EC-CUBE Co., Ltd. Launches 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts' in Collaboration with Industry-Savvy Experts

EC-CUBE Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo / Osaka Headquarters: Kita-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture; Representative Director: Susumu Iwata; hereinafter 'EC-CUBE') has launched 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts,' a new proposal framework that collaborates with external experts well-versed in industry practices. This framework supports customers from conceptualizing EC/DX strategies based on their unique business flows, trade customs, and actual operations, to concretizing system design and implementation policies.

As the first initiative, the company has begun collaborating with Mr. Minoru Nishimori, who has expertise in D2C and digital commerce design. The company plans to sequentially expand its network of external industry experts according to target areas and customer challenges.

'EC-CUBE Industry Experts' is an initiative aimed at achieving 'Evolving, Business-Adaptive Commerce,' which EC-CUBE aspires to. By combining this with EC-CUBE as a business-adaptive commerce platform and an AI-driven development process, the company supports EC/DX that continuously adapts to customer operations.

About This Initiative

This initiative is not merely a system for introducing external experts.

In complex areas with unique industry trade customs and business processes, such as B2B ordering, reuse, marketplaces, and D2C/digital commerce, it understands customer business strategies, workflows, and on-site operations, translating them into feasible system designs and implementation policies to support EC/DX that drives business growth.

For details on 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts':

https://www.ec-cube.net/enterprise/industry-experts/

■ Background: An Era Where Feature Proposals Alone Struggle to Drive Business Transformation

Traditionally, many corporate systems adopted the 'Fit to Standard' approach, aligning business processes with standard features. This method offers benefits such as reducing initial system launch burdens and enabling rapid transition to standardized processes.

However, it often fails to fully reflect company-specific trade customs, customer touchpoints, workflows, and on-site operations, making it difficult to express each company's unique sales methods, customer experiences, and competitive advantages within the system.

Furthermore, in recent years, the evolution of development technologies, including AI, has significantly improved software development productivity. Amidst these environmental changes, the importance of specialized knowledge—deeply understanding customer operations and determining which processes to review and which requirements to prioritize for investment—is increasing in EC/DX.

In other words, future EC/DX requires not only development speed and efficiency but also the ability to organize industry-specific workflows, trade customs, and on-site operational loads based on specialized knowledge, translating them into implementation policies that lead to business results.

Particularly in areas like B2B ordering, reuse, marketplaces, and D2C/digital commerce, customer touchpoints, inventory structures, transaction rules, core system integrations, and on-site operational constraints are complexly intertwined. Therefore, proposals based solely on the presence or absence of features often fail to yield sufficient business results.

Moreover, customers themselves often struggle to fully articulate 'how to transform their own operations' or 'how to translate industry-specific operations into system requirements.' To address these challenges, EC-CUBE has launched 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts,' which leverages the knowledge of industry-savvy experts to organize business challenges, requirements, investment priorities, and system design/implementation policies from the conceptual stage.

■ What is 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts'?

'EC-CUBE Industry Experts' is an initiative that collaborates with external experts proficient in the practices, businesses, and processes of various industries. It supports translating customer business strategies and workflows into system designs and implementation policies grounded in actual operations.

By leveraging the knowledge of external experts, it helps organize industry-specific trade customs, business challenges, operational loads, connections with existing systems, and investment priorities, supporting the creation of concepts for realizing EC/DX.

While EC-CUBE serves as a flexible commerce platform supporting 'how to implement,' 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts' plays the role of organizing from an industry perspective 'what kind of commerce the customer wants to realize' and 'how to design the necessary operations.' This enables EC/DX proposals that are not mere feature combinations but are aligned with the customer's business context and actual operations.

■ First Expert

Mr. Minoru Nishimori
Digital Commerce Design Expert

Mr. Minoru Nishimori is a practitioner who has driven business and system design rooted in customer understanding across diverse areas, including B2B transactions, incentive management, and digital services involving reservations, applications, and payments, based on his business experience in D2C and repeat mail-order sales.

He views EC-CUBE not merely as an EC cart but as a platform that can be flexibly utilized according to each company's operations and business flows, and has been involved in building unique systems considering customer touchpoints, workflows, operational structures, and data integration.

In 'EC-CUBE Industry Experts,' he leverages his knowledge of customer/user understanding and improvement cycle design based on operational data to support system design suited to the customer's business context and actual operations. He also supports the optimization of business operations and system configurations, including how to best utilize EC-CUBE.

■ Positioning within 'Evolving, Business-Adaptive Commerce'

EC-CUBE's goal is 'Evolving, Business-Adaptive Commerce,' where systems are continuously adapted to each company's business flows, processes, and customer experiences, rather than forcing operations to fit standard features. Achieving this requires the following three elements:

Industry Experts:
Responsible for industry and business understanding, organizing the ideal commerce model and implementation policies from the conceptual stage, considering customer business strategies, workflows, trade customs, and operational constraints.

EC-CUBE as a Business-Adaptive Commerce Platform:
Functions as a commerce platform that can be flexibly extended and configured according to each company's business flows, processes, existing system integrations, and customer experiences.

AI-Driven Development:
Supports a development process that reflects business changes into the system in shorter cycles, based on the business challenges and implementation policies organized by the Expert.

'EC-CUBE Industry Experts' is the initiative specifically responsible for 'industry and business understanding' among these three elements. By leveraging the knowledge of experts well-versed in industry practices, it goes beyond merely organizing functional requirements to provide support that delves into 'what and how to realize' in line with the customer's business context and actual operations.