New SAP Customer Activity Repository for SAP S/4HANA Retail rapid-deployment solution available!

Since November 2016 a new version of SAP Customer Activity Repository (SAP Customer Activity Repository 3.0 as part of the SAP Customer Activity Repository Application Bundle 2.0) is available. One major new feature is the possibility to use not only an SAP ERP or SAP Fashion Management System as back-end, but also the new solution SAP S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management.

As you might know SAP S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management is available since October 2016. It’s the industry-specific version of the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution and is at the core of a comprehensive suite of retail offerings designed to help retailers meet the demands of a digital economy. With this new merchandise management platform, retailers will access previously unavailable agility and flexibility so they can better compete and reinvent their business.

We see a good number of customers starting their digital transformation journey on that new platform. In addition to SAP S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management, customers benefit from a complete portfolio of retail solutions built around the digital core with native pre-built integration to allow firms to address the needs demanded by today’s digital economy. One of the most relevant solution here is SAP Customer Activity Repository providing real-time customer and business insight in retail and fashion in one location. POS Data Transfer and Audit is the most used functionality inside SAP Customer Activity Repository because the sales that occur every day in traditional bricks-and-mortar stores still represent the vast majority of transactions. These transactions, together with sales information from other channels, provide the foundation, , for other consuming apps based on SAP Customer Activity Repository.

On these grounds we decided to deliver a new package that accommodates the following two requirements to support new implementation projects:

• Offer a package that covers the integration to the new digital core SAP S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management
• Cover the key functionality POS Data Transfer and Audit

The scope of this new package SAP Customer Activity Repository for S/4HANA Retail rapid-deployment solution covers the SLT Configuration to connect S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management with SAP Customer Activity Repository. It also delivers automated content to accelerate the implementation of SAP POS Data Transfer and Audit, means you don’t have to go through a whole bunch of paper to get the configuration done.

The automated configuration covers

• the implementation of POS inbound processing engine for sales and returns, monetary flow, statistical transactions, goods movements
• the support of data upload during the day
• data consistency check, duplicate check
• the activation of standard master data check for store, items, EAN

Overview Scope SAP Customer Activity Repository for S/4HANA Retail rapid-deployment solution

You might be confused now – two packages for SAP Customer Activity Repository? What’s going on with the other one – SAP HANA Customer Activity Repository rapid-deployment solution? When to use which one? As of January 2017, two different packages are available:SAP HANA Customer Activity Repository rapid-deployment solution V5.10 and
SAP Customer Activity Repository for SAP S/4HANA Retail rapid-deployment solution V1.20.

See the differences in the following table:

The main difference is about the back-end system. As the established SAP HANA Customer Activity Repository RDS already has a lot of options for the customer to choose, we didn’t want to include another one in order to avoid more complexity.

The positioning should be pretty easy: SAP Customer Activity Repository for S/4HANA Retail rapid-deployment solution fits best in case you have a new implementation of S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management and SAP Customer Activity Repository with focus on POS Data Transfer and Audit. In a proof-of-concept approach you can show very fast the business value of SAP Customer Activity Repository with low risks. But you can also use the Go-live option to get your system productive very fast.

You might be faced sometimes with the following question: What about a customer who do the conversion from SAP ERP to S/4HANA Retail?
If the customer has already a running SAP Customer Activity Repository system, e.g. on CARAB 1.0, he has to upgrade this system to CARAB 2.0, because the integration to S/4HANA Retail is only available from CARAB 2.0 onwards. Upgrade of a SAP Customer Activity Repository system is not supported by RDS.
If a customer doesn‘t run a CAR system yet, he needs to start with a new installation of CARAB 2.0. This is supported by SAP Customer Activity Repository for S/4HANA Retail RDS.

You want to find out more about S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management? Please check out this asset.

To get more information on SAP Customer Activity Repository for S/4HANA Retail rapid-deployment solution and to download the content please go to SAP Best Practices Explorer.