This week I dug into the world of Order Management at Microsoft and SAP. One solution is a box of parts, the other is a running factory.
The difference is in the integration philosophy:
Microsoft (The “Hardware Store Approach”)
(Microsoft – Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management)
Microsoft gives you a toolbox (Power Platform) and a bag of components (Connectors). They say: here’s everything you need to build your ideal process.
Marketing calls it “low-code” and “flexible”, but in practice you are the architect and the carpenter.
You are not buying a working order process. You are buying the possibility to build one. If the process shakes, it’s not the platform’s fault but the way the parts were connected.
Flexibility here is not a product feature. It is a customer responsibility.
SAP (The “Factory Approach”)
(SAP – Order Management Foundation)
SAP gives you an industrial, pre‑engineered process based on the Business Object Order.
You lose the freedom to tinker, but you gain a system that is technically “finished” and works with the rest of the world through mature integration standards.
Think of the SAP Order as a shipping container. The dimensions and the locking points are fixed. Every system in the chain, from webshop to warehouse, recognizes it instantly and can handle it without errors.
The Confusion Around “Providers”
In normal IT we talk about APIs or middleware. Microsoft calls this “Providers”, a marketing term that hides the fact that you still need to configure and map the integration logic yourself.
SAP simply calls things what they are: APIs, iFlows and Events.
The Essence
With Microsoft, you buy a hardware store full of wooden planks that are marketed as ready-made furniture.
With SAP, you buy the prefabricated wall unit that bolts straight into the structure.
Reality Check: Even the Biggest Fans Look Over the Fence
Large retailers who have invested billions in the “Big Two” still choose Best-of-Breed specialists for their frontline order orchestration.
- Blain’s Farm & Fleet (USA) runs D365 F&O as the backbone but relies on KIBO for complex omnichannel flows.
- Kingfisher (B&Q, Castorama) uses SAP in the back office but chose Fluent Commerce to orchestrate inventory across hundreds of DIY stores.
- Truffaut in France, part of the Louis Delhaize Group and an SAP user, selected OneStock because orchestrating live plants, barbecues and bags of soil from physical stores is a sport of its own.
Others choose Manhattan Associates or Blue Yonder.
What do you choose for your core business?
The freedom of the toolbox, the certainty of the SAP blueprint, or the proven strength of a specialist?