In the traditional on-premise world, a supplier / partner was often perceived in a way, and, at the same time, put himself in a role, where he would fulfill the customer's wishes. Taking into account existing so-called best practices, he would apply the "customer invents, we implement" approach. In this environment the projects turned into a custom development, and that is mainly for two reasons:

• Insufficient process and industry know-how of an implementation
• Partner sticking with a customer in order to keep generating new requests covered by a custom development

This principle, considering the continuously growing pressure on a project’s price, is natural. However, it constitutes a trap that can hardly be gauged in advance for the final customer who will use the system for some time. Using the system involves one of the solution's life cycles and that is its upgrade.

Cloud solutions emphasize much more the role of an implementation partner in the activation process. The role of such a partner is distinctly shifted into the sphere of so called „trusted advisor“ whose main and crucial task is to guide the customer through the project of cloud solution activation. Cloud, from the nature of its designation, has limited possibilities of custom development, compared to on-premise solutions. It is understandable since the nature of cloud solutions is based on the number of customers using this solution, which overall brings one of its advantages in the form of financial investment.

This approach forces the partner to standardly deploy an appropriate solution even though, certain specifics can be taken in consideration. On the other hand, a customer who accepts this approach has a certain guarantee of continuous development of the solution without any major financial and human investment. This parameter gains in importance when we take in consideration the fact that most cloud solutions release their new versions quarterly or half-yearly.

Are you interested in SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer? Read more about the solution and the customer reference.

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