SAP S/4HANA for Fashion Archives - Rizing https://rizing.com/category/s4hana-fashion/ Thu, 18 May 2023 18:25:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.3 https://rizing.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cropped-2021-Rizing-Logo-blue-favicon-512x512-1-32x32.png SAP S/4HANA for Fashion Archives - Rizing https://rizing.com/category/s4hana-fashion/ 32 32 Grocery Retailers – Is Your ERP Capable of Supporting Your Supply Chain Strategy? https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/grocery-retailers-erp-supporting-supply-chain-strategy/ Thu, 02 Mar 2023 23:24:05 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=56525 How a modern-day solution like SAP S/4HANA can help retailers better manage their post-COVID supply chains.

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

]]>
It’s been three years since the start of the pandemic and to this day you can still walk into a grocery store and see gaping holes where issues with the supply chain have caused out-of-stock conditions.

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.

]]>
Measuring Outcomes for a Perfect Fit: SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Retail https://rizing.com/s4hana-fashion/sap-s-4hana-for-fashion-and-retail/ Sun, 15 Jan 2023 22:30:58 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=56080 How to beat the competition in fashion and retail? Start with the end in mind. The first step in your SAP S/4HANA implementation project – is understanding your business objectives…

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

]]>
How to beat the competition in fashion and retail?

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.

]]>
Fashionably Forward with SAP S/4HANA. Start here. https://rizing.com/s4hana-fashion/sap-s-4hana-fashion-tech/ Mon, 02 Jan 2023 13:12:48 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=55908 In the fashion industry, innovation is inherently part of everything you do. While technology isn’t your core business function, having the right ERP technology to run your business is foundational…

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

]]>
In the fashion industry, innovation is inherently part of everything you do. While technology isn’t your core business function, having the right ERP technology to run your business is foundational in delivering new products and experiences, and having the real-time insights to stay ahead of the pack is essential. But how do you know where to begin with SAP S/4HANA for Fashion? How do you adapt your current environment to optimize people, processes, and technology? What resources – financial, people, and other – will it take to accelerate your success as a fashion leader?

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.

]]>
Real-time Inventory and Backorder Processing In S/4HANA Fashion https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/real-time-inventory-availability-backorder-processing-sap-s4hana-fashion/ Fri, 19 Aug 2022 15:13:06 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52221 See how S/4HANA's BOP engine with advanced ATP Functionality assisted a global sportswear brand with a seamless order fulfillment process.

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

]]>
Meyyappan Ramanathan, VP Enterprise Applications, discusses how S/4HANA® Fashion was used to address issues faced by a European Sportswear brand in our webcast series, Insights from the Field.

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.

]]>
The Changing Landscape of the Fashion Industry https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/changing-landscape-of-the-fashion-industry/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 14:32:14 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52358 Learn which cultural and technological shifts are driving revolutionary change within the fashion and lifestyle industry.

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

]]>
Cultural and technological shifts are creating revolutionary change within the fashion and lifestyle industry.

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.

]]>
5 Reasons Fashion Companies Should Consider SAP’s Fashion Management Solution https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/reasons-fashion-company-on-sap-afs-and-is-retail-should-consider-sap-fashion-management-solution/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 14:30:02 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52361 Top 5 reasons why a fashion company on SAP AFS and IS-Retail should consider SAP's Fashion Management Solution.

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

]]>
Fashion brands and retailers are being pushed to innovate and become more demand responsive and customer-centric as they seek to compete in a marketplace where technology is enabling exponential improvements to supply chain and inventory management on the one hand, and driving the increasing sophistication of consumer expectations on the other.

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.

]]>
Playing Catch-up: Omnichannel Universe in Fashion https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/state-of-omnichannel-analytics-in-fashion-retail/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 14:14:18 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52299 Omnichannel Analytics are evolving and getting prioritized in the retail industry. But how far have they come?

The post Playing Catch-up: Omnichannel Universe in Fashion appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
The burden on fashion retailers has been never greater.

Malls, retails stores, digital experiences and organizations are being re-imagined. Shopper behavior and consumer sentiments add a layer of complexity, as they keep changing in different countries and demographics.

How can companies keep pace in this shifting landscape? Until recently, technology barriers were the main problem, yet those barriers are failing.  As they do, companies have an opportunity to develop a coherent, comprehensive profile of their customers and  engage them across multiple touch points through the use of data-driven insights.

From Instinct to Analytics: The Center of the Omnichannel Retailer’s Universe

The heart of analytics is the ability to understand, predict and shape consumer behavior.

Walmart and Amazon have proven that undiscovered insights can be found inside corporate data. Acting on those insights is essential to stand out in a crowded marketplace, battling for the loyalty of well-informed, highly-connected and newly-empowered consumers.

This change in priority has  shaped the future state of fashion companies. Customer insights now need to be a structurally-embedded, enterprise-wide strategic capability enabled by integrated business processes and information systems.

According to McKinsey & Company, fashion retailers that can gather a large volume of shopper data to inform the way they interact with customers can increase revenue from 10-20%.

Most Retailers Trail in Analytics Maturity

Retailers see the clear benefit of investing in analytics capabilities.

But while the goal is clear, the path is not.

In fact, according to recent research by RSR, creating an analytics-driven organization isn’t easy. While the pursuit of retail data continues and remains invaluable to support omnichannel goals, it’s taking time to navigate the challenges of implementing analytics enterprise-wide, which requires cultural, technical and process changes.

As a result, the efforts are disorganized. The majority of retailers lack the best practices or strong analytics leadership to guide enterprise-wide investments.

Instead, analytics projects are springing up department by department without an identifiable strategy. Retailers are moving analytics up the maturity ladder, but in an unfocused way which doesn’t improve the bottom line.

This has caused an gap between the promise of technology and the realities of retail. An RSR survey confirms the slow analytics progression in the retail industry since the discussion of data analytics began several years ago.

Despite retailers consistently ranking analytics as a strategic priority, when surveyed by RSR about capturing and analyzing “Big Data”, less than ¼ of retailers were “satisfied” with what they had implemented.

Why do these initiatives get bogged down before taking off?

Because realizing the potential of data analytics requires the building blocks of any strategic transformation: it begins with a plan, demands the creation of a team to focus on data, and addresses the needed cultural change.

New tools alone are insufficient to deal with challenges of scaling data analytics efforts. A company’s core processes can also be a barrier to implementing sophisticated analytics.

For companies like Amazon, processes have been built around a foundation of automated analytics. But in more established organizations, processes haven’t kept up with the advances in data analytics. They’re often faced with poor data quality resulting from disparate processes and information silos.

Getting the right analytics tools in place is also a challenge. These basic building blocks are critical build an analytics-driven organization.

Filling In The Gaps As The Bar Goes Up

Retailers won’t be constrained in improving their analytics maturity because of lack of tools, budget or data. Rather, it’ll be due to a siloed organization, competing priorities, an unclear understanding of where to focus, and lack of determination to embrace a data driven culture.

Yet for all the challenges it brings, the growth of retail sales is now tied to how fashion companies leverage analytics. Lack of investment in this critical technology may result in a competitive disadvantage that negatively impacts the company for years.

For example, early adopters like Ulta Beauty have grown sales by using customer data to create personalized and targeted direct marketing. Retailers such as Bed, Bath & Beyond, who delayed technology investments, have seen weak sales and margins as they struggle to resonate with tech-savvy millennials.

Companies such as Rockport and Brooks Brothers have already started to implement retail analytics with an enterprise-wide real-time data repository to generate insights in real-time inventory, multi-channel sales, and customer analytics.

We’ve broken down a few areas that fashion organizations need to focus on to improve their retail analytics maturity:

  • Data Integration. Data integration is key to shedding light on the customer journey as multi-device and multi-channel journeys take twists and turns when consumers move from one channel to the next. The challenge lies in lack of processes and technology to access the right data, since data is often stored in multiple systems, and is often of poor quality. It can be missing key data elements, be incorrect and outdated, or contain duplicate records from the same consumer. However, technologies such as SAP Customer Activity Repository are overcoming these challenges by cleansing, auditing, and consolidating data to provide retailers a holistic view of their customers, inventory, and sales.
  • A real-time data repository. Analytics depend on accessing the right insights at the right time.  Retailers need a robust foundation that collects and delivers a real-time view of customer information, inventory, pricing, promotions and more by accessing a  variety of data types from multiple internal sources.
  • Prioritizing the analytics needed to operate a successful business. Defining a long-term analytics strategy starts with the basics. Each retailer needs to answer the question, “What value are you trying to deliver?” in the context of their market. Part of designing a data strategy is defining the decisions that need to be made and mapping the right data to inform them.

Business analytics will evolve into a strategic capability sitting at the intersection of customer preferences, business strategy and business processes. For retailers, now is the time to embed insights across their functional value chain and build a customer-centric organization.

The post Playing Catch-up: Omnichannel Universe in Fashion appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
Infographic: SAP Customer Activity Repository for Fashion Retail https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/sap-customer-activity-repository-fashion-retail-infographic/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:28:44 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52337 An infographic on SAP Customer activity repository SAP CAR and how fashion retailer can utilize its capabilities.

The post Infographic: SAP Customer Activity Repository for Fashion Retail appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
Given the current context of the fashion industry, retailers need to analyze patterns within a short span of time and react quickly to ensure that the right product mix is at the right channel, at the right time. With today’s ever-growing amount of enterprise data to sort through, this task is challenging.

The SAP Customer Activity Repository (SAP CAR) empowers retailers with consumer insights by consolidating customer interactions from stores, online and mobile channels with data from social media such as Twitter or Facebook posts. The information acts as the basis for a “single source of truth” to help retailers optimize branding, marketing, promotions, pricing, merchandising, and inventory management processes.

This infographic was produced by attune, now part of Rizing. 

The post Infographic: SAP Customer Activity Repository for Fashion Retail appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
Retail’s New Imperative: Building a Responsive Operating Model https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/responsive-operating-model-fashion-retail/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:09:08 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52360 A responsive operating model is imperative tog row in the new customer-driven retail industry, but are retailers ready for this new reality?

The post Retail’s New Imperative: Building a Responsive Operating Model appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
 

Disruption is the new normal in retail

Over the last decade, the traditional retail model has been challenged by an unprecedented wave of change. These changes were so rapid and recurrent that it exposed its weak points, namely retail’s inability to adapt to omnichannel retail, faster fashion, and vertically-integrated business channels.

Today, this disruption is coming at an accelerated speed and it’s bound to get faster as consumer expectations rise. Technological advances driven by empowered consumers will continue to shake the foundation of the retail model, leaving some retailers to play catch-up, while more forward-thinking businesses will lead this new wave of change.

These shifts in the market are forcing retailers to question the long term viability of the increasingly ineffective traditional retail model. To keep from falling behind, retailers must re-evaluate their entire enterprise and the technologies that support them and dramatically alter their business model to compete in the new marketplace.

Omnichannel Isn’t The Future, It’s Already Here

We are currently living in the age of the informed customer, where mobility, social media and e-commerce tools have empowered customers to easily browse, compare prices and shop – whenever and where they want.

One of the main reasons for this change is the demise of channelization in the shopping journey.  As mobile commerce comes of age and the line between online and physical space blurs, consumers are no longer shopping sporadically. Instead, they are always shopping.

This metamorphosis in retail is not a linear path— pulling away from brick-and-mortar and moving toward online retail —but rather a combination of the two. This has led to the global trend of omnichannel, which has become the most strategic hallmark of the new customer-driven retail industry.

Yet, the reality is omnichannel is no longer a concept or an emerging trend that retailers should look forward to – it is already taking control of the industry.

For proof of the enormity and widespread adoption of this trend, look at brands such as Burberry, Gucci and Oasis. All of them are changing their business models to compete better.

Burberry Transforms

For instance, Burberry completely transformed their business from their technology all the way down to the interactive in-store video projections. The brand redefined their in-store experience by arming sales associates with customer information on iPads. They are one of the few luxury brands offering in-store pickup of online purchases. When multiple channels converge it’s  an indication of omnichannel done right.

Nevertheless, the majority of retailers underestimate the impact of this new omnichannel environment. In a recent Forbes survey, only 34% of CEOs considered the rise of omnichannel shopping to be an external threat. Only 22% said it would impact their organization.

This survey brings to light an alarming reality. Retailers lack the understanding of how omnichannel impacts a business. The absence of strategic planning for a foregone trend, especially since the growth of omnichannel retail is one of the most fundamental shifts that has occurred in recent times.

This means that a startling number of retailers are in danger of missing the mark when it comes to adapting to this market reality and priorities related to the new customer-driven retail model, such as optimizing supply chain responsiveness and accelerating time to market will comparatively wind up less important.

How Prepared Are Retailers for this Change?

There are a number of reasons why fashion businesses are not up to the challenge. The biggest contributor is the use of multiple systems.

Vertically-integrated retailers are riddled with outmoded, disparate systems that weaken their ability to adapt. These siloed systems create barriers across cross-channel operations (from sourcing and procurement to merchandising), and across channels (e-commerce, stores, distribution centers), resulting in deteriorated brand experiences.

Retailers who manage their e-commerce and in-store inventories separately are now plagued with an overwhelming volume of data. This becomes a challenge when each system stores data in a different format. Combining the data takes too long to be useful, hampering a retailer’s ability to respond to conditions and trends that impact their business.

Integration Is Key to a Responsive Operating Model

To prepare for the new future of retail, retailers need to use the right technology and practice ‘real-time retail’ that aligns the supply chain with consumer demand.

This means that retailers must look to integrate their operations across their fashion value chain, from their wholesale business to their retail stores. They need to establish a proactive, agile and responsive operating model. This helps to deliver a synchronous experience that is intuitive, contextual, and personalized.

Integration will break down any silos between sourcing, merchandising, and logistics. It will enhance collaboration across the supply chain to meet faster fashion demands.

SAP, along with Rizing, released a solution to address this need with the launch of the Fashion Management Solution.

Enabling this change requires a shift in a retailer’s business priorities, along with a clear understanding that a consumer-aligned supply chain is imperative to survive and grow in the industry.

By synchronizing across the value chain, tomorrow’s world will be dominated by fashion businesses that align their entire demand and supply chain to consumer expectations. At the same time, they will establish an omnichannel connection with shoppers and empower their associates to be better.

It’s this effective orchestration of the value chain that will be the differentiator between competing businesses in the coming decade.

The post Retail’s New Imperative: Building a Responsive Operating Model appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
Why Your S/4HANA Implementation Needs a Future Reference Solution https://rizing.com/consumer-industries-fashion-retail/s4hana-fashion-template-implementation-manage-risks/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:58:24 +0000 https://rizing.com/?p=52271 The Future Reference Solution (FRS) helps fashion companies manage risks during SAP S/4HANA Fashion implementations.

The post Why Your S/4HANA Implementation Needs a Future Reference Solution appeared first on Rizing.

]]>
A complete re-platforming of an ERP solution is essential to face current digital challenges. It serves an opportunity to use new technologies for future growth.

However, if the right approach isn’t taken, it can be a daunting task for any company, often involving significant risks and unmanageable costs. To an extent, a proof of concept (POC) helps resolve some of the uncertainties, but it’s non-reusable and the effort taken does little to mitigate potential risks.

Migrating to SAP S/4HANA® for Fashion: A Major Shift for Fashion Businesses

For apparel, footwear and fashion companies looking to implement SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and Vertical Business, the move creates a long list of questions that need consideration before any kind of work can begin.

Some of the biggest customer concerns about making the move to S/4HANA are:

  • Potential disruption
  • Organizational readiness
  • Impact to current operations
  • Difficulty in identifying the extent of potential change caused by a radical reconstruction of the entire SAP environment

In order to avoid system downtime and business interruption, it’s essential to validate new processes and applications work as required by the business. Testing and validation must be done early and often to ensure high coverage of day-to-day business activities and system processes.

As a close collaborator of SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and system integrator currently involved in multiple S/4HANA implementations at global fashion companies, we’ve been able to identify practices proven to work across the industry.

As a result, we’ve combined our leading practice methods into a pragmatic approach to implementing S/4HANA, using our working knowledge of S/4HANA, its tools and accelerators along with our unique fashion industry acumen.

Introducing Future Reference Solution (FRS) for SAP S/4HANA for Fashion Implementations

To minimize risk, Rizing’s Future Reference Solution (FRS) is designed to provide fashion brands with a reusable, personalized template of SAP S/4HANA for Fashion that uses our rapid deployment solution – attune Fashion Suite™.

Incorporating Rizing’s knowledge of SAP S/4HANA for Fashion and proven practices, this fit-for-purpose solution is a preconfigured S/4HANA for Fashion environment that helps reach the desired outcome in a more efficient and effective manner.

  • It’s a reference system for S/4HANA Fashion that helps define a global high-level design template with reference process documents.
  • It a more complete and higher-quality template than a generic S/4HANA Fashion industry template.
  • FRS is built on attune Fashion Suite™, a preconfigured S/4HANA for Fashion solution, incorporating fashion-specific business processes that including seasonality, segmentation, order allocation and fashion product management.
  • It guides implementation by combining SAP and industry leading practices with a fashion brand’s unique requirements.
  • It contains all of a brand’s major in-scope processes – addressing known and common challenges need to be re-engineered and resolved by using standard SAP functionality.
  • It improves the quality of the following phases while minimizing modifications due to preliminary work.

Key Benefits of a Future Reference Solution

1. Shape ERP Scope

  • Helps determine the future state of your SAP S/4HANA for Fashion solution
  • Validates potential clusters for convergence or divergence for developing reference process documents used in the blueprint phase.
  • Brand-specific data can be added to the Future Reference Solution, along with a brand’s major in-scope processes to enhance validation in the subsequent phases.

2. Minimize Risks

  • Helps rapidly validates and adopt processes by documenting ‘TO BE’ business processes prior to the blueprint phase with reduced risk, cost, and time.
  • Adds lead time to address items that can impact scope/timeline, minimizing business interruption and accelerating resumption of daily operations.
  • Increases early adoption, and encourages a group of super-users who will become trainers after go-live, eliminating the need for a separate phase of User Adoption Training.
  • By engaging key users early and often, the solution can more practically vetted. This enables better decision-making, and allows better assessment of change impact to the business.

3. Enable Blueprint Planning

  • All FRS material can be used to plan, prepare and conduct the blueprint. This improves delivery quality, expediting the timeline and minimizing efforts during the entire course of the program.
  • Drives the global high-level design/validation with a higher-quality template, complete with prebuilt configurations, test cases, and gap analysis.
  • Significant time savings by building documentation on top of existing Rizing Fashion content and writing functional and technical specifications only once.

The post Why Your S/4HANA Implementation Needs a Future Reference Solution appeared first on Rizing.

]]>