Adopting Mobility to improve Store Productivity

[Former Member]

“Change before your have to.” - Jack Welch

As we observe the Technology trends today, it is evident that many traditional   business solutions are now converging new technologies for building new solutions.  Mobile POS is one great example of such a trend – implementation of Mobile POS is now a top agenda for almost every retail CEO/ CIO.

Industry Pundits are predicting that almost 52% Business Applications will shift to mobile technology by 2015-2016. This means, there would emerge great opportunities for new solutions on Mobility.

As a part of Groupsoft SAP HANA and SAP Mobile creative development initiatives – Grouspsoft, using technology convergence, has designed an interesting basic level concept - MOBILE STORE PROFILE - a future Planogram application.

In SAP Retail suit, Retail Master / Assortment holds a lot of essential  information on basic business stransactions for a specific Store like store classification, store sales trends / stocking norms, and other socio economic information. This information is required frequently on real time basis by the store team to make effective business decisions. To reach an effective decision the team needs not only Data Analysis but also needs to get a real time look and feel of the Store. Now through the use of Grouspoft’s new application Mobile Store Profile - the Stores real time look and feel can be obtained by a remotely based team.

Currently, Planogram applications are used to provide the visual
look of the store to Planners. These Planogram's are however, to a large extent rigid and do not provide the flexibility to be revised quickly to evaluate and compare a most appealing look for the local customer. Neither do they provide a sense of feel of the store.

I am sure, many of you who have been to the Rockefeller Centre,NY during Christmas, must have also visited the SAKS Fifth Avenue -  amazingly creative work by the Visual Merchandise team resulting in - the store’s foot fall drastically
shot up.

In such a scenario where this kind of heavy traffic is anticipated – there is a definite stress on the Supply Chain and a high probability of a Stock-Out situation. Thus, Store Replenishment becomes an important factor.  During holiday season – stores located on key locations such as 5th Avenue or Time Square – carry out store replenishments 3-5 times in a day. Some of the retailers keep their stock floating on a Boat @ Hudson River for quick reach.  (I am sure this would be quite a common phenomena across the globe).

Complexity in Retailing increases many fold with High Store Traffic, High Sales Turn and a very limited but a very costly retail space. And yet, every retailer aims to maximize the Store Sales during this period. So as a Store Manager, or a Stock Planner or a Merchandiser - at such times especially, there is a critical need for a SMART Tablet App. The Mobile Store Profiler provides these decision makers with critical real time based information along with real time Analytics. Now the Store Manager, Stock Planner and the Merchandiser can use this Visual Solution as a Communicator to reach complex decisions based on real time data and analytics.

Mobile Store Profile, is designed and meant to be a Merchandise and Local Customer Tracker for a specific store.  The above said is driven by Big Data with unstructured data. To further elaborate – assume a Retailer is  running a 20000 Sq Ft. Store and has a total 600 similar size Stores - converted the Retailer is working on a 12 M Sq.ft of store space.   To cover 12 Million Sq Feet store space the Retailer requires a very Strong Analytics and Visual interactive tool.

Within this complex business scenario, Visual Merchandise function needs intense integration with Merchandise / Stock Planning and Store Sales team in order to achieve higher sales revenue from the Store. Key requirements like Store Planogram vs Store Performance can be covered using Mobile Store Profile. From store traffic analysis point of view, Mobile Store Profile can be used by Planners and Merchandise Analysts from remote locations.

A Retail Productivity Utility like Mobile Store Profile is made possible by converging of SAP HANA/ SAP Analytics and SAP Mobility Technologies to provide a very powerful tool in the hands of the store manager.