With the acquisition of Eperium in 2016, Wunderman Thompson got their hands on one of the biggest and most experienced Intershop partners. And after acquiring e-commerce agency Gorilla Group at the end of last year, nothing will keep Wunderman Thompson from actively using Intershop for projects on the American market.
Wunderman is globally active and it supports almost all enterprise commerce software solutions. But the Dutch branch, arisen from the Eperium acquisition in 2016, has been a specialistic Intershop developer with customers from all over the world since its foundation in 1999.
'We know the code, we have even contributed to it'
Gertjan Schaefers, CEO at Wunderman Thompson Commerce Netherlands, thinks this won't change very fast. "Before the takeover, we had already realized dozens of Intershop projects, and we know the software at its deepest core. Luckily, we have a short line of communication with Intershop. Even more, because we work with its software on a daily base, I would even go as far as to say we have contributed a lot to the features it has nowadays."
From an international perspective, the Dutch e-commerce industry might be small, especially when you look at absolute figures, but Schaefers thinks this doesn't apply to the world of software development agencies. "With the typical German reliability of Intershop and our Dutch commercial mentality and good reputation in the field of innovation in digital commerce, we really offer the best that's possible worldwide."
'Thanks to the Gorilla Group acquisition, the US market is open'
The Dutch branch of Wunderman Thompson is already internationally active and Schaefers thinks the next acceleration is on its way. "Last year, our branch grew 30 percent. And now, with the acquisition of Gorilla Group, we can serve the American market even faster." Switching to another e-commerce platform is a fundamental step for every organization, so it won't happen in one day, but Schaefers thinks they should still be able to have at least ten or more projects.
The potential for Intershop projects in the US is huge, but how big it actually is, is something Schaefers finds hard to express in numbers. Mostly because of the huge competition there. According to Schaefers, recent strategic steps taken by Intershop, like choosing for a cloud solution and the partnership with Microsoft, are spot on.
"Many organizations that use Microsoft Dynamics are currently using a very limited e-commerce solution or not even one at all. Intershop now answers to this need for a enterprise commerce solution for the more complex B2B processes", Schaefers explains. "When I think of the number of US companies that use Microsoft Dynamics but don't sell online yet or are still busy with that transition, I see a potential customer group of many thousands."
