The All-in-One Dilemma: Why Unified Platforms May Be Holding Businesses Back

Welcome back to Market Movers, the opening bell.

Instead of using separate specialized apps for different tasks, all in one platforms allow everything to live under one roof.

Now some popular ones include Microsoft 365 or platforms like HubSpot.

While the all in one promise sounds great in theory and practice, many users and businesses are regretting the choice or seeing it backfire now.

One platforms often bring mediocre performance across features hidden or inflated costs for consumers and slow innovation with super apps growing, especially in the crypto space, it is vital to ask what can be done to break the cycle for the benefit of companies as well as consumers.

Well joining me to weigh in this morning is Sam Ranieri who is CEO and founder of Reach. good morning.

Thank you so much for joining me.

So first and foremost, for our viewing audience out there, tell us why you say all in one platforms are actually backfiring.

It's basically all in one platforms are built for easy entry, not growth or scale.

Um, they usually involve a complete outsource, and it takes over your entire channel.

Um, and basically it works until it doesn't.

Uh, we've actually just completed a survey that shows that 6, 68% of retailers, which is in our world, uh, say they would have grown faster if they weren't tied to one platform.

Yes, and when we think about the leading market themes that we've been watching on Wall Street the past several years, artificial intelligence as well as tariffs are two of those themes.

So tell us what challenges they are actually presenting when it comes to these platforms.

There's no shortage of complexity, obviously.

Days, um, including currency management, tariffs or redrawing lines where, uh, businesses can profit.

Uh, AI is moving at a, at a very quick pace and sort of customer acquisition, marketing, it's all coming all at once.

Uh, regulatory requirements are multiplying in, in, in every region.

Um, businesses are winning with, um, with infrastructure that can move with the times, uh, not being sort of pitted down to one platform and have a complete outsource. and you just mentioned the key word there and that is infrastructure and as we are seeing with track move to blockchain having the right infrastructure is critical so what infrastructure is needed and what this future infrastructure of all in one platforms actually look like.

So in, in my opinion, with a platform, especially if it's affecting your business through scale, is the best infrastructure is invisible.

It's quietly efficient in the background.

It's like electricity.

You just build, you know, it's there and it's reliable.

Um, look for modular, composable, uh, embedded type platforms.

Build around how the business, uh, built around how the business operates rather than the, than businesses have to live within the platform.

And Sam, I do want to talk about all in one platforms promising global commerce for merchants.

So one overlooked piece is integrated landing cost infrastructure which prevents merchants from surprise shipping fees as well as rejection.

So tell us about the structural gap that you say keeps getting missed.

Uh, well, most, most platforms, uh, are an all in one sort of outsource and you're, you know, living in their world.

So you're living sort of on how they price products or living on how they move products or you're living on how their subscription platforms work.

Um, with Reach When you're sort of embedded, we actually leverage all of the tools that most merchants and businesses are already used to.

So it really comes down to that embedded infrastructure, um, and living within the merchant's ecosystem rather than having them live within yours, which is, uh, in our opinion, backwards. and finally before I let you go, the merchant of record acts as the official seller in an e-commerce transaction.

Tell us why you say they are misunderstood and how they actually help businesses.

Uh, there's a lot of noise around merchant of record right now, and, and there's a lot of advantages, obviously, to using a merchant record under the right premise.

Um, merchants really have to understand, uh, When you're, uh, whether you're buying a software or where you're, where, or if you're buying actual infrastructure with local entities and where the merchant of record is actually responsible for that final sale, taking the liability, taking the fraud, and actually communicating with that final shopper.

There's a big difference between a software that allows you to access these features versus a merchant of record that is actually doing those for you and working within your ecosystem to increase sales and marketing.

And before I let you go, we have about 60 seconds here.

So what are trends as well as innovations that you're watching in the space.

Uh, obviously, tariffs is the big one. currency, you just had a segment that was talking about some wild volatility in currency.

That has a major effect on retailers selling into international markets.

Your product is, your, uh, the price of your products is either changing rapidly or you're taking risks while those are changing rapidly.

Um, so being able to, uh, access the right system to be able to hedge yourself or to at least put yourself in a position to win in global markets is absolutely paramount to what we're watching very closely.

Well, Sam, we will have to leave it there for today, but thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for sharing all of your insights.

Thank you, Remy.

Have a nice day.