SAP develops these solutions with its partners on an open platform as a service and helps customers to quickly introduce innovations in the IT landscape. Leading companies in the mechanical, equipment, and component engineering industry are moving to offer customized solutions on a broad basis and as a service in response to global trends that are reshaping industrial manufacturing, such as digitization, increasingly demanding customers, changing competitive conditions, globalization, and outsourcing based on cost-benefit considerations. Industry-specific cloud solutions for mechanical, equipment and component engineering offer companies the opportunity to interact smoothly and consistently with customers via various channels such as the Internet, in direct contact or via the Internet of Things.