SAP Solution Brief: A Single, Unified Data Platform for Retail Planning, Forecasting, and Analytics

SAP Solution Brief
SAP for Retail
SAP Customer Activity Repository
A Single, Unified Data Platform
for Retail Planning, Forecasting,
and Analytics
BenefitsSolutionObjectives Quick Facts
©2013SAPAGoranSAPaffiliatecompany.Allrightsreserved.

2 / 11 © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
Objectives
Predicting customer demand
and buying behavior
Today’s retail customers use Web, mobile, and other sales channels
interchangeably – often for the same purchase.And retailers have invested in
point solutions to manage these channels as efficient silos. But what if you
could unify all of your cross-channel customer and operational information –
and convert this Big Data into breakthrough business insight and results?
Merging the customer data you’ve collected
gives you a complete view of each customer.
Combine it with sales, marketing, manufac-
turing, and other data – and you have a
powerful foundation that can be harnessed to
drive retail excellence. For example, you can
generate personalized customer insights
and demand signals to fuel your back-end
systems, including predictive planning appli-
cations and fulfillment and logistics systems.
And you can identify and respond swiftly to
events and individual customers in ways
that improve retention, customer service,
and sales.
With the SAP® Customer Activity Repository
application powered by the SAP HANA® plat-
form you can do all this and more (see figure
on the next page). Use it to break down data
silos and establish a platform that enables
real-time data access, visibility, and analytics
for anticipating each customer’s needs,
wants, and desires. And develop promotions,
assortments, and programs that boost
market share and optimize the customer
experience across channels.
and buying behavior
Benefits Quick FactsSolution

Objectives
and buying behavior
Benefits Quick FactsSolution
SAP® Customer Activity Repository
Virtual data model – analytics
Figure: The building blocks of SAP Customer Activity Repository
SAP for Retail
SAP NetWeaver®
Business Warehouse
and SAP Customer
Engagement
Intelligence are optional
co-deployments.
Master data
Sales documents
Inventory
SAP Promotion
Management
for Retail
In-memory computing
POS data
transfer
and audit
Unified demand
forecast
Inventory
visibility
Multichannel
sales
transactions
On-shelf
availability
algorithms

Speed the transfer and auditing
of POS data
While online retail channels are growing, the
sales that occur every day in traditional brick-
and-mortar stores still represent the vast
majority of transactions. SAP Customer
Activity Repository enables you to transfer
and audit all of your POS data quickly and
efficiently.
But it doesn’t just forward data to other trans-
actional and analytical solutions; it actually
prepares the data for subsequent processing.
Data is collected via an inbound processing
engine.An inbound interface enables connec-
tivity with POS systems through any connectiv-
ity tool, such as the SAP NetWeaver® Process
Integration offering.A POS workbench enables
data monitoring, error handling, and process-
ing control.And an outbound interface frame-
work enables flexible distribution of the data
to the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse
application for analysis (or other applications
that need the data) and facilitates follow-on
processes such as replenishment, inventory
management, planning, and accounting.
SAP Customer Activity Repository can scale to
support the needs of even the largest and fastest-
growing retailers.
of POS data
Gain a 360-degree customer view
Create unified demand forecasts
in seconds
Gain real-time inventory visibility
Get on-shelf availability instantly
Analyze multichannel sales
in real time
Solution BenefitsObjectives Quick Facts

SAP Customer Activity Repository goes
beyond the transfer and audit of POS data
by enabling you to centrally store all POS
transactions – even very granular data at the
receipt level – together with sales documents
from other channels (for example, your Web
site and mobile shopping apps). Purchase
transactions can also be combined with
loyalty program data and other information
for a 360-degree customer view across all
sales channels.
Your data is always ready and available for
consumption by advanced predictive and
analytical retail applications, enabling you to
respond and react to any analytical or trans-
actional signal in real time. SAP Customer
Activity Repository acts as a common data
foundation designed to connect with various
SAP retail applications (for example, the SAP
Promotion Management for Retail application
and SAP Planning for Retail rapid-deployment
solution). These integrations help you maxi-
mize the value of your data and related busi-
ness systems. Data from non-SAP systems
can also be imported into SAP Customer
Activity Repository for inclusion in analyses.
of POS data
in seconds
in real time
Aggregate data on the fly to meet specific needs
while preserving even the most granular data within
SAP HANA for future analysis.

in seconds
With SAP Customer Activity Repository,
you can generate a unified demand forecast
based on powerful algorithms and statistical
methods that account for the many factors
impacting demand – price velocity, seasons
and trends, events, product relations, and
more – at lightning-fast speeds.The forecast-
ing science built in to the solution processes
near-real-time information about multichannel
customer transactions collected in SAP Cus-
tomer Activity Repository using in-memory
technology.This way, you can have a unified
prediction of future daily or even subdaily
demand.These predictions can then be used
by a wide range of consuming applications,
enabling people to create better assortment
plans, promotional offers, and orders for
automated replenishment.
Because you can better anticipate future
demand across all customer channels –
including store, Web shop, channel, regional,
and category sales – you’re in the driver’s
seat when it comes to optimizing plans and
decisions across all levels of the value chain.
You can also make vertical processes more
efficient, and suppliers and manufacturers
can better align their production with your
demand for more efficient trade promotions.
of POS data
in seconds
in real time

With SAP Customer Activity Repository, you
can get snapshots of your inventory and
stock levels in near-real time and at any
moment when you need this information
during your business operations. You’ll always
know how much is left of each item at all of
your store locations, enabling real-time
transparency and ad hoc interventions with-
out waiting for the endless nightly inventory
posting runs to be finalized.
This way, even if someone phones into your
call center to make a purchase, the service
agent can check store inventories, reserve
stock, and arrange for shipping to the cus-
tomer. This functionality can even be made
available to customers shopping online. For
example, a customer could check the stock
of a nearby store and opt for an in-store
pickup to complete the purchase today –
avoiding both the time lag and the cost of
shipping. A sales associate can view inventory
in other locations while the customer waits,
have items shipped, and turn an out-of-stock
situation into a sale.
Real-time inventory visibility can also be used
to optimize in-store processes. For example,
you can use it to support in-store replenish-
ment processes from back-office storage,
trigger physical inventory inspections at just
the right time, and more.
of POS data
in seconds
in real time

SAP Customer Activity Repository includes on-
shelf availability algorithms that you can use
to detect and visualize out-of-shelf situations
in stores as they happen and take immediate
action that will prevent further lost sales.The
algorithm sits on the SAP HANA platform,
leveraging its in-memory computing power
to execute millions of queries in real time.
Now you can analyze POS transactions in
real time to detect products that may have
on-shelf availability issues (for example, due
to out-of-shelf or out-of-stock events). The
solution also provides full transparency of
on-shelf availability situations for regular and
promotional products and calculates current
stock at cost or retail.
of POS data
in seconds
in real time
On-shelf availability algorithms can help you improve
customer and employee satisfaction, customer
service, and store sales.

in real time
SAP Customer Activity Repository supports
multichannel sales analysis and real-time
insight into sales performance and customer
behavior across channels (compared to fore-
casts), which helps you optimize processes
and interactions with other departments, cus-
tomers, and suppliers. For example, you can:
•• Understand what has sold by category,
where it was sold and through which channel,
and more
•• Compare data on actuals against forecasts
•• Work with suppliers and manufacturers
to align replenishment based on sales by
channel to fulfill orders quickly and avoid
stock-outs
•• Develop personalized promotions to sell
complementary products that align with
what customers have already purchased
•• Create in-store promotions to send to
customers’ mobile devices for just-in-time
marketing
of POS data
in seconds
in real time
Take advantage of unified demand forecasts –
the latest generation of forecasting that will drive
the SAP for Retail solution portfolio.

Become a more customer-centric
enterprise
With SAP Customer Activity Repository,
deployed in conjunction with the back-end
SAP Merchandising for Retail and Wholesale
Distribution package, you have the foundation
for creating a truly customer-centric enter-
prise. Besides transforming multichannel
data silos into a single source of truth, you can
visualize, discover, and share in real time the
insights hidden within this data.Then use this
insight to improve customer experiences and
drive sales. For example, you can:
•• Base every plan and execution step on a
common data foundation and a unified
demand forecast about your customer
•• Provide customers with a consistent,
personalized brand experience across all
channels and business models
•• Accurately predict and react swiftly to
changes in demand to have the right prod-
ucts in the right place for the right price to
meet demand
•• Generate insights to prepare, plan, and
develop promotions, assortments, and pro-
grams that boost market share and sales
•• Simplify your IT landscape by creating one
source of all customer data, which reduces
complexity, cuts costs, and eliminates data
redundancy
Become a more customer-centric
enterprise

11 / 11
Summary
The SAP® Customer Activity Repository appli-
cation collects, cleanses, and centralizes all
customer-related data across all channels in
real time for analysis and makes it ready for
consumption by other applications.You can
also enrich data with social media feedback,
enterprise data, and third-party data for a
360-degree view of customers.As a result, you
can create highly accurate demand and trend
forecasts, access real-time inventory data, and
offer customers a consistent, personalized
brand experience across all channels.
Objectives
•• Inventory visibility across channels and
locations
•• Accurate demand forecasting
•• Ability to use customer data to deliver
personalized brand experiences
Solution
•• A unique source of information about each
customer across all channels
•• High-speed predictive analytics for accurate
demand forecasts
•• Near-real-time inventory data
•• Ability to integrate retail predictive
applications
•• Integration of channels for better customer
service
Benefits
•• Increase promotion and assortment
effectiveness
•• Create a consistent brand experience
across all channels to boost customer
satisfaction and retention
•• Personalize marketing for higher sales
•• Simplify your IT landscape by minimizing
data replication
Learn more
To find out more, call your SAP representative
today or visit us online at www.sap.com.
www.sap.com Quick FactsBenefitsSolutionObjectives
CMP23057 (13/08)
© 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

© 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
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SAP Solution Brief: A Single, Unified Data Platform for Retail Planning, Forecasting, and Analytics

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SAP Solution Brief: A Single, Unified Data Platform for Retail Planning, Forecasting, and Analytics