I had a wonderful time at Teched, Las Vegas 2013. I specialize in retail and was specifically interested in how technology covered at the Teched is helping retailers run their business better and I was not disappointed! As the coverage was rich in variety and deep in content, it will not be possible to cover it all in one blog entry. Here are the highlights on a couple of key topics…
Mobility
Mobility is becoming increasingly important as customers are getting empowered in their retail decision making. As smartphones get more and more ubiquitous allowing customers to harness the power of internet to research and better evaluate their purchasing decisions, companies need to better define their multichannel strategy and adopt more precision tools that help them implement that strategy. To that end, SAP announcement of SAP Mobility Platform (SMP 3.0) which offers the following key features among others:
- Aims to unify what used to be a number of separate platforms such as Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP), Syclo Agentry, Mobiliser Into a single umbrella.
- Simplifying the overall deployment
- Decouples the front end app development with the backend service
- Support the “outside in” framework wherein the app developer can drive iterative changes in the backend service instead of just being a passible consumer
- Support ODATA which is a well known protocol to pass data to devices
After attending an excellent full day ASUG pre-session on mobility on Monday (Oct 21, 2013) and subsequent sessions within ASUG, I saw first-hand how the apps can be developed and enhanced quickly and easily.
Hybris
Hybris is a B2B/B2C e-commerce platform which is a key SAP Omni channel offering. Omni-channel is becoming increasing important to retailers and consumers make their purchasing decisions across in store shopping, mobile or internet. It is important to have consistency in offerings (covering product, price, promotion and logistics) and look and feel across all channels to both attract new customers and retain existing customers.
There were four sessions on Hybris that covered everything form technical installation related information to architecting an e-commerce solution in the B2B or B2C space. Key points from the solution architecture standpoint were:
1. The platform to cover Omni-channel that includes Online, In-store, Call centre, mobile, etc. The abstraction layer within the platform allows:
a. New emerging channels to be added
b. Add existing channels that could be unique to a line of business: e.g. vending machines