‍What are microservices?

Microservices will expand beyond traditional web applications and be used in various settings. Microservices is a modern Software Architecture, which allows splitting complex software into smaller pieces, which reduces the complexity of the single modules, using the principal "separation of concern”. In addition this leads to easier reuse of the components and makes deployment and scaling easier (TatvaSoft, 2024). Businesses and organisations will recognise microservices’ value and capitalise on their advantages. Microservices will be used to create cloud-native applications, which can dramatically reduce costs, improve scalability, and increase development speed. Additionally, microservices will provide the flexibility and agility to quickly adapt to changing customer needs and market conditions. This will be especially beneficial for businesses that develop and launch new products.

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Examples in the DACH region

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SAVIVA: It is a leading service provider for the Swiss gastronomy, hotel, healthcare, and retail sectors in food wholesale and food logistics (CB Insights, 2025). Their B2B online Platform was newly built in 2021 based on Microservices.

Features of SAVIVA’s online-shop operated by microservices:

1. Shopping Cart Microservices: SAVIVA’s online shop uses microservices to handle shopping cart operations. With SAVIVA's service, customers can store items they choose to purchase, manage cart sessions, and update quantities and selections accordingly. SAVIVA’s cart service operates independently, ensuring a smooth shopping experience even during peak usage (ti&m, 2025).
2. ​​Product Information Microservices: SAVIVA supports data types such as product descriptions, images, prices, and availability (ti&m, 2025). These services allow real-time updates to the catalogue without affecting the entire system, making it easier to add new products, update details, and manage stock levels across multiple regions.
3. Search and Filtering Microservices: SAVIVA implements microservices for product searches and filters. These services allow customers to find fast and accurate results and apply dynamic filters (such as price, category, or dietary requirements) to their search results (ti&m, 2025).
4. Dynamic Pricing: A price engine operates as an independent microservice that adjusts prices in response to supply, demand, and ongoing promotions.
5. Payment Gateway Microservices: SAVIVA’s online shop integrates various payment gateways through microservices. Credit cards, digital wallets, and bank transfers are handled by separate services, ensuring a secure and efficient transaction process.
6. Inventory and Stock Microservices: The online shop’s inventory is managed through microservices that track product availability in real time. Through these services, SAVIVA maintains accurate stock levels on the website by communicating with warehouse systems and other parts of the supply chain (ti&m, 2025).

SAVIVA gains significant value by adopting microservices in its e-commerce webshop to achieve seamless, scalable, and highly personalised online shopping. As a result of microservices, SAVIVA can deploy enhanced features and updates quickly, keeping up with market trends and customers' demands without disrupting operations. Additionally, this architecture improves performance during peak traffic, increases reliability through service isolation, and allows integration of third-party services, such as payment gateways and logistics providers. By leveraging microservices, a microservice-based platform increases customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and long-term growth.

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Lieferladen.de: a microservice-run grocery store delivery and ecommerce shopping platform in Germany

Lieferladen.de is an online service that provides a convenient and all-encompassing solution for grocery delivery. It primarily focuses on local markets, allowing customers to buy a diverse range of fresh and high-quality groceries from the comfort of their home (De Monte, 2017).

Features of Lieferladen operated by microservices:

1. Wide Product Range: Customers can choose from various grocery items, ensuring they can find everything they need in one place ​​(Datrycs, 2022).
2. Local Sourcing: Lieferladen.de collaborates with local stores and suppliers, supporting local businesses and guaranteeing the freshness and quality of the products available (Datrycs, 2022).
3. Convenient Delivery: The platform offers flexible delivery options, allowing customers to select their preferred delivery times, which helps busy individuals and families save time and effort (Datrycs, 2022).
4. User-Friendly Interface: The online shopping experience is simple and user-friendly, making it easy for customers to navigate, select, and purchase items.
5. Sustainability Focus: Lieferladen.de often emphasises sustainability by promoting local products and reducing the carbon footprint associated with long-distance transportation (Keteres, 2025).

You can imagine the impact of microservices here: each aspect of their mission (product range, local sourcing, delivery, user-friendliness, sustainability) is a functional microservice intended to work seamlessly together as a separate entity, independently operating and orchestrated by a service (ScienceSoft, 2025).

Microservices can even be used by grocery delivery and catering services.

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MED-EL Austria: a microservice-run medical technology company in Austria

Based in Innsbruck, Austria, MED-EL designs and produces diverse implantable hearing devices to enhance the quality of life for individuals with hearing loss (MED-EL, 2025). Their product range includes cochlear implants, middle ear implants, and bone conduction devices (MED-EL, 2024).

Features of MED-EL built on operated by microservices:

1. Localisation: MED-EL has grown to more than 2,300 employees from around 80 nations and 30 locations worldwide. MED-EL needs to simplify and directly address localisation for all these countries and provide a satisfactory employee experience for consumers and clients (MED-EL, 2025).
2. User-friendliness: MED-EL knows that their website must be easy to navigate and well-structured. Clients need to reach checkout and further engagements as efficiently as possible.
3. Categorical sections: There are areas specially dedicated to B2B and B2C clients. Additionally, they have different types of cochlear implants that need to be placed onto their e-commerce platforms.
4. B2B and B2C designated areas: Several areas of their website, such as B2B and B2C, are deliberately structured to encourage users and business clients to engage with MED-EL’s services in different ways for their unique purposes (MED-EL, 2025).

By containerising its services and applying microservice technology, MED-EL can address various needs and services and engage with clients and consumers through its e-commerce composable webshop solution (Weber, 2022).

Medical technology companies can even use microservices

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ETH Switzerland: Microservice technology is being used to study agroecysystems

Interestingly, ETH Switzerland is intrigued by the affect of climate change. It is undeniable that climate change significantly impacts the biodiversity and ecosystem services of Earth (BiodivERsA, 2022).

Agroecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and unsustainable management, posing a direct threat to global food production. The urgent implementation of policies aimed at quantifying and mitigating the impact of climate change and unsustainable management on biodiversity is sorely lacking. Agriculture indisputably relies heavily on soil microbial diversity (BiodivERsA, 2022).

ETH (ETH Zurich, 2024) uses microservices to assess climate change impact on crop-soil-microbiome nexus. Soil biodiversity and cascading effects of climate change on agroecosystems are analyzed to anticipate and mitigate future impacts.

ETH intends to employ microservices to:

1. Assess how climate change will affect soil biodiversity and ecosystem services in the future
2. Educate the public and the policy makers about the importance of microbial diversity in sustainable agriculture
3. Interact with agricultural stakeholders (farmers) for the field work and with policymakers so that conclusions can be discussed in relation to national and European policy agendas.

Despite it’s recent funding planned for 01/04/2021 – 31/03/2024, we can see the versatility of using microservices even in the research domain. Microservices are flexible, dynamic, and can be structured in a way that simplifies even the most complex purpose (ETH Zurich, 2024).

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References:

BiodivERsA (2022). MICROSERVICES: Predicting climate change impacts on the crop microbiome and cascading effects on ecosystem services delivery in agroecosystems. BiodivERsA. https://www.biodiversa.eu/2022/10/26/microservices/

CB Insights (2025). Saviva Company Profile. CB Insights. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://www.cbinsights.com/company/saviva

Datrycs (2022). Emporix: Partnerseite. https://www.datrycs.com/de/partners/emporix

De Monte (2017). Lieferladen.de is leading the digital transformation in the German grocery market. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lieferladende-leading-digital-transformation-german-grocery-de-monte

ETH Zurich (2024). MICROSERVICES - Predicting and enhancing microbial-derived ecosystem services in a changing climate. Sustainable Agroecosystems Group. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://sae.ethz.ch/research/Soil_Biota_and_Nutrient_Cycling/microservices.html

Keteres (2025). What is local sourcing and how does it impact the environment? https://www.keteres.com/resource/what-is-local-sourcing

MED-EL. (2024). Cochlear Implants for Hearing Loss. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://www.medel.com/

MED-EL. (2025). About MED-EL. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://www.medel.com/about-medel

ScienceSoft (2025). Microservices in eCommerce: Benefits and challenges. https://www.scnsoft.com/ecommerce/microservices

TatvaSoft (2024). E-commerce microservices architecture – Benefits, use cases and challenges. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://www.tatvasoft.com/outsourcing/2024/02/e-commerce-microservices-architecture.html

ti&m (2025). Saviva: Centralised procurement and goods management in the food service industry. ti&m AG. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://www.ti8m.com/en/success-stories/retail/saviva

Weber (2022). Global Leading Technology Company MED-EL opts for a Modern B2B Composable Commerce Solution. Emporix Blog. Retrieved April 8, 2025, from https://www.emporix.com/blog/med-el-opts-for-a-modern-b2b-composable-commerce-solution

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