Cloudy news from SAP Customer Activity Repository

Today I would like to share with you some updated information about SAP Customer Activity Repository and the possibility to use this solution in the cloud for several  use cases.

What is SAP Customer Activity Repository all about?

The retail world is changing by the minute. The days of brands pushing products to consumers are long gone. The power has shifted to the consumer. Consumers are well informed, digitally and socially connected, less loyal, and demand fast answers, regardless of the channel they shop.

Many retailers still struggle with outdated legacy systems, with information scattered across systems in different pockets of the organization. This creates a fragmented view of the customer and their shopping journey.  To lift loyalty and increase buys across their channels, these retailers must adapt quickly and create a single, omnichannel view of the customer journey.  Retailers need to be able to know what is happening right now, as well as predict what may happen in the near future, so that the right product is at the right place at the right time, and at the right price.

SAP Customer Activity Repository (CAR) collects transaction data that was previously spread over multiple independent applications in diverse formats.  Retailers no longer need to pre-aggregate data and send out information to data warehouses. With SAP HANA as the foundation, all of the data resides at the lowest, granular level.  With “out of the box” virtual data models, the retailer’s analysts can then start easily building, in minutes, the reports that used to take weeks to build. Insight is available more quickly and flexibly, from one common data repository. Other retail applications including SAP Promotions Management, SAP Assortment Planning for Retail, and SAP hybris Marketing segmentation can all leverage the data that aggregates within CAR to analyze current data and predict future results, always staying one step ahead.

With version 2.0, CAR is on every retailer’s radar and you can learn here how CAR specific cloud offerings can help you to understand, to leverage and to build on this solution.

First step: You want to test drive SAP Customer Activity Repository?

The new SAP Customer Activity Repository trial is now available and you can register for a free, 30-days test drive here.

An updated, SAP Fiori based landing page welcomes you and guides you through the applications, documents and training videos. You can go in depth with tools that allow for analytics such as affinity and basket analysis with SAP Sales Insight for Retail. A sample consumer mobile app shows you how consumers can access CAR data for things like product details, purchase history, and loyalty points. If you know already the older version of the trial, you will also enjoy additional SAP Fiori Multichannel KPI analysis, great insights into promotions, intraday and weekday patterns, net sales and more with SAP Lumira. And last but not least the SAP hybris Marketing customer segmentation leveraging CAR’s multichannel purchase history.

Check out the intro video to learn more about the SAP Customer Activity Repository trial.

          Screenshot: Landing page SAP Customer Activity Repository Trial

Second step: You want to start your project/your blueprint phase with a fully configured system?

While delivering an updated version of SAP HANA Customer Activity Repository rapid-deployment solution (CAR RDS), we also provide a corresponding pre-assembled version of the RDS in the SAP Cloud Appliance Library (CAL) and in SAP Store.

Why is this an important offering? To respond to the fast moving demands being made by today’s consumers, some customers/partners want to understand what CAR could mean for their business and thus want to set up a proof of concept as soon as possible. Other customers/partners have already special use cases identified and want to  accelerate the business blueprint phase.

With this pre-assembled RDS you can get your own system very fast for a longer period of time with sample data. You  have full access to the system in order to adapt the configuration as needed. This  pre-configured CAR 2.0 system includes:

the SAP Smart Business for Multichannel Sales Analytics and the SAP Lumira for Inventory Visibility and Sales Reports with sample data.

You can quickly create your own software appliance via self-service directly from the SAP CAL into their own Amazon Cloud account. If you want to know how to do that in more detail, please check the information here.

Another option is to order a Blu-ray of the pre-assembled version of the CAR RDS and install it in your system landscape on premise. The material number is 51049811, please also see SAP Note 2041140 for further details on the ordering and implementation process.

          Screenshot: SAP Cloud Appliance Library

Third step: You want to develop your own application on top of CAR

You understand the power of SAP Customer Activity Repository and have a brilliant idea for a new application on top of CAR, e.g. a mobile app for consumer, or additional analytics and so on. Get your full CAR development environment incl. test data in your own instance in less than 1 hour. Use SAP Customer Activity Repository – Partner Development Center in SCN to get support and to share your questions. Learn how to develop a mobile consumer application. And finally publish your apps on SAP Store!

          Screenshop: sample app

Three great opportunities to use SAP Customer Activity Repository in the cloud. Hope you find your use case here and can take advantage of one or two of our cloud offerings!