisture; The outside diameter of the coating is typically either 250µm or 500µm; Commonly used material for coatings are acrylate,Silicone, carbon, and polyimide).
An optical fibre cable is made up of the following components: Optical fibres – ranging from one to many. Buffer tubes (with different settings), for protection and cushioning of the fibre. Water protection in the tubes – wet or dry. A central strength member (CSM) is the backbone of all cables. Armoured tapes for stranding to bunch the buffer tubes and strength members together. Sheathing or final covering to provide further protection.
The five main reasons that make this technology innovation disruptive are fast communication speed, infinite bandwidth & capacity, low interference, high tensile strength and secure communication. The major usescases of optical fibre cables include intenet connectivity, computer networking, surgery & dentistry, automotive industry, telephony, lighting & decorations, mechanical inspections, cable television, military applications and space.
