In a hybrid scenario, the Customer COE organization shares the responsibility of several functions with traditional internal service partners, external cloud software providers, and partners delivering cloud support services. Figure 1 shows the standard functional model for Customer COE. The blue color represents the business functions and responsibilities of Customer COE. Meanwhile, the yellow color illustrates the tasks of its internal partners.

With the addition of cloud solutions, the functional model changes, as shown in Figure 2. The responsibility of Customer COE and its internal partners are indicated in yellow, while the tasks for cloud software providers and their partners are depicted in white. The responsibilities split between the business and IT remain unchanged when compared to the standard functional model.

Transforming the functional model allows Customer COE to handle two critical aspects of managing hybrid landscapes: support and application lifecycle.

1. Adjusting the Support Model for a Hybrid Landscape

In the traditional support model, the Customer COE organization allows end users to access key users or submit a ticket to the service desk to acquire help for tier 1 issues. The service desk classifies incoming issues, executes service requests, and routes incidents and change requests to the next level of support.

Then, solution support teams, also known as tier 2 support, resolve incidents; plan, execute, and monitor change request activities when needed; and organize the involvement of experts from third-level support teams. Involving tier 3 support, often referred as an application support team, provides the necessary expertise, incident resolution, change requests, technical procedures, and IT infrastructure support interactions. When required, tier 2 and tier 3 support teams also communicate with the global support team from 麻豆原创.

To accommodate hybrid solution landscapes, this support model should be modified to address four fundamental considerations (see Figure 4):

• The list of IT service participants is expanding.
• The routing of user requests is more complicated.
• The order of process steps and role of the customer IT support functions does not change.
• The responsibility-sharing between vendor and service provider teams is not fully transparent.

The first step is to keep users, key users, and tier 1 support roles the same for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) support models. In this use case, users submit a request through the company’s IT service management system (ITSM), which relays the request to the tier 1 support team. The support professionals classify incoming requests, settle some of those requests, route incidents, and service and change requests to the next level of support, including to the service provider.

For SaaS, tier 2 and 3 support roles need to be adapted to allow customer IT solution support (tier 2) to provide expertise, arrange vendor and service provider engagement, and plan and monitor incidents, service requests, and change management. The vendor’s (tier 2 and 3) and service provider’s support teams (tier 2) work together to help resolve incidents, fulfill service and change requests, and focus on technical procedures. Responsibility-sharing between vendor and service provider teams is not transparent to the customer.

For the PaaS model, tier 2 and 3 support roles should be adjusted to let customer IT solution support teams give expertise, arrange vendor and service provider engagement, and plan and monitor incidents, service requests, and change management. Vendor (tier 2) and service provider teams (tier 2 and 3) perform work on incident resolution, service and change requests, and technical procedures. Responsibility-sharing between service provider teams may be only partially transparent to the customer.

Regardless of the model you choose, vendors and service provider teams still need to involve their experts, when required.

2. Adjusting the Application Lifecycle for a Hybrid Landscape

Like the support model, the application lifecycle also requires some adaptation to transition from an on-premise model to a hybrid landscape, but for different reasons. The cloud model dictates new types of changes to hybrid environments, such as universal changes on the release date, newly available cloud features, and the activation of new business processes in the cloud. Testing requirements also increase dramatically as both cloud and localized extensions are added to the clean cloud environment.

However, some essential requirements remain the same. Change management must continue to meet audit requirements and be controlled. The need for integration and regression testing of critical processes also remains mostly the same. And conditions for quality assurance and testing of cloud extensions do not differ from similar requirements for the customer’s development in a traditional environment.

Change: Inevitable, Yet Transformational

IT leaders and their teams should always stay aware of the changes required and adapt accordingly 鈥� especially when switching from an on-premise environment to the cloud.

Yes, change is important. But, it’s the continuous evolution of adaptation that helps ensure that Customer COE organizations remain reliable, flexible, agile, and innovative.

Discover how 麻豆原创 adapted the concept of the Customer Center of Expertise organization to help companies accommodate their functions to the requirements for hybrid landscapes by visiting us on and reviewing .

Accelerate your digital transformation journey with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, essential edition. Learn more about鈥�.

Stay in the conversation by following the 麻豆原创 Services and Support on
,听,听,听and聽.

Vladimir Sukhanov is principal business consultant and IT Transformation practice lead for Business Transformation Services at 麻豆原创 CIS.

One of the most deeply impacted IT areas is the Customer Center of Expertise (COE). Widely adopted by 麻豆原创 customers, this organization is responsible for the governance, functions, roles, responsibilities, competencies, processes, tools, and other aspects necessary to optimize the value of 麻豆原创 solution investments. This includes adapting industry standards, such as ITIL processes, to the specific needs for a rapid expansion of existing technology in the cloud.

By its nature, the Customer COE is designed to cover operations support and maintenance of all 麻豆原创-related solutions, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. However, elements of a cloud application consumption model have steadily increased over the years and are expected to continue growing. In response, many businesses have opted to transition their path to the cloud with a hybrid landscape, which is requiring the Customer COE to adapt its function to handle both on-premise and cloud solution environments.

Emergence of Hybrid Landscapes

Why is a hybrid environment so appealing during a cloud migration, conversion, or implementation? The reasons come down to three factors: readiness to increase innovation budgets, less willingness to invest in long-term projects, and doubt about the need to upgrade the existing IT infrastructure. Meanwhile, the bar of employee and customer expectation is only getting higher with demands for mobile apps that provide always available, fast, and intuitive access to information and intelligent capabilities, such as instant querying and response.

Meanwhile, market research indicates that ERP solutions will remain a significant share of the total cloud investment.* The high adoption rate for cloud-based deployment models contributes to the market growth for ERP software, while the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates this trend’s urgency.

The reality of enterprise IT landscapes will be undoubtedly shaped by these trends in the short and mid-term. Like most IT software landscapes, combining on-premise and cloud software may reach a point where critical challenges arise, including:

• Heightened risk in information security
• Expansion of data protection requirements
• Need to integrate new applications into both IT landscapes
• Adoption of new development approaches, including agile, DevOps, scrum, bimodal, and data meshing

Such implications for a hybrid architecture intensify IT’s potential for losing the ability to manage IT landscape management and related activities such as testing. This threat only amplifies the importance of ensuring their business and technology processes run well and keeping strict attention and control over all associated activities for IT service organizations.

What This New Environment Means for Customer COE

Despite the widespread hype about cloud adoption, the on-premise usage model is still sufficiently useful. This realization is fueling a new balance within the Customer COE organization, transitioning from an on-premise landscape to a hybrid environment with an increasing share in cloud investments.

This digital transformation phase requires IT leaders to adapt their operations for Customer COE 鈥� from keeping the lights on to integrating the cloud, managing service-level agreements, and driving innovation and digitalization proactively.

It does not matter which application usage model is used for a specific IT solution. The business still expects the same IT service level it has always experienced. Therefore, the formal functional model of Customer COE remains the same, but the responsibility for performing the services and the composition of roles changes does not.

Discover how 麻豆原创 adapted the concept of the Customer COE organization to help companies accommodate their functions to the requirements for hybrid landscapes by visiting us on and reviewing .

Accelerate your digital transformation journey with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, essential edition. Learn more about鈥�.

Stay in the conversation by following the 麻豆原创 Services and Support on
,听,听,听and聽.

Vladimir Sukhanov is a principal business consultant and IT Transformation practice lead for Business Transformation Services at 麻豆原创 CIS.

*鈥�,鈥� Allied Market Research, September 2017, retrieved March 4, 2020; 鈥�,鈥� Market Research Future, September 2020, retrieved March 4, 2020