Whether it be manufacturing or sourcing issues, transportation costs, labor shortages, inflation, or calamities like the global bird flu, consumers continue to be burdened with higher prices and low inventory of items needed to feed their families.

Why The Shortages?

Since 2020, container costs to transport goods through the supply chain have increased four to five times pre-pandemic levels. Vendors and grocery store retailers will now wait for full container loads before shipping product to their customers and selling locations.

Not helping the situation, the labor pool to pick, pack, and ship product is at 50% of pre-2020 levels due to an aging truck driver pool and lack of available labor to move the product through the supply chain.

Heading into 2023, it’s more important than ever to understand a product’s lifecycle through the supply chain. Integrated forecast tools help predict consumer demand, but these tools initially use historical sales data to predict order cycle and selling patterns.

Using historical data from the last two to three years can’t be relied upon to develop a demand forecast, considering the issues that plagued the supply chain due to the pandemic.

How Tracking and Predicting Are Keys to Success

With the help of logistics and forecasting tools to better track and predict consumer demand, issues with lost sales can be overcome. An automated supply chain that tracks the lifecycle of the product from the point of manufacture or purchase through the sale of those products is essential.

Prior to placing a purchase order, the process must start with vendor collaboration. Leading grocery retailers provide forward-looking SKU level forecasts of anticipated demand so the vendors can schedule labor accordingly to manufacture product ahead of the planned order cycle. With labor in such short supply, understanding demand patterns is critical for the manufacturer.

The Order Lifecycle

Once an order is placed, moving the product through the supply chain as quickly as possible to track where and when that product becomes available for sale is crucial.

Advance Shipping Notifications

It starts with an ASN (Advanced Shipping Notification), alerting the grocer of the details of the order to be shipped.

Grocery retailers with advanced allocation methods and procedures will provide DSD (Direct Store Delivery) instructions on the original order or will provide pre-allocation instructions for their distribution centers. They do this in order to cross dock product from the Distribution Center (DC) to store without repacking or using put away methods for later distribution to their selling locations.

The speed of the delivery is essential and having accurate shipment information to allocate those orders begins with the ASN.

Master Data and Inventory

When the product is received at a selling location or available for customer pick-up or home delivery, accurate master data is key to moving product from the shelf to the end consumer.

Whether that data is managed solely by the vendor via VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) or handled centrally by the grocer, accurate inventory availability is a must for shoppers ordering online.

According to McKinsey, 20-30% of all grocery purchases occurred online during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Today many services offer same day delivery ( Peapod, Instacart, Fresh Direct, Amazon Fresh, GoPuff, Uber Eats, Door Dash, etc) and each rely on real-time inventory availability to fulfill customer orders.

While the percentage of online grocery purchases is no longer at pandemic levels, many customers now prefer home delivery due to the convenience that comes with all options available by ordering online.

Promotion Planning

Leading grocery retailers use targeted promotional offers for these customers no matter what channel they order from, based on their purchasing history usually through loyalty programs.

Planning profitable promotions are paramount to driving sales across all channels through vendor deals and in-store promotional offers. These promotions are planned and forecasted throughout the year based on offer type and margin targets.

Automated Replenishments

Finally, once a product is sold, automated replenishment processes kick in to generate reorders to the vendor and/or distribution center to keep the shelves full based on anticipated need.

A combination of recent sales data and sophisticated demand forecasting techniques drive future suggested orders to the selling locations using these algorithms.

Inventory analysts rely on automated replenishment systems to drive the ordering process as many of them are responsible for thousands of SKU/store/channel combinations and can only review exceptions based on business rules defined for the product mix.

When working properly, automated replenishment can:

• Reduce costs
• Provide higher service levels
• Increase inventory turn
• Allow the grocer to run with lower stock levels based on the replenishment cycle

A Modern Retail ERP Solution

Leading retailers are turning to SAP S/4HANA^® Retail and Merchandise Management solution to enable capabilities that will support a dynamic supply chain strategy.

SAP Customer Activity Repository (SAP CAR) provides grocery retailers with the ability to plan promotions that support sales targets and analyze their effectiveness.

Picking the Right SAP Partner Is Key

Rizing has partnered with SAP to deliver outstanding experiences to our customers with end-to-end SAP S/4HANA Retail capabilities in vertical markets including grocery.

Since 2003, we have completed more grocery SAP implementations in North America than any other SAP service provider. If your company is preparing for a new SAP implementation or plans on migrating from ECC to S/4HANA, Rizing has the capability to help you accomplish your goal.

Rizing’s objective is to enable every business that uses SAP solutions to achieve a truly intelligent enterprise. We help our customers with a combination of our own deep industry experience and leading SAP technologies.

Get started with SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Retail by taking our specialized assessment session.

Barry Adam
Rizing Senior Director, Business Development

The post Grocery Retailers – Is Your ERP Capable of Supporting Your Supply Chain Strategy? appeared first on Rizing.

Start with the end in mind.

The first step in your SAP S/4HANA implementation project – is understanding your business objectives and clearly defining expected outcomes. Your leaders have objectives – profit, market share, customer engagement, innovation, use of resources, or increased productivity –  and technology should align to support and enable that vision. Perhaps your leaders have aligned on fixing a specific weakness that will enable these goals or on innovation to accelerate success above and beyond your competitors.

Whatever the purpose of the technology engagement, leadership alignment at the outset, not only on the objectives but also on the priority and weight of each objective, guides implementation project decisions. Throughout your project, you, your technical team, and your business leaders should return to this often, especially when changes to scope are proposed, questions arise, or decisions are needed. The outcomes you all agree to should guide difficult choices and decisions that will be needed throughout your project.

A successful SAP S/4HANA implementation:

1. meets the business requirements,
2. is delivered on schedule,
3. is maintained within the allocated budget, and
4. provides a return on investment (ROI)

ROI is only achievable with an understanding of expected outcomes and clear adherence to business goals.

Define your fashion or retail industry challenge: What’s holding you back?

Many users will go into a project like an SAP S/4AHANA implementation with specific requests in mind:  “I need better reporting, so give me SAP Analytics Cloud,” for example. As a business analyst, my first question to every user was, “what is the business problem you are trying to solve?” because simply applying technology won’t solve all your challenges.

Consumer Industry experts who really understand fashion and retail processes and know SAP will be crucial to your success.  Conversations about your unique challenges – your pain points, benefits, competitors’ successes, and future vision – lead to a greater understanding when you and your consulting team are “speaking the same fashion/retail language.”

What are your fashion and retail competitors doing?

Considering your business case, project plan, and defined outcomes, it might help to look at other customer success stories. In fashion and retail especially, it pays to have a healthy understanding of your competition – including how they optimized their technology.

Success with SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Retail

Case #1: Simplification enables the agility to support responsiveness to customers.

Goal: Achieve leadership’s aggressive growth strategy.

What held them back: A complex legal structure strangled the efficient movement of goods. The legacy ERP was unable to handle this kind of complexity.

Solution:

• The company’s complex legal structure was setup using standard out-of-the-box capability in SAP S/4HANA
• Innovation by Rizing provided a seamless and transparent process by automating the flash transfer process
• S/4HANA functionality enabled a relatively simple process for statutory reporting required for the complex legal set-up

Carhartt managed rapid growth and marketplace disruption with flexible omnichannel capabilities. Read more.

Case #2: Retail inventory audit and tracking contains expenses.

Goal:  Increase profitability and eliminate waste.

What held them back: The inability to track and trace or audit inventory discrepancies in stores resulted in differences between stores and warehouses that had to be written off.

• Significant inventory discrepancies in the retail stores
• No ability to track and trace inventory or audit inventory discrepancies in stores
• At the end of the day, inventory between the warehouse and stores would be overlayed as the new inventory – any differences would have to be written off without an audit

Solution:

• SAP’s suite of FIORI applications for store operations provided the customer with the capability to perform inventory operations in stores in real-time
• The store operations apps, along with SAP CAR (Customer Active Repository) provided the customer with the capability to have real-time visibility of inventory in the stores
• Rizing-developed enhancements enabled the capability to audit discrepancies due to over and under-deliveries from the warehouse

Maxport Improved FI month-end closing lead times with real-time logistics movements. Read their story.

Case #3: Increase customer satisfaction with real-time inventory evaluation

Goal:  Prioritize key customers and manage backorders in the proper sequence.

What held them back: Outdated ERP platform needs to provide real-time data.

Solution:

• SAP S/4HANA® out-of-the-box functionality solved supply assignments
• Rizing delivered Advanced Available to Prioritize (aATP) functionality to manage last-minute order changes and unanticipated production problems, ensuring top customers’ orders are fulfilled in priority order
• Back Order Processing (BOP) with aATP in SAP S/4HANA provided the capability to run availability checks and reconfirm the entire order book

Nice Apparel applied industry best practices across the organization with SAP S/4HANA’s digital core providing the ability to extend and expand as business requirements evolve. Read more. 

Experience matters. Get the Right Solution with the Right Fashion and Retail Industry Expertise

When it comes to what you need to make your business excel, you are the experts. You know your business best. We’re here to help you reimagine the solutions to your real-world challenges. We’ve been there in your world, we speak your language, and we’re driven to solve the smallest or most complex challenges in fashion and retail.

The post Measuring Outcomes for a Perfect Fit: SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Retail appeared first on Rizing.

You probably wouldn’t want us to design the latest runway style. We do, however, know SAP S/4HANA for the fashion and retail industry, so let’s talk about that.

Reimagine Fashion and Retail with SAP, Rizing, and S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Vertical is an end-to-end solution that supports companies with retail, wholesale, and manufacturing processes across the supply chain. Rizing works with you to take SAP S/4HANA from assessment through design, implementation, and post-go-live support – all with the understanding of someone who has worked in your industry because we have.

An important component of the design is establishing your digital core to support your business wherever it goes. Jumpstart your blueprint and make future development simple with a template built on best practices by fashion experts: Rizing’s Future Reference Solution. And, as a partner certified with advanced competency in SAP’s Business Technology Platform, we can help you design your solution to automate processes, integrate discrete applications, create custom user interfaces, and improve analytics and forecasting.

Imagine your brand supported by

·      Unified systems and processes

·      Accelerated innovation and time to market with the SAP Business Technology Platform

·      Flexible and dependable eCommerce that supports purchasing decisions by your target audience

·      Integrated, real-time merchandising management

·      Omnichannel shopping journeys to take the customer from online to in store

·      Promotional planning integrated across platforms

·      Competitive, intelligent pricing

·      Real-time customer and sales insights – harmonized across multi-channel customer experiences

·      A consistent brand image visible to and embraced by both customers and employees

Reassess the paradigms of your organization,
define your company to meet the future demands of a shifting economy and changing buyer behavior, and become the leader who wins in the digital era. 

Design to Optimize Resources and Outcomes

We know time is critical in fashion and retail, and – while there’s a lot that goes into the design of SAP S/4HANA – we can help accelerate your implementation timeline with the right technical resources combined with real-world experience in your industry. Our Future Reference Solution helps to design your SAP S/4HANA experience in a way that shortens timelines and minimizes risk. This is especially critical with global business plans.

Fast is good.

Risk-free is great.

But outcomes mean even more. At Rizing, we are focused on helping you win.

Carhartt Inc., an apparel brand for workwear, outdoor gear, hunting accessories, and – more recently – streetwear, achieved outcomes by minimizing custom code modifications and reducing web page loads to milliseconds. SAP S/4HANA is the foundation for future innovation and agile responses to disruption.

Getting the SAP S/4HANA Digital Core Right

SAP S/4HANA will form the digital core of your enterprise. The digital core enables your end-to-end business strategy and is the foundation that enables your organization to scale, to adopt innovative technical solutions, and to advance with real-time insights. It’s imperative to get the design right. Everything else – all of your future innovation – builds upon that. And innovation is what it takes to thrive in this rapidly-evolving digital market.

Learn how others have gone from imagination to design to build of SAP S/4HANA  in our customer case studies.

Case Study | Global Sportswear Brand Accelerates Business Transformation with SAP S/4HANA Fashion

Carhartt Implements SAP S/4HANA to Support Customer Demand

Maxport’s Digital Transformation Starts with SAP S/4HANA Fashion Manufacturing

Nice Apparel Group Transforms it Business with SAP S/4HANA Fashion Manufacturing

The post SAP S/4HANA Design for Fashion and Retail: A Mix of Imagination and Planning appeared first on Rizing.

Smarter, Faster Fashion with SAP S/4HANA®

When a multinational athletic footwear company’s outdated IT backend limited their ability to accomplish their goal of being the fastest sports brand in the world, they chose SAP S/4HANA® to increase their speed in reacting to trends, bringing innovations to market, and making decisions backed by data. In this dynamic,highly competitive, and rapidly growing fashion market, getting the technology change done timely and accurately was imperative.

Like any accomplished runner, this footwear company took steps to prepare for change. Mistakes runners make? Not warming up. Eating too much or the wrong things before the run. Setting unreasonable goals. Not planning the route ahead of time. All of these mistakes are analogous to a poorly executed plan for SAP S/4HANA.

Beginning your journey with an assessment of your individual business goals, operations, processes, technical challenges, people challenges, and data requirements will help to get your run off to a good start.

Plan For the Long-Distance Run with a Roadmap

Infusing speed into retail and wholesale processes was the winner’s edge for the athletic footwear company, but it was important not to get ahead of implementation without a careful plan. Our assessment process empowers organizations with a very business-personalized approach to an SAP S/4HANA implementation and roadmap – because one size (sneaker) doesn’t really fit all.

Just like every runner’s race requires a good warm-up and the right preparation, a digital transformation journey is more successful when you get the right start.

Backed by our two decades of fashion and retail industry expertise, Rizing’s SAP S/4HANA assessment helps you begin your SAP S/4HANA journey with:

·      A well-thought-out business case for SAP S/4HANA

·      A high-level architectural design your future landscape

·      An interface catalog

·      A comprehensive look at the impact on your current operations during the migration to SAP S/4HANA

·      The best timeline for implementation to optimize benefits and minimize your business impact

·      A plan for managing the required organizational transformation

·      A migration strategy – sequencing of events and tools to accelerate change, minimize risk and enable integration, and more

All of this is very specific to you, your business goals, your current technology, and your organization. We style your roadmap your way with our industry understanding.

SAP S/4HANA Styled Your Way

In fashion and retail, your value proposition is being creatively distinctive with your business style. Individuality makes a statement about you and your organization. We know it’s vital that you retain what makes your business unique, the things that enhance your culture and vision, and simultaneously simplifies, standardizes, and delivers a platform to continually innovate and accelerate digital merchandising.

Start with our complimentary assessment, and then let’s get to know each other. That’s how design begins.

Let’s catch up at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show.

The post Fashionably Forward with SAP S/4HANA. Start here. appeared first on Rizing.

SAP developed the BTP cockpit as an all-encompassing platform to fit the needs of their large customer base. The BTP platform gives customers tools and features to organize their businesses effectively.

The flexibility is wonderful but can also be overwhelming and leave you feeling like you’re not equipped to make the necessary decisions.

Before developing your applications, ensure your organizational and landscape setup is appropriate for managing their lifecycles, and consider failover to prevent breakdowns.

BTP Account Model

BTP is structured according to global accounts, directories, and subaccounts.

Global Account

After making a contract with SAP, BTP assigns each customer a Global Account. The Global Account identifies a customer’s organization name and manages subaccounts, members, entitlements, and quotas.

Each customer receives entitlements and quotas to use platform resources per global account and then distributes the entitlements and quotas to the subaccount for actual consumption. Global accounts are independent of region and environment. Within a global account, customers manage all of their region-specific subaccounts:

Directories

Customers organize and manage their subaccounts by grouping them into directories. Directories are only available for global accounts with feature set B.

A directory can contain directories and subaccounts to create a hierarchy. Using directories to group other directories and subaccounts is optional. Each customer can create subaccounts directly under their global account.

The hierarchical structure can be up to seven levels deep. The highest level of a given path is always the global account. The lowest is a subaccount, which means there can be five levels of directories.

Each subaccount runs in one region (data centre) and one environment.

Subaccounts

BTP programmers use subaccounts to structure a global account according to each organization’s and project’s member, authorization, and entitlement requirements.

A global account can contain one or more subaccounts where applications are deployed, services are used, and subscriptions are managed.

Subaccounts in a global account are independent of each other. This is important to consider for security, member management, data management, data migration, integration, etc. when planning your landscape and overall architecture.

Creating a BTP Governance Model

As a starting point, customers should establish their appropriate organizational setup and corresponding governance model as part of moving to the cloud. A clear and well-planned organizational setup makes it easier to start consuming BTP services, building BTP applications, etc.

We also recommend that customers create onboarding and knowledge transfer processes before any BTP work begins. Use the following examples as a starting point:

Onboarding Process:

• Define Roles & Responsibilities within your organization (RACI Matrix)
• Create an onboarding process for development projects
• Create a knowledge transfer process for the involved teams
• Define support processes, operations documentation, and involved tools
• Define your change management processes

Building the Right Teams

Cloud Administration Team

The Cloud Administration Team defines, sets up, and maintains your cloud landscape.

The responsibility of this team is to operate and ensure a stable and secure cloud landscape. They also enable other developers to build cloud applications. The members of this team are experts in application development and setting up and running infrastructure for continuous deployments and integration scenarios.

This team supports your development teams by providing knowledge and defining guidelines that match your company’s quality and security requirements. The Cloud Administration Team should generally not be responsible for the lifecycle management of specific applications – the Cloud Development Team should do that.

Cloud Development Teams

The Cloud Development Teams are responsible for developing and operating the applications that run on BTP.

We recommend that Cloud Development Teams follow a DevOps approach, developing and operating applications. The team should maintain applications regularly after launch and fix any issues.

For example, if the team develops a SAPUI5 front end, every six months, they should verify that the latest SAPUI5 version still supports the UI controls used. This doesn’t require much effort but ensures the application continues to run properly.

The post SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) – Governance and Account Model appeared first on Rizing.

SAP® Business Technology Platform (BTP) is the foundation for all of SAP’s latest business applications. It provides an integrated suite of capabilities to help your organization get a faster start, simplify integration and deployment, and extend the value of your SAP investments.

OK, really, what is it?

There’s a popular line of toys made up of brightly colored plastic bricks, gears, and other pieces. You can snap them together in various ways to make models of whatever you imagine.

BTP is similar for developers and advanced SAP users who want to automate a manual or incomplete process.

BTP’s 90-plus building blocks offer application functionality in five areas:

• Integration
• Application Development
• Process Automation
• Data and Analytics
• AI

Users, developers, and business process experts use the different building blocks to rapidly develop automated solutions to manual or incomplete processes.

What Makes BTP Unique?

BTP benefits users by being:

Consolidated

BTP offers a simplified user experience consistent with other SAP-based applications. SAP BTP uses existing solutions like the SAP Integration Suite.

“Integration Suite is the glue between SAP business applications, third party apps, business partners, and entities like regulators and business networks,” says Martin Stenzig, Rizing CTO. “Our customers use it for its tight integration with SAP apps and the reduced implementation effort necessary due to the quantity of pre-packaged integration content.”

Easy to Use

With low-code and no-code environments available, even users with limited development experience can use BTP to create or extend applications quickly.

BTP also speeds up development by offering out-of-the-box services, content, security, and compliance.

“SAP’s Process Automation represents a combination of workflow and bot-based automation,” says Stenzig. “At Rizing, we used it to automate internal process effort by up to 60 percent.”

Flexible

BTP is flexible both in deployment and licensing.

Companies can choose where to deploy their finished applications – on-premise, in their local cloud, or on a hyperscaler.

Companies using BTP can choose different payment options based on application consumption.

Intelligent

BTP isn’t just for low-level process automation. BTP’s 90 building blocks include Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

“SAP’s AI offering allows us to host the inference of our 3D machine learning models and detect assets and anomalies in record time,” says Stenzig.

Rizing’s BTP Products

Rizing has several commercial BTP-based products, showcasing the capabilities of the platform and Rizing’s experience with it:

LMS Planner

LMS Planner is a planning and scheduling tool that integrates with SAP SuccessFactors LMS to make corporate training management and resource scheduling easier and faster.

“We saw customers experiencing challenges with planning and scheduling in the LMS field,” says Stenzig. “We developed LMS Planner using BTP and can now reduce the planning effort by up to 25% and make the overall organization more efficient.”

LMS Planner on SAP Store

LMS Planner on Rizing.com

Lyra

Lyra’s superpower is seamlessly bringing together data from disparate sources.

Migrating from one software platform to another? Lyra can help. Worried about losing history? Lyra’s got you covered.

Built on SAP BTP, Analytics Cloud, and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, Lyra aggregates legacy system data with current data sourced from SAP SuccessFactors.

Rizing includes data analytic value packs with Lyra that jump-start your heroic reporting efforts.

“SAP Analytics Cloud and Data Warehouse Cloud are the foundation for Lyra’s HCM content,” says Stenzig. “Using these components and complementing them with Rizing’s subject matter expertise distilled into content packages we provide generate benefits for the customer in record time.”

Lyra on the SAP Store

Lyra on Rizing.com

Carbon

Built on SAP BTP, Carbon integrates SAP and Primavera P6 systems to ensure project, MRP, and financial data is always up-to-date.

Using SAP ERP and Primavera 6? Stop manually updating both systems and use Carbon instead. Carbon eliminates double entry, meaning your project cost, schedule, and resource data is always up to date.

Carbon on the SAP Store

Carbon on Rizing.com

OmniSpatial

OmniSpatial is Rizing’s browser-based field and office data collection and integration tool. Using it, staff can collect geotagged images, videos, notes, and audio memos for specific assets or any map location.

Built on SAP BTP, OmniSpatial provides GPS-enabled data collection that integrates with existing Esri map and feature services.

OmniSpatial works with or without an internet connection. The tool synchronizes local data with the enterprise database when network connectivity returns.

OmniSpatial on Rizing.com

LifeCycle Pricing

Rizing’s LifeCycle Pricing helps merchants make fast, smart pricing decisions using a centralized suite of retail pricing processes.

LCP integrates into your SAP environment to read SAP master data, TLOG, price, cost, competitor, inventory, and order data. It presents the information in a simple consolidated interface.

LifeCycle Pricing on the SAP Store

LifeCycle Pricing on Rizing.com

Rizing Custom BTP Applications for Clients

Have a business need not solved by one of Rizing’s existing BTP-based solutions?

No worries. We also provide custom BTP-based application development services.

“We bring our subject matter expertise and combine it with technical expertise to help you use BTP and leverage your existing SAP investment,” says Stenzig. “BTP has functionalities that allow us to accelerate the development of custom extensions, integrations, or data and decrease the time to market.”

SAP Recognizes Rizing’s BTP Experience

Rizing was an early adopter of the SAP Business Technology Platform. SAP has recognized our knowledge and experience in two ways:

BTP Advisory Council

Rizing is a founding member of the BTP Advisory Council. We work with SAP to recommend future BTP enhancements and guide the overall development of the platform.

BTP Development Partner

Rizing is one of just 12 development partners chosen by SAP. This relationship means Rizing is often involved in advanced and aggressive BTP-based projects.

Request a BTP Demo

If this sounds like a technology that could help your business, get in touch! We can talk about how Rizing could help you leverage the power of BTP for your business.

The post SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP) – Explanation and Examples appeared first on Rizing.

“We must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy.”
-Professor Dumbledore, Harry Potter

With deference to Prof. Dumbledore, the choice of an SAP licensing model isn’t always that clear.

The SAP® Business Technology Platform (BTP) combines the four pillars of data and analytics, application development, and integration in one unified environment.

Each pillar is a unique combination of products and services. Some pillars are delivered together, and others stand alone. As a suite, SAP BTP may mean something different to a customer depending on how the offerings are presented.

The SAP BTP cockpit is the central entry point to all these services. This is where a system administrator accesses and manages subscriptions and applications.

BTP Commercial Models Overview

To support customers with different needs, SAP offers a range of options for licensing their Business Technology platform. Options are primarily subscription-based and consumption-based.

SaaS Subscriptions

SAP formerly offered Software as a Service (SaaS) via subscriptions only. They felt customers had well-defined use cases for achieving their goals.

Purchasing an HRIS like SuccessFactors wouldn’t require input from other lines of business.

Many companies continue to use SAP on a subscription basis.

Thinking Past Subscriptions

Today’s cloud-based offerings require you to rethink how your business could run better. Cloud-based technology platforms can improve business processes, performance, and adaptability.

A cloud-based technology platform can provide:

• Flexibility of scaling data storage up when needed and scaling back when not needed
• World-class data security, compliance, and availability
• Elastic, pay-for-use pricing
• Ease of integration with other systems in the technology stack, increasing efficiency
• Better insights from data analysis
• Efficiencies from automating manual, non-value-added processes
• Faster implementation than on-premise software

These are some reasons SAP came up with new commercial models to support every customer.

SAP now offers consumption-based licensing as an alternative to subscription-based licensing.

SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement (CPEA)

CPEA SAP’s first consumption-based pricing model. It lets customers buy, consume, and pay based on their use (with an upfront commitment.)

CPEA reduces complexity and costs with self-provisioning and real-time usage and recording. Customers can turn the services they need on and off, then pay for what they consume.

This model works like a debit card. Customers put funds in, and they’re debited for what they use every month.

Pay As You Go (PayGo)

The final commercial model SAP offers is Pay As You Go (PayGo).

There is no up-front commitment. Like when using a credit card, the customer is billed every month for the services they’ve consumed. There is a premium charged for the convenience of not having to commit.

A Quick Comparison

Different Yet the Same

Users access and administer the system the same way matter the licensing model. The SAP BTP cockpit looks the same. The only difference is how the business is charged.

If you find yourself short of magic wands to help you decide which licensing model suits you best, have no fear! Contact us – we’d be happy to help you slay your business process monsters.

The post A Comparison of SAP Business Technology Platform Commercial Models appeared first on Rizing.

The global sportswear brand was operating with an aging back-end IT system, which limited its ability to increase speed-to-market and achieve real-time inventory visibility.

To overcome some of the problems in running real-time inventory checks and confirmation, custom solutions were developed but these solutions were reaching its shelf-life due to the increasing demand for greater visibility, agility, and frictionless operations.

Business Problem

• Legacy ERP wasn’t capable of providing real-time availability checks and confirmation
• The customer couldn’t run through the entire order book and reconfirm orders based on priority
• Legacy system didn’t have out-of-the-box stock assignment capability

SAP S/4HANA In Action

This sportswear company’s supply assignment, order allocation, and inventory planning processes were already under pressure from managing an increasing number of items and locations. It became crucial to respond to changes in the supply chain and balance supply and demand without incurring losses.

With the help of S/4HANA Fashion, the process was completely revamped, enabling real-time inventory visibility, and significantly enhancing on-time delivery for fulfillment commitments and real-time order confirmations.

Back Order Processing

Furthermore, Advance ATP combined with ‘BOP (Back Order Processing) engine’ was used to run availability checks, reconfirm, and complete all order book requirements.

This gave them greater visibility into inventory and the ability to prioritize sales orders for the most important customers while improving inventory turnover and orchestrating deliveries in a timely manner.

They were able to prioritize sales orders for the most crucial clients, improve inventory turnover, and coordinated deliveries.

Supply Assignment

Another area of focus for the company was “Supply assignment,” which was also carried out in conjunction with advanced ATP.

This easily solved the need for out-of-the-box stock assignment, ensuring that supply is distributed to open requirements in sales orders and stock transport orders.

Future Growth

SAP S/4HANA Fashion optimized this sportswear company’s order fulfillment process, paving the way for future growth and innovation, all while overcoming challenges from loss prevention and inventory tracking to omnichannel fulfillment.

The post Real-time Inventory and Backorder Processing In S/4HANA Fashion appeared first on Rizing.

Social media, big data, advanced analytics, and cloud computing are generating unprecedented opportunities for businesses, who are converging these technologies to adapt their business models and cater to the demands of the new “digital” consumer.

Today’s industry doesn’t look the same as a year ago. It will change even more in the coming years.

Here are trends that are creating this new disrupted and unpredictable future:

1. Sophistication of Consumer Demand

To be successful, fashion brands need to meet rising consumer expectations. Evolving consumer expectations will cause fashion firms to innovate. Staying competitive and relevant in the industry will be ever-harder.

Brands and retailers need to adapt their business models to gain a single view of each customer, integrating their shopping data with behavioral profiling and preferences. Multi-channel shoppers have already led to omnichannel retail, which is sure to keep growing.

2. Faster Fashion Cycles

The rate at which products are introduced, adopted, peak in popularity, and then fall out of fashion is speeding up. The market is also squeezing more fashion cycles into each season.

While the fashion and lifestyle industry has always been a volatile one, faster fashion cycles will make it harder to synchronize supply with demand. Consequently, fashion companies will need tools to monitor the popularity of a particular line and adapt to spikes and troughs in demand.

3. Consumer-centric, Demand-Driven Supply Chain

The previous decade saw retailers improving supply chain efficiency. Fashion companies now have to combine efficiency, agility, and predictive analytics to synchronize processes across the total value chain. The goal is to match fashion offerings to consumer preferences in real-time.

Fashion retailers and labels that give greater attention to consumer demand and improve their ability to alter or re-route supply to meet changes in demand will benefit from drastically improved logistics, reduced out-of-stocks, and markdown dollars. They’ll be able to earn consumer validation and expand their market share.

4. Personalization and Analytics

How existing and potential customers interact with a fashion brand online can unearth valuable behavioral patterns. Capturing these digital footprints has become a standard, yet managing the large volumes of data it requires has left retailers struggling to find the right infrastructure to make sense of it all.

Knowing how to sift through the stack of information and pinpoint key data to develop new tactics is the best way to use of data-mining technologies.  Used strategically, this will lead to new growth strategies.

5. Cloud Agility

To increase productivity and keep up with today’s fast-changing world, retailers must adapt and capitalize on market shifts. Cloud technologies allow businesses to do this by eliminating the delays and inadequacies in operational and BI systems. Using the power and speed of in-memory database and analytics, businesses can quickly reconfigure business processes or extend information to employees and partners across the globe – without the need for IT resources.

Combining transaction processing and analytics on a single platform will also help businesses analyze and determine the best course of action with unprecedented speed.

The post The Changing Landscape of the Fashion Industry appeared first on Rizing.

In order to help fashion retailers to better navigate this complex environment, SAP^® developed the Fashion Management Solution (SAP FMS).

Launched in June 2014, SAP FMS is used by leading brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Rockport. What does SAP Fashion Management bring to the table for a company that is already using SAP AFS or IS Retail platforms?

1. Global Inventory Visibility

According to a recent L2 report, inventory transparency is the single biggest thing retailers can offer online to drive foot traffic. Optimal management of inventory to ensure that the right stock is available at the right place at the right time is arguably one of the most crucial objectives fashion companies must achieve in the omnichannel.

However, operation of separate systems for retail, wholesale and manufacturing tends to restrict combined inventory visibility. In response, brands generally take the conservative approach by adopting processes which protect inventory but potentially result in supply imbalances such as high out-of-stocks in one channel and excess inventory in another.

SAP HANA redefines processes related to inventory management by optimizing allocation run (ARUN) and available-to-promise rescheduling (ATP). Such processes are crucial for brands seeking to gain an accurate representation of global inventory levels. However, they had previously been hindered by the massive volumes of data involved. The resulting burden from these data volumes limited simulations to an overnight process.

Fashion brands that use the power of SAP FMS on the SAP HANA platform can drastically optimize ARUN and ATP processes, enabling frequent daily simulations. In doing so, SAP FMS will empower brands with an up-to-date, consolidated global view of inventory across all stages of the value chain.

2. Cross-Channel Integration Enables Consistent, Omnichannel Shopping Experiences

Implementation of omnichannel solutions will be of crucial importance for brands seeking to meet or exceed customer expectations. With retailers like Burberry leading the way by offering a consistent experience to consumers across sales channels, retailers are well past the point of debating the need for going omnichannel.

By moving to SAP FMS, retailers will gain the tools necessary to realign their supply chains to this new omnichannel reality, enabling the extension of brick-and-mortar retail into the online world and vice-versa. The end-result being a more responsive value chain and ultimately and most importantly, more satisfied customers.

3. Personalized Offers, Promotions, and Loyalty Programs

While most fashion retailers use general promotions and basic loyalty programs to augment sales, they lacked the ability to personalize offers to suit the individual preferences of consumers.

However, given the advanced analytics capabilities of SAP Customer Activity Repository (SAP CAR) on SAP HANA, retailers can now engage customers by tailoring their offers based an individual customer’s purchase history. SAP CAR is designed to consolidate customer, sales and inventory data in real-time for comprehensive and accurate analyses.

Brands and retailers that leverage these targeted marketing strategies stand to benefit from improved sales while earning customer loyalty and adding to their overall brand equity.

4. Integrating Platforms For a Lower TCO

Operating separate systems for retail, wholesale and manufacturing can lead to an increased total cost of ownership. This is due to separate integration, development and maintenance costs for each unit.

By adopting SAP FMS, brands and retailers will bring all of these processes and data onto a single platform, thereby eliminating the need to duplicate and integrate data. This cuts through the complexity of managing data across multiple systems; the end-result being a reduction in the TCO and an improved bottom-line.

SAP HANA will redefine processes related to inventory management by optimizing allocation (ARUN) and available-to-promise re-scheduling (ATP). Such processes are crucial for brands seeking to gain an accurate representation of global inventory levels. However, they had previously been hindered by the massive volumes of data involved. The resulting burden from these data volumes limited simulations to an overnight process.

Fashion retailers that leverage the power of FMS on the SAP HANA platform can drastically optimize ARUN and ATP processes enabling frequent daily simulations. In doing so, FMS will empower brands with an up-to-date, consolidated global view of inventory across all stages of the value chain.

5. Deeper Consumer Insights Using Big Data and Social Media Analytics

In the age of the digital consumer, the potential for fashion and lifestyle companies to gather and analyze big data is on the rise. Big data initiatives will drive a real-time understanding of the consumer and provide fashion retailers with an unprecedented level of insight into consumer behavior and preferences.

Integration of social and other sentiment data into intelligent analytical models will shift capabilities from reporting the past to predicting the future. Additionally, this will improve insights into which trends are gaining momentum and which ones are losing ground at any point in the product lifecycle.

FMS is built on the existing SAP for Retail platform, but comes with the in-built SAP HANA. This powerful in-memory database that can analyze big data from multiple sources to get answers to complex questions about their business in real-time – without the need for data preparation.

Brands equipped with these insights can make smart adjustments to designs, production and marketing before launching a new collection, reducing the risk that the line won’t sell.

The post 5 Reasons Fashion Companies Should Consider SAP’s Fashion Management Solution appeared first on Rizing.