Retail autonomy: Why we need to rethink the ‘standard first’ mantra

For a long time, there was an ironclad rule in retailers’ IT strategy: “Standard software before in-house development”. The aim was clear: to reduce complexity, benefit from the best practices of major providers, and outsource maintenance responsibilities. However, the conditions for this model have shifted dramatically in recent times. Whilst licence costs for standard products are rising steadily, the barriers to customised solutions are falling drastically thanks to agent-based approaches. It is time for a critical review.

The economic reality: why standard products are becoming more expensive

The rise in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for large standard suites is not a subjective perception, but the result of tangible market dynamics. Anyone relying on large standard solutions today is often confronted with a cost structure that leaves little room for operational manoeuvre.

The ‘cloud transition’ premium

Analysts such as Gartner and Forrester have observed for some time that the switch from traditional on-premise licences to SaaS models rarely leads to cost savings. On the contrary: providers often use the transition to redesign their pricing models. What used to be a one-off investment is now a permanent, often rising operating expense.

SaaS inflation

Market studies, including those by Vertice, confirm the existence of “SaaS inflation”, which is significantly higher than the general rate of inflation. Annual price adjustments in the high single-digit range are now standard practice across the industry. As the barriers to switching are extremely high for deeply integrated ERP systems, retailers often find themselves caught in a one-sided price spiral.

Bundling and the “Innovation Tax”

Another trend is “packaging”. Valuable new features – particularly in the field of artificial intelligence – are often not integrated into existing licences. They must be purchased via expensive premium packages or separate add-ons. Retailers thus pay for innovative capabilities that they must laboriously “rent” from the standard provider.

The functional gap: When ‘standard’ no longer fits

Far more serious than the sheer cost, however, is the issue of functional fit. In various requirements analyses within the ‘merchandise management’ domain, we made an interesting discovery: Up to 50% of retailers’ requirements cannot be easily mapped in the standard system.

The surprising thing is that these are usually not exotic niche requests. They concern processes that many decision-makers assume to be “standard”, but which in reality secure individual competitiveness and margins.

• Agile pricing: Modern retailers need pricing logic that goes far beyond static discounts. Those seeking to control prices in real time based on market data, stock levels and complex sets of terms and conditions often encounter rigid limitations within the standard system.
• Product range management: The ability to allocate goods with high precision to store groups, channels or seasonal clusters is at the heart of retail. Standard suites often offer only coarse grids here, which do not meet the necessary level of granularity.
• Terms and conditions management: The mapping of individual supplier agreements and complex rebate models is highly customised. Here, rigid adherence to the standard mantra often leads to costly workarounds and manual shadow processes.

The ‘best-of-breed’ cost trap

Many retailers know that the standard suite alone is not enough. They supplement the system with specialised ‘best-of-breed’ components to compensate for the functional shortcomings. Whilst these specialised solutions bridge the operational gap, they ultimately lead to massive additional costs. It is not uncommon to end up paying twice – for the basic licence of the suite, which is not fully utilised functionally, and for the additional specialist software on top.

The technological lever: adSCAILE and the new efficiency

Why was bespoke development often the bane of CIOs’ existence in the past? Because it was considered expensive, risky and difficult to maintain. But this is precisely where a paradigm shift is taking place. With adSCAILE (adesso Smart Cycle for AI-enhanced Lightweight Software Engineering), we have created a framework for agent-based software development that completely redefines the cost-effectiveness of in-house development.

Today, we are talking about efficiency gains in the high double-digit percentage range across the entire software lifecycle. But where exactly do these gains come from? It is not a matter of ‘typing faster’, but rather a fundamental change in process driven by the use of specialised AI agents:

Automation of routine tasks

A significant portion of development time is traditionally spent on repetitive tasks: setting up data structures, writing interface code (APIs) or creating technical documentation. Within the adSCAILE framework, specialised AI agents handle these tasks autonomously. They generate code scaffolding strictly in accordance with defined architectural specifications, freeing up human developers to focus on creative and complex business logic.

“Shift-Left” Quality & Testing

In traditional projects, errors are often only discovered late in the process, leading to costly correction cycles. adSCAILE integrates test agents directly into the development process. These agents write automated tests and perform static code analysis even during development. The result is a significantly higher “first-time-right” rate and a drastic reduction in time-consuming rework.

Agent-based orchestration

The biggest leap comes from the shift from the line-level to the task-level. Instead of programming each command individually, developers act as orchestrators of fleets of agents. Complex tasks – such as implementing a new module for condition checking – are delegated to the agent-based environment. This environment designs, implements and validates the proposal, whilst humans take charge of strategic quality control.

Seamless knowledge management

Familiarisation with existing code bases or the analysis of complex business requirements is massively accelerated by adSCAILE. Information is available on demand, and the AI agents help to immediately assess the impact of changes within the system. This reduces the dreaded ‘maintenance trap’ associated with bespoke software.

Conclusion: Autonomy as a strategic option

We expressly advise against blindly abandoning standards. Standard software continues to provide a necessary foundation for value-neutral processes. However, we encourage you to consistently question the ‘standard-first’ doctrine where it hinders differentiation and drives up costs.

Thanks to the adSCAILE framework, the threshold at which a bespoke solution becomes more cost-effective than an expensive, inflexible standard module has dropped significantly. It is not a question of demonising the standard, but of investing in software sovereignty where your competitiveness – in agile pricing, product range management or terms and conditions management – is decided.

Customisation is no longer a technical luxury, but – thanks to agent-based support – an economically sound decision for the future of your retail business.