The DXP Catalyst Update - Aug 5, 2025

INTRO
Welcome to This Week’s DXP Catalyst Update

We recently spoke with a company that had relaunched its digital storefront using a well-known enterprise commerce platform. Expectations were high, but the results had fallen short. Site performance was lagging, traffic had declined, and sales were slipping. Despite the investment, the platform was not delivering the business outcomes that were originally anticipated.

Some members of the leadership team had recently changed, and those stepping into new roles were trying to make sense of both the disappointing results and the continued spend. Most feature development and support had been handed off to a third-party agency, which made it difficult to gain insight into what was being built or why timelines were slipping. Internal teams lacked visibility, and confidence in the platform had started to erode.

While every situation is different, this kind of scenario is not uncommon. Platforms like SAP Commerce offer deep functionality, but challenges often arise when internal teams lack visibility into how the platform was implemented, configured, and maintained. In many cases, work has been outsourced to third parties, with limited documentation or oversight. This week’s DXP Catalyst Update looks at how to regain control through a structured commerce platform diagnostic, helping leadership assess whether the platform’s configuration, codebase, or delivery model is contributing to the problem and what steps can be taken to course-correct.

LEADERSHIP GUIDANCE

The Cost of a Commerce Black Box

When a commerce platform underperforms, it is almost never due to a single factor. What starts as a performance issue or a slow delivery cycle often reveals deeper systemic challenges. These include limited architectural visibility, unclear ownership, and little understanding of how the platform is actually functioning day to day.

This scenario is familiar across many enterprise environments. A platform is selected, significant capital is spent, and the rollout is completed under tight timelines. Once launched, the results are mixed. Conversion rates are lower than expected, site performance is sluggish, and internal confidence begins to fade. Meanwhile, each new feature seems to take longer to deliver.

The problem is often not the platform itself. More frequently, the root cause is found in early implementation decisions, a lack of governance, and the absence of clear documentation. Without visibility into how the system works, teams are left guessing. And what was intended to be a foundation for digital growth starts to act more like a constraint.

In this topic, we explore how to surface the gaps that lead to platform stagnation. We look at how code audits, architectural diagnostics, and performance reviews can provide critical context for both business and technology leaders. Whether your platform is SAP Commerce, Salesforce Commerce, Adobe Commerce, or something else, the need for structured visibility remains the same.

When Your Platform Becomes a Mystery

One of the most common red flags we encounter is a commerce team that has little to no insight into how their platform is operating. The dev work is outsourced, the backlog is long, sprint velocity is unclear, and leadership can’t confidently answer why a relatively small change is taking weeks to deliver. Meanwhile, conversion rates are dropping, site performance is lagging, and no one is sure whether the platform is simply over-engineered or misconfigured.

This is especially common in complex enterprise, monolithic platforms where the learning curve is steep and customizations are often layered on top of one another without clear documentation. But it can happen in any system where there’s been a handoff from implementation partner to support team, or where feature development is managed entirely by a third party.

Without regular platform audits and technical diagnostics, leadership ends up relying on dashboard reports that tell them what happened, but not why. And when something breaks or slows down, the finger-pointing begins.

Why a Code Audit Still Matters

Even if you are not planning to replatform, understanding the health of your codebase remains essential. Over time, inconsistent development approaches can slow performance, complicate upgrades, and introduce hidden maintenance costs.

In a past assessment, we uncovered multiple issues that had accumulated over time. These included unused modules that were still active, outdated accelerator components that no longer aligned with modern practices, and layers of redundant customizations that added complexity without clear value. The result was a sluggish, inconsistent experience that created frustration for both customers and internal teams.

A proper code audit does more than flag technical debt. It provides insight into how your platform has evolved, whether sound architectural principles have been applied, and which areas may be limiting your roadmap. This kind of visibility is critical for stabilizing the present and planning for the future.

Performance Isn’t Just About Page Speed

When commerce sites underperform, the instinct is often to look at the front-end: images not optimized, scripts too heavy, or lazy loading not applied correctly. While these are important, they’re only part of the story.

True performance diagnostics go deeper. They look at how the system handles real-time requests under load. They assess the latency of backend services, the efficiency of database queries, and the caching strategies used across services. In the commerce world, this means looking at how fast your product search loads, how long it takes to add to cart, and what happens when hundreds of users are checking out at once.

One of the most valuable outputs from a recent engagement was a profiling report that showed just how many milliseconds were lost to inefficient queries during checkout. That insight alone helped the client identify and resolve a critical bottleneck that had been costing them both revenue and customer trust.

Delivery Velocity and Governance Breakdown

When you lose visibility into how features are being developed, your delivery model starts to erode. It becomes unclear whether work is slow because of the platform itself, the way the team is organized, or the quality of the code.

For companies that outsource development, this can become a blind spot. Teams often inherit vendor relationships without full clarity on how the architecture was set up, what tradeoffs were made, or what level of documentation exists. Over time, this creates a culture of dependency, where even small changes require weeks of planning and approval because no one is confident in what they’re touching.

This is where architecture and governance collide. Without a clear understanding of how data flows between systems, how services interact, or what the release process looks like, the platform becomes harder to change. And when platforms are hard to change, they stop serving the business.

What a Diagnostic Should Deliver

A proper commerce platform diagnostic goes far beyond a surface-level review. It includes:

• Stakeholder interviews to understand pain points across business, marketing, IT, and operations.

• Codebase walkthroughs to assess extension patterns, technical debt, and upgrade readiness.

• Performance profiling to uncover inefficiencies in key flows like search, PDP, cart, and checkout.

• Architecture mapping to show how systems interact, where bottlenecks live, and what integrations may be fragile.

• Feature usage audits to highlight underutilized modules, redundant tools, or overlapping customizations.

• SEO and discoverability reviews to ensure the platform isn’t just functional but visible to search engines and AI-powered tools.

A well-executed diagnostic should lead to more than a list of issues. It should provide a clear roadmap that helps teams prioritize fixes, identify areas for investment, and stabilize the experience in the near term while laying the groundwork for long-term optimization.

Final Thoughts

You do not need to replace your commerce platform to start seeing better results. But you do need a clear understanding of how it functions and where it might be falling short.

If your platform feels opaque or difficult to assess, it is time to shine a light on what is really happening. Whether the root cause involves architecture, performance, or delivery process, a structured diagnostic can help uncover the true blockers.

The longer you operate without that visibility, the more risk and cost your organization takes on. A focused assessment can provide the insight and direction needed to move forward with confidence.