We Are Looking for Clients Who Are Ready to Level Up - Announcing Strategic Partnership with msg Plaut

The boundaries between online, offline, and B2B commerce are breaking down because everything today revolves around the customer experience. The answer to this challenge is Connected Commerce, which we are bringing to our customers through a new strategic partnership with msg Plaut, one of Hungary’s leading SAP specialists.

In the interview below, originally published in Hungarian by Kosárérték, Gábor Varga, CEO of Color and Code, and Levente Bartha, Managing Director of msg Plaut Hungary, discuss why this partnership matters, what Connected Commerce means in practice, and how it can help businesses take their commerce operations to the next level.

– What prompted two companies with seemingly rather different profiles to enter into a partnership specifically aimed at helping Hungarian merchants improve their efficiency?

[Gábor Varga]: The two areas are actually not far apart. At a large enterprise, the e-commerce interface and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system are two sides of the same sales process. Orders are placed in the online store, but corporate systems work behind the scenes to handle pricing, inventory, customer terms, and fulfillment. If these systems are not properly coordinated, customers experience slower service or, in the worst case, even chaos. Meanwhile, the company has to do more manual work and wastes time correcting unnecessary errors.

[Levente Bartha]: We believe that the expansion of e-commerce will continue, and this trend will persist even after the significant growth of the past 20 years. The two companies complement each other well in this respect: one of us brings experience with online stores and commercial clients, while the other brings expertise in operating ERP and backend systems.

– What is the agreement about, and how long will it remain in effect?

[Gábor Varga]: The aim of the agreement is to bring together Color and Code’s e-commerce and Shopify expertise and msg Plaut Hungary’s experience in SAP and enterprise architecture in joint solutions for clients. This means that instead of receiving separate e-commerce store and ERP projects, a company gets an integrated approach that examines its business processes together.

– What does the ideal client look like for Color and Code and msg Plaut Hungary? What do they need, and how can you now help them together?

[Gábor Varga]: An ideal client is not digitally mature simply because it has a store and an ERP system. Rather, its maturity is demonstrated by recognizing that the data and processes connecting these two systems have a direct impact on sales, customer experience, efficiency, and ultimately business performance.

In a poorly organized company, a typical sign is that the same data is maintained in several places. Sales representatives cannot see accurate inventory levels or order statuses, while changing a price or product becomes a cumbersome process. These are not isolated technical problems. They are signs that commercial operations have developed in silos and have not subsequently been coordinated with one another, or, in some cases, even with operational processes.

Our ideal client has already recognized this, understands that it can seriously hinder growth, and is ready to align its processes, data, and systems. In such cases, the first step is not necessarily a new online store, but establishing which data is authoritative and where it is stored, who is responsible for it, and how it reaches the right place while business processes continue to run smoothly.

[Levente Bartha]: We are looking for clients who are ready to level up.

A business can start trading with a brick-and-mortar or an online store, but above a certain size it will inevitably run up against the limitations of the systems mentioned above. At that point, the client may come to the realization: “From now on, I don’t want to work with siloed systems; I want a unified, integrated system.” This applies not only to the backend ERP, but also to all the solutions connected to it: interfaces, web platforms, and even future sales channels.

It needs to function as one unified system.

A merchant wants to sell. Together, we can provide a commerce platform and the expertise needed to support that vision. The essence of our agreement with Color and Code is to make our technological and service expertise and experience available to clients.

– How do you define Connected Commerce?

[Levente Bartha]: Perhaps the best place to start is by saying that Connected Commerce is essentially an enhanced, 2.0 version of e-commerce. Over the past 15 to 20 years, when we talked about e-commerce, we primarily meant online commerce and the systems associated with it.

Today, however, we have to recognize that the boundaries in commerce are breaking down. Customers expect the same experience and level of service from a website, a physical store, partner channels, and any other sales channel. When we talk about Connected Commerce, we mean a kind of omnichannel solution with the highest possible level of system integration. It is the next level of e-commerce.

– What do merchants and customers gain from this?

[Gábor Varga]: Customers receive more predictable, higher-quality service. Across the company’s various channels—sales representatives, online shops, stores, customer service, and advertising—they receive consistent information, whether about prices, stock availability, or order status. This can be particularly important for manufacturers and wholesalers, because their customers may need more information about individual products and often have their own price lists, contractual terms, credit limits, and ordering processes.

[Levente Bartha]: I would emphasize the customer experience. A hundred years ago, commerce was based on sellers and buyers knowing one another personally. Beyond the commercial information itself, they knew about each other’s circumstances, needs, and personal motivations. Today, as a result of digitalization, this relationship is no longer tied to a single person or place; the points of contact are distributed across space and time.

As Gábor mentioned, when a customer comes to us, we have historical data about them. For example, if they previously ordered certain products offline, made a complaint by phone, or returned products, we need to be aware of that customer history. We need to know whether they have a loyalty discount, have attended one of our events, or have particular preferences. This allows us to make informed upselling offers that maximize the likelihood of the customer finding what they are looking for—and of us making a sale.

– How do omnichannel and Connected Commerce relate to one another?

[Gábor Varga]: The two concepts are related, but they emphasize different things. Omnichannel primarily expresses the expectation from the customer’s perspective: that the customer should receive a consistent experience across multiple channels. Connected Commerce also addresses the data and system connections required behind the scenes to make this possible.

A company can sell effectively and at scale across multiple channels only if it has a reliable, just-in-time system supporting the necessary data in the background. That is why implementing Connected Commerce is a long-term strategic issue: it involves connecting commercial operations both technologically and organizationally.

[Levente Bartha]: We see that every action a customer takes leaves a digital footprint, regardless of which system it takes place in. This applies equally to social media, backend systems, CRM systems, and online stores. These systems need to be connected so that we can see and manage customers and their digital footprints as a whole, rather than separately in different systems. At msg Plaut, we believe Connected Commerce is the term that best captures this integration.

– The customer gets a better experience based on available information. What does the sales representative gain?

[Gábor Varga]: Above all, it gives sales representatives more time and reliable information. They no longer need to check multiple systems to find out whether an item is in stock, what price they can offer a particular partner, where an order stands, or whether there has been a previous complaint. They can access and use all this data in one place, in the relevant business context.

This is important because sales representatives can spend less time searching for and entering data and more time with customers, preparing complex proposals, and building relationships. For the company, it also reduces the number of errors caused by inconsistent data and manual data entry.

[Levente Bartha]: I would take that idea a little further. One of the defining principles of ERP systems is that data should be stored in one place, where it originates, and should not be duplicated. What we want to demonstrate is how to build a system in which there is no data duplication and no inconsistency between different systems, because the data comes from a single source. That way, regardless of how many interfaces or systems are operating behind the scenes, the customer receives a single, consistent experience through every channel.

That is why this is valuable for merchants: efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

– What obstacles do companies encounter when implementing Connected Commerce?

[Gábor Varga]: In our experience, the biggest obstacle is often not the technology itself, but the fact that companies operate in silos. Warehousing, marketing, procurement, sales, and IT each optimize their own operations separately. Each area may have good processes of its own, but if there is no shared framework for data and responsibilities between them, customers experience contradictory information and slow service.

Connected Commerce therefore does not begin with the introduction of a new technology. The first step is to understand how ordering, pricing, inventory management, fulfillment, and customer service currently work. What makes these processes effective? Only then can you determine which systems need to be connected, where each piece of data should originate, and what should be automated. AI and automation can produce reliable results only when these processes and data are in order.

[Levente Bartha]: I would reinforce the point that the emphasis here is not on new technology at all. We work with SAP, which incorporates 50 years of best-practice experience. Moreover, clients typically do not need bespoke solutions: for 95 percent of them, implementing standard processes is what enables them to move to the next level.

– How does a company know when it is ready to move toward Connected Commerce?

[Gábor Varga]: The need is usually indicated by recurring business problems. For example, sales representatives may not trust the inventory data. The same order may need to be entered repeatedly or into several different systems; campaigns and price changes may take too long to implement; or customer service may have difficulty getting a clear overview of a customer’s history and key characteristics.

A company can begin to make meaningful progress when it stops treating these as separate problems to be fixed and starts viewing them as a common operational issue. Not every process has to be perfect on day one. The first step can be an assessment that identifies data sources, critical processes, and the biggest sources of business losses. On this basis, a gradual and measurable development path can be defined.

AI should also only be built on a stable, predictable foundation, because unreliable data will only lead AI to produce unreliable conclusions.

[Levente Bartha]: How do companies know they are ready? From the pain points: when problems begin to emerge in more and more areas, when companies become stuck and the years go by without them moving beyond the same level. That is when they turn to consultants.

Our role becomes valuable in this situation because we have seen many systems like these before. Our consultants have been in the market for 20 to 30 years and have seen changes that work as well as changes that do not. So when a client approaches us, they can explain, for example, that a particular warehouse solution can be implemented in several different ways and what the consequences of each option will be.

A client immersed in their own situation may not see this until someone holds up a mirror. That is the mirror we provide, and to the best of our knowledge, we guide clients toward standard processes.

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