Franke's 90-Day SAP Commerce Cloud Migration: What Made It Work

Most SAP Commerce Cloud migrations take 4-6 months for a single market. Franke Group, a global kitchen systems manufacturer, needed to go live across nine European countries. The timeline: 90 days.

They did it. Zero post-launch hotfixes. SAP Quality Award in the “Time to Market” category. And no, the team didn’t just work faster. They made specific methodology choices that cut out the waste that drags most migrations into month six, seven, eight.

TL;DR: Franke migrated from legacy on-prem to SAP Commerce Cloud across 9 countries in 90 days — earning an SAP Quality Award. The project achieved a 20% conversion increase and 30% faster order processing. Key methodology: standards-first architecture (minimising custom code), agile sprints with weekly steering, and phased go-live. 83% of migrations exceed budgets (Bloor Group, 2023) — structured governance and scope discipline are what separate the 17% that succeed.

Why Do Most Commerce Migrations Take So Long?

83% of data migration projects exceed their budgets or schedules (Bloor Group, 2023). The usual culprits aren’t technical. They’re organisational. Scope creep during build. Integration surprises discovered too late. Governance structures that can’t make a decision faster than once a month. I’ve sat in those monthly reviews. They’re where projects go to die.

Agile projects succeed 42% of the time compared to 13% for waterfall (Standish Group, 2020). But just “doing agile” doesn’t cut it. What matters is whether your sprints actually compress the decision-making cycle or just rename waterfall phases with trendier labels.

Franke compressed decisions through three specific choices: weekly steering committees with real authority, a standards-first architecture that killed most custom development debates before they started, and a phased go-live that brought launch risk close to zero.

What Made the 90-Day Timeline Possible?

SAP has been a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce for 11 consecutive years (SAP News Center, 2025). The platform’s maturity was a prerequisite. But the timeline compression came from four methodology decisions.

Standards-first architecture. The team committed early: use SAP Commerce Cloud’s out-of-the-box capabilities and Composable Storefront components wherever possible. Custom development was reserved for genuine gaps, not preferences. This single decision probably saved 30-40% of development effort compared to the customisation-heavy approach we see on most projects. When someone said “can we customise this?” the default answer was “why?”

Structured governance from day one. Weekly steering committee meetings with leadership, project managers, and functional experts. Clear escalation paths. Everyone in the room knew their decision-making authority. In a 90-day project, you simply can’t afford decisions that wait for the next monthly review.

Agile sprints with visible progress. Two-week sprint cycles with working demos after each one. JIRA gave all stakeholders real-time visibility. Quick wins after each sprint kept momentum high: a compliance feature completed, a UI module integrated, a test milestone cleared.

Smart staffing model. Franke’s internal teams brought deep process and customer knowledge. We brought SAP Commerce Cloud expertise and multi-country rollout experience. This mix meant decisions happened fast because both sides were always in the room: the people who understood the business and the people who understood the platform.

How Did a 9-Country Rollout Work in 3 Months?

90% of businesses that migrated e-commerce platforms reported revenue improvements (commercetools, 2024). But multi-country rollouts stack up complexity that single-market projects never touch: VAT rules, fiscal codes, legal requirements, language variants, local payment methods, regional logistics providers. Nine countries means nine flavours of all that.

Franke’s rollout covered France, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Each market had unique compliance needs: VAT field configurations, fiscal identification numbers, country-specific legal notices.

The approach that worked: treat country-specific configuration as data, not code. VAT rules, tax fields, and legal text went into configuration layers rather than custom development branches. Adding a new country became a configuration exercise, not a development sprint. That’s the kind of architectural decision that pays compound interest.

Payment and logistics integrations went through SAP Commerce Cloud’s extension framework: payment gateways, shipping providers, and rate calculators connected through standardised APIs rather than custom integration code.

What Happened When Things Went Wrong?

Every migration hits unexpected obstacles. Every single one. The question is whether your governance structure can absorb them without derailing the timeline.

Three problems surfaced mid-project. Integration with external logistics and payment providers proved harder than expected. Compliance requirements in specific markets popped up late: additional tax fields and identification validations that nobody had scoped. And user adoption within Franke’s internal teams needed more attention than planned.

Here’s how we handled each one.

Integration complexity: phased rollout. Each system component was integrated and tested in isolation before full deployment. This contained the blast radius when something broke.

Late compliance requirements: we pulled legal consultations earlier into the sprint cycle. Review and adjust configurations before go-live, not as last-minute scrambles.

User adoption: intensive training workshops, walkthroughs, and feedback sessions built right into the sprint cadence. Internal teams learned the new workflows alongside the development team, not after launch. A stitch in time saves nine.

None of these challenges pushed the timeline. The governance structure absorbed them: weekly steering, clear escalation, fast decisions.

What Were the Business Results?

47% of IT leaders cite technical debt as a major driver of overspending (IDC, 2024). Franke’s migration eliminated the technical debt of their legacy on-prem system while delivering measurable business improvements.

20% increase in online conversion rates. Faster page loads, responsive design, streamlined checkout. Better shopping experience, more people buy. Simple as that.

30% reduction in order processing time. Proper workflows and backend automation replaced the manual processes baked into the legacy system.

Lower total cost of ownership. Moving from on-prem infrastructure to SAP Commerce Cloud’s managed platform cut operational overhead. No more patching, hosting, or infrastructure management on Franke’s side.

Zero post-launch hotfixes. The phased go-live caught issues in controlled stages rather than in production. Hyper-care support was standing by but barely needed.

SAP Quality Award in Time to Market. SAP’s own recognition for delivery speed without cutting corners on quality. That one felt good, I’ll admit.

What Can Other Companies Learn from This?

Over 3,200 companies currently use SAP Commerce Cloud (6sense, 2025). Not every migration needs to happen in 90 days. Most mid-size projects run 4-6 months. But the methodology patterns from Franke apply regardless of timeline.

Invest in governance upfront. A 90-day project can’t afford decision-making bottlenecks. Neither can a 6-month project: the bottlenecks just feel less urgent until they pile up and crush your go-live date. Weekly steering with decision authority is worth it at any scale.

Default to standard, customise only when forced. Every custom feature you build is a feature you maintain. SAP Commerce Cloud handles 80%+ of typical B2C and B2B requirements out of the box. Use those capabilities. Save your custom budget for the things that genuinely differentiate your business.

Start integration early. Franke integrated payment, logistics, and ERP connections in parallel with storefront development. Waiting until the platform is “ready” before starting integration work is how 4-month projects become 8-month projects. We’ve seen it happen too many times.

Plan for user adoption from sprint 1. Internal teams that learn the system alongside development are productive from day one. Teams that receive training after launch spend weeks catching up. That’s weeks of lost revenue.

For an overview of what we deliver with SAP Commerce Cloud (including pricing, composable storefront architecture, and B2B use cases) see our SAP Commerce Cloud solution page.

Planning an SAP Commerce Cloud migration? We start with a discovery workshop that defines your architecture, maps your integrations, and produces a realistic timeline. Whether that’s 90 days or 6 months. Talk to us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can any SAP Commerce Cloud migration be done in 90 days?

Not every migration, but more than most people think. The 90-day timeline worked for Franke because the team committed to standards-first architecture, had solid governance, and accepted that custom development would be minimal. If your project needs extensive custom business logic, complex B2B workflows, or a full data transformation, plan for 4-6 months. The methodology principles still compress whatever timeline you’re working with.

What made Franke’s project different from a typical migration?

Decision speed, scope discipline, and architecture philosophy. Most migrations slow down because decisions wait for monthly reviews, scope expands mid-build (“while we’re at it…”), and teams default to custom development over platform capabilities. Franke’s weekly steering committee, strict MVP scope, and standards-first approach cut out those time sinks.

How much does a 90-day SAP Commerce Cloud migration cost?

A migration of this scope (9 countries, Composable Storefront, multi-system integration) typically runs CHF 300K-500K when using a standards-first approach. Custom-heavy implementations of comparable scope can cost CHF 600K-1M+ and take 6-9 months. Standards-first saves both time and budget by reducing custom development and future maintenance overhead.

What’s a standards-first architecture?

It means using SAP Commerce Cloud’s built-in capabilities and Composable Storefront components as the default, writing custom code only when the platform genuinely can’t handle a requirement. In practice, that covers 80%+ of typical e-commerce functionality. Custom development is reserved for unique business logic: proprietary pricing rules, industry-specific compliance features, the things no platform handles out of the box.

Why did this project win an SAP Quality Award?

SAP Quality Awards recognise projects that demonstrate excellence in methodology, outcomes, and innovation. The Franke project won in “Time to Market” for delivering a 9-country rollout in 90 days with zero post-launch hotfixes, measurable business improvements (20% conversion increase, 30% faster order processing), and a governance model that other companies can replicate.