Commercetools CEO out, so what's next?
It's safe to say since COVID expired, commercetools has had a tough run of news.
When a long-time key (most people would say THE key) player exits and the replacements are generally not from the world of commerce, the result is not good, but cause or effect?
Since the exit of Kelly Goetsch, you have:
* fired Chief Revenue Officer
* departed CFO
* incoming and then fired (?) CEO Andrew Burton
But what of the move?
* I think it was likely a smart move by the company, and likely coming for several months. As soon as you know someone is not the person, better to move fast than slow.
* Reports are out there that the Board Chairman was already quite involved in the business (if they were not, wouldn't they be doing a CEO search? ) which of course itself is a warning sign for Mr. Burton, even though it likely makes the transition a heck of a lot smoother.
* What about Dirk? Clearly has his blessing, but no interest in coming back as CEO to "founder mode"?
As far as the traditional strategy for the company:
* Can't go too high because you start running into SAP and Oracle (yes crazily still a thing)
* Can't go really too low either because there aren't many deals Shopify or Salesforce isn't also in. Used to be if commercetools and Shopify were in the same deal, one of them was in the wrong deal. That hasn't been true for about 3 years now.
The entire re-platform market is fossilized as someone said once that people would rather gnaw their arm off than, well, you know... replatform. (so this can't be helping either)
So now what? The Fraser's Group recent news offers a clue. (of course this news Andrew is quoted in just last week, whooops. Sounds like this happened fast!?)
... drum roll ...
Agentic. (duh)
I read the release carefully and it appears to be primarily just getting Fraser's into ChatGPT Instant Checkout.
Ok great, but do I need a premium enterprise platform to do that? Probably not. Really just a channel enablement tool. Not to mention you can't charge a platform premium for what will be essentially a free service.
What's next?
* Layoffs or some additional exodus are almost always a given in a situation like this, as when Board members get a much closer look at things, no cuts are large enough.
* Cost cutting also has a way of helping profitability in the short-term which can also help find a buyer.
* Agentic seems to be the new default strategy (fact - check out the homepage - and recent Fraser's news).
And of course, I have a list of questions:
* Agentic, but agentic what?
* What about headless?
* Who knew being a C-Suite executive at a platform was so hazardous to your health? Does Big/Commerce have the most stable executive team in commerce technology now? Asking for a friend.
* More than fair statement to say the company needs to get acquired, is Paypal in the market after the recent Shopware investment? Asking for a different friend.
