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Nov 21, 2024 | 12 minute read
written by Seamus Roddy
Commerce tech leaders face rising complexity, heightened customer expectations, and the requirement to provide fast value on investment. During a recent roundtable discussion, Stephen Cope, CIO at Astrak, and Kevin Rhatigan, VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery at Comcast Cable, shared firsthand strategies for overcoming challenges and future-proofing their commerce operations.
You should watch and listen to the full webinar, which is chock-full of insights for any brand looking to uplevel their commerce tech stack in 2025. As you listen to the webinar, review these top insights and actionable takeaways. You’ll learn about strategic challenges, 2025 trends, operational insights, measuring ROI, and how composable commerce works in practice for manufacturers, retailers, and distributors.
Stephen and Kevin detailed strategic commerce tech challenges they faced in 2024, and detailed the way they found solutions.
The challenge: Growth and business expansion can add complexity For example, mergers and acquisitions are an important part of Astrak’s growth, but they bring significant technical challenges. Stephen detailed how his team tackles these obstacles by consolidating systems and streamlining data.
Standardizing our central set of product data strengthened our ability to scale our online presence efficiently and respond to market demands.Stephen Cope CIO
Standardizing our central set of product data strengthened our ability to scale our online presence efficiently and respond to market demands.
For businesses dealing with similar complexities, Stephen advises focusing on master data consistency and aligning processes across all markets.
The challenge: Kevin shared how Comcast revamped its product launch process using composable commerce architecture. Adopting modular solutions has meant more productivity and the ability to support a unified catalog. Comcast has reduced time-to-market from nine months to just a few sprints.
What used to take us nine months now takes us two to four sprints. We’re able to respond to the market much faster.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
What used to take us nine months now takes us two to four sprints. We’re able to respond to the market much faster.
Overall, a faster time to market has allowed Comcast to respond to competition faster, build custom product offerings, and support a high-quality, unified catalog.
Stephen and Kevin both discussed commerce tech trends they anticipated in 2025 – and detailed how they are preparing for the year ahead.
Kevin identified 2025 as a year where businesses will need to excel at cost optimization, operational resilience, and speed to market simultaneously.
2025 is looking like a year we have to practice cost optimization, operational resilience, and fast speed to market.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
2025 is looking like a year we have to practice cost optimization, operational resilience, and fast speed to market.
Kevin further noted that commerce leaders should prepare to juggle these priorities without sacrificing flexibility or innovation.
Both speakers agreed that AI is poised to transform commerce. Stephen highlighted its use at Astrak for automating repetitive tasks and cleansing data, while Kevin shared Comcast’s broader vision for AI as a tool to rethink processes entirely.
We’re building AI-driven tools for Scrum Masters, developers, and beyond. It’s about rethinking every interaction, not just enhancing existing processes.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
We’re building AI-driven tools for Scrum Masters, developers, and beyond. It’s about rethinking every interaction, not just enhancing existing processes.
Their advice? Start with well-defined use cases and let AI enhance both efficiency and creativity across business and technical teams.
Learn how tech execs from Comcast and Astrak overcome constraints of technology, time, and budget to bring their unique commerce needs to life.
Both Kevin and Stephen believe that in 2025, operational improvements are going to be essential to commerce tech success. Here is the advice they gave attendees about improving their operational capacity.
Both speakers emphasized the importance of enabling business teams to manage commerce platforms independently. Kevin detailed Comcast’s strategy of providing self-service tools for business teams to configure product bundles and pricing.
Our goal is to make our business teams self-sufficient in managing offers and products. We want to take our hands off the steering wheel to free developers to focus on backend integrations and innovation.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
Our goal is to make our business teams self-sufficient in managing offers and products. We want to take our hands off the steering wheel to free developers to focus on backend integrations and innovation.
Stephen echoed this sentiment, stressing that education and collaboration are key to driving adoption and innovation – and that an empowered business team ultimately free up developers to solve bigger, more strategic business problems.
Measuring the ROI of commerce investments can be challenging. Kevin pointed out that in a connected digital ecosystem, time-to-market is often the most compelling metric that commerce tech teams can track.
We used to only get to 50 commerce priorities in a sprint. Now we’re hitting 75. That visibility into faster results, and getting 50% more work done, really resonates with our business partners and shows the value of our investment.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
We used to only get to 50 commerce priorities in a sprint. Now we’re hitting 75. That visibility into faster results, and getting 50% more work done, really resonates with our business partners and shows the value of our investment.
Both Astrak and Comcast Cable rely on a composable commerce architecture to achieve commerce ambitions. But what does composable commerce look like in practice? Stephen and Kevin detailed both broad and specific benefits of a composable architecture, and both hit on an overarching value and specific use case in their composable solution.
For both Astrak and Comcast, composable commerce has unlocked flexibility and scalability.. Stephen explained how modular architecture allowed Astrak to adapt to complex needs without relying on rigid, out-of-the-box solutions:
Composable commerce gave us the flexibility to adapt to different markets and customer needs, fueling business expansion.Stephen Cope CIO
Composable commerce gave us the flexibility to adapt to different markets and customer needs, fueling business expansion.
Kevin noted that scalability and flexibility aren’t just nice-to-haves. For a growing brand selling online, flexibility and scalability are must-haves. In Comcast’s case, flexibility and scalability have kept business initiatives and commerce priorities on track amid changing requirements.
Composable commerce has meant supporting the evolving business we have today, not the exact business we had when we first replatformed.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
Composable commerce has meant supporting the evolving business we have today, not the exact business we had when we first replatformed.
Dynamic bundling is a specific use case strategy both leaders have used to drive value and increase average order size. Kevin stressed the importance of choosing platforms that handle bundle components, inventory, and customization seamlessly.
The ability to flexibly combine products without creating a nightmare for catalog management is critical.Kevin Rhatigan VP of Strategic Process Engineering and Delivery
The ability to flexibly combine products without creating a nightmare for catalog management is critical.
Stephen added that bundling offers an effective way to boost order value while meeting specific customer needs.
From AI and composable commerce to empowering teams with the right tools, Stephen and Kevin demonstrated how the right strategies can help your commerce operations and performance in 2025. As you evaluate your own commerce solutions, focus on flexibility, scalability, and tools that empower your teams to innovate.
Our flexible, API-first commerce platform is built for innovators like Stephen, Kevin, and perhaps you. Try Elastic Path for free, today, to see our platform in action and to evaluate whether it fits your commerce tech roadmap for 2025 and beyond.
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