Most of the Hybris commerce or Commerce Cloud projects are a part of the Digital Transformation initiatives at various organizations. The objective of these initiatives is to transform the systems/platforms and associated business processes to offer customers a unique service experience that exceeds their expectations. In this white paper, we have shared our learnings from multiple Commerce Cloud/Hybris Commerce implementations with backend SAP integration. These lessons are the recommendations that can help you plan your implementations better. Key Learnings are: Benefit Driven Digital Transformation with key KPI measurements for solution lifetime Select an Implementation Partner who knows both Hybris and SAP Break the walls between teams and align them to project goal – One Team Strong Project Management with tight scope control Download this white paper to find out how to implement complex Hybris Commerce project with integration to SAP S/4HANA, C/4HANA, ECC/CRM successfully.

1. LEARNINGS FROM
SAP HYBRIS COMMERCE
IMPLEMENTATION
DESCRIPTION
The lessons learned that are described in this document have been
incorporated based on multiple Hybris Commerce implementations
with backend SAP integration. These lessons are the recommendations
and views of the author that can help you plan your implementations
better.
Key Learnings
____
Strong Project
Management with
tight scope control
____
Select an
Implementation
Partner who knows
both Hybris and SAP
____
Break the walls
between teams and
align them to one
project goal – One
Team
____
Benefit Driven Digital
Transformation with
key KPI
measurements for
solution lifetime

2. OBJECTIVES
Most of the Hybris commerce projects are a part of the Digital Transformation initiatives at various
organizations. The objective of these initiatives is to transform the systems/platforms and associated
business processes to offer customers a unique service experience that exceeds their expectations. In
addition, it improves organizations agility in innovating, launching new products & services and rapid time
to value.
IMPLEMENTATION LANDSCAPE
The systems/software for these Hybris B2B/B2C implementations includes SAP ECC, SAP CRM, SAP Hybris
for Commerce, SAP Cloud Platform Integration (SCPI), DataHub, SAP Hybris for Service/Sales, SAP CPQ and
their integration with third-party software. Some of the third-party integrations include SiteMinder & OKTA
for SSO, Vertex/Vertex/Avalara/Sabrix for Tax software, Trillium/Informatica for address validation,
Salesforce for opportunities, Paymetric for Credit cards, SharePoint/Akamai for content/digital assets, UPS
& FedEx for shipping details, Google Analytics/Webtrends for reporting and many others.
LEARNINGS
1. Implementation Partner
a) Select an implementation partner who has done multiple complex global SAP Hybris
implementations with different currencies, languages, and countries
b) They should have experience in integration of SAP ECC/CRM with SAP Hybris, in addition to
integration with other third-party software for credit cards, taxes, freight etc.
c) Implementation partner should have SAP team members along with Hybris team
d) They should own the complete solution and design the architecture and solution that supports end-
to-end e-commerce, logistics and invoicing processes.
e) Ideally the solution architect should be an expert in Hybris as well as SAP.

3. 2. Project Team
a) Many companies assume Digital transformation projects are primarily owned by Marketing and
realize later during the project the need for additional SME’s from other departments. Continuous
business involvement throughout the project is a key for the success of the initiative.
b) Ensure business teams from Marketing, User experience/Creative, Order Admin, Customer Support,
Logistics, Finance, Material, Web content, Pricing, Change Management and Legal departments have
adequate representations with key decision makers from each area
c) SAP, Cloud Infrastructure, Network, Testing, Project Management, Security, Database
Administration, Middleware, and Web IT teams should be participating in the project.
d) Key members selected from each area should be SME’s and highly experienced in their areas
whether they are from business or IT
3. Methodology
a) SAP ECC/CRM are traditionally Waterfall based projects. Hybris projects normally use agile
methodology. Our recommendation is to use a mixed methodology which incorporates both
Waterfall and Agile, especially with Hybris projects that integrate with backend ERP systems.
b) Allocate sufficient time for a detailed design phase for end to end processes, which can be based on
the waterfall method. The development, configuration, testing and validation could be iterative, and
sprint based.
c) Proper planning needs to be done to keep sprints in alignment for SAP and Hybris development tasks
4. Project Management
a) A single master project plan which incorporates all systems and third-party software, design comps,
wires and content should be created at the beginning of the project with agreement from key
stakeholders. Sufficient time should be allocated for this activity.
b) Project managers should have experience on both SAP and Hybris projects as both projects have
been following a different methodology.
c) A Project RACI is very helpful in defining and assigning roles & responsibilities across multiple teams
d) Over communication between the various teams should be encouraged by the PMO
e) Detailed and single Cutover plan incorporating all tasks that need to be performed for different
systems is a must have.
5. Integration
a) There are multiple options to integrate SAP Hybris with SAP ECC/CRM like SAP PO/PI, DataHub, SAP
Cloud Platform integration, Dataloader and Third-party middleware products. Each integration
approach has its own challenges and a proper analysis should be done.

4. b) Clients who already own SAP PO/PI for middleware can leverage it for integration. SAP Cloud
Platform Integration (SCPI) would be the preferred integration approach as most software products
these days are cloud based. SCPI should be preferred over Datahub.
c) CPQ/Dataloader still have multiple issues and they need to be resolved or escalated to SAP asap.
d) Plan for a resource who will be managing middleware errors and troubleshooting during Integration
Testing, User Acceptance Testing and Post go-live.
e) Expect significant changes in Hybris Data model for products, price, customers and orders for
integration between SAP ECC/CRM and Hybris specially for B2B scenarios.
f) Plan for significant time for design, development and testing for integration with back end SAP
systems as well as other third products like Single Sign On, Credit cards, Freight, Carrier, Inventory,
Tax and Analytics.
6. Product Catalog
a) Most companies have a complex product catalog/s with multiple attributes, digital assets and
hierarchies which can vary by country, customer, channel partner etc. This Information is stored
across many different and disparate systems and even physical documents. Definition of product
attributes and gathering this information is a challenging and tedious task. A product champion with
significant product experience should be allocated for driving product catalog tasks, along with PMO
support.
b) Tools like Akamai should be used for storage and organizing of digital assets
c) Plenty of time should be allocated for designing and gathering of information for product catalog
d) Templates need to be properly defined in advance for capturing the requisite information for
product catalog components like Categories, Product Attributes, Digital Assets etc.
e) Design of Product launch and obsolescence processes should not be forgotten
f) Country/Sales Organization specific product catalogs and business process for post go-live
management of changes need to be incorporated in the design
g) A single master product catalog across the organization is a very good idea.
7. Customer
a) SAP’s representation of B2B Customers is quite complex (e.g. Sold to, Bill to, Payer, Hierarchy etc.)
and Hybris has to be enhanced significantly to match SAP’s data model.
b) Customers, Distributors and Dealers have complex hierarchies with users being assigned to multiple
customers. The design of customer and users requires significant time. Business should provide
various representative examples in order to finalize the design
c) Customer registration, new customer creation & inactivation with related user linkage and
deactivation processes need to be properly defined

5. 8. Pricing
a) SAP supports complex pricing with various business rules that are difficult to replicate. Depending
on the complexity of your business and pricing, synchronous pricing should be leveraged. Complex
pricing calls to SAP ECC could be slow and may have a performance impact.
b) Pricing in Hybris should be done if the pricing model is simple and is based on Material,
Customer/Material or Customer/Material attributes/grouping. This eliminates the dependency on
SAP and helps an improved performance during pricing.
c) Complex freight rules and freight pricing should ideally be leveraged from SAP ECC if possible.
9. Sales orders/Shopping Cart/Check Out
a) A key challenge is to decide whether orders should be created in Hybris first and replicated to SAP
or should they be created in SAP directly. Multiple factors including order replication issues, building
business rules again in Hybris, Taxes, Pricing, Credit cards, Credit check, Order approvals, ATP, Order
history etc. should be considered before making the decision.
b) Changes to Sales orders should not be allowed in Hybris, but plan for changes to Sales orders in SAP
due to various reasons like Customer Service, Order Processing & Fulfillment etc.
c) Plan for development of an Order simulation and other API’s during Shopping Cart and Check Out
process. Avoid multiple order simulation calls to SAP as it could impact performance. This may be
needed to avoid building business rules in Hybris and leveraging them from SAP system.
10. Back office/Assisted Service Module (ASM)
a) Although a lot of time and energy is spent on the design and User experience of customers, Back
office (ASM) design & development and employee business process, including impersonation is of
critical importance.
b) Plan for sufficient time for Back office enhancements and in some cases new functionality.
c) Clear definition of business processes in Back office and SAP for employees with Single Sign On
11. Web Content
a) A separate team should be assigned the task of Web content creation, feedback and business & legal
approval. Ensure relevant teams are included in this.
b) Preview, review and approval of Web content (using Smartedit) before publishing needs to be done
with proper planning and due care.
12. Design Comps & Wires
a) Ensure you have professional UX designers in the project team
b) Mockup of the User interface with the ability to provide feedback in the mockup enables faster
review and feedback.

6. c) Key stakeholders with decision making authority should be involved in this and fringe team members
should not be included.
d) Separate internal meetings should be planned for gaining consensus on Wires and Design comps.
Definition of a consensus building process should be done upfront.
e) Limit the number of review and approval iterations to a max of 2
13. Testing
a) Proper testing of the end to end solution as well as unit testing of features and functionality should
be done, including Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Regression Testing, Unit Technical
Testing, Unit Functional testing, Smoke Testing, Exploratory Testing, Sanity and Performance Testing
for a robust and bug free solution
b) Ideally, a single tool is recommended for tracking Test scripts planning & execution, Issues, and Issue
resolution. However, SAP teams typically have their own tools like Solution Manager, HP ALM,
Panaya etc. which may differ than a Testing tool for Hybris. In such a case, a proper definition of how
end-to-end testing will be performed across multiple systems needs to be done by the QA team at
the beginning of the project.
c) Performance Testing should be done using Performance Testing tools such as Dynatrace, that can
simulate real world scenarios and large volumes of transactions.
14. Data Load
a) Data load strategy should be defined upfront for products, categories, SKU’s, digital assets, product
attributes, pricing, customers (Sold To/Ship to/Bill To/Payer), users/contact persons, customer
hierarchy, sales orders and custom objects
b) Data load templates should be pre-defined accurately
c) Large volumes of data should be loaded thru IMPEX. Mock data loads should be done for large
volumes of data.
d) Smaller volumes of data can be loaded using OCC (Omni Commerce Connect) web service
e) Data load can be triggered from SAP using EDI which can also be used after go-live for new and
changed records
15. Conclusion
Hybris Commerce projects with integration to SAP ECC/CRM are quite complex and take a significant
amount of resources, time and cost, and hence should be planned well. These projects involve multi
department teams with a need to break departmental silos and serve as a part of the digital transformation
initiatives. It would be a good idea to do a small discovery project of about 4 to 8 weeks to define and
accurately capture the project vision, goals and business requirements.

7. AUTHOR
Ashish Saxena
Ashish Saxena is a co-founder of Accrete Consulting Solutions and is responsible for delivery of E-
commerce Sales, Service, Logistics and Finance solutions. Ashish is a highly experienced professional with
20+ years of business, technology and digital consulting experience. His consulting experience includes
multiple digital transformation projects to reimagine customer experiences, full lifecycle SAP projects with
responsibilities including project management and team leadership, strategy/roadmap and business
process design, scoping and blueprinting, solution design, deployment and support.
Ashish can be reached at Ashish@accretesol.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishcrm/
For all enquiries please contact at: corpinfo@accretesol.com, Tel: +1(877)-849-5838
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