How Does SAP S/4HANA Benefit Retailers?

[vishal_k]

As technological innovations rush forward, it provides retail customers with greater accessibility, convenience, and customizability. Today’s tech-savvy customers can order their favorite products from the comfort of their homes with a few clicks. They know exactly what to buy, where to buy, and how to buy. However, the well-informed audience always expects more from the retail suppliers and wants to have a seamless online purchasing journey.

 

Things like payment failures due to avs mismatch error, then delayed delivery of purchased products due to shipping problems or issues with inventory control ultimately leave a negative impact on the overall customer experience. And if the retailers fail to meet consumer expectations, they will inevitably lose customers to their competitors. However, implementing a robust ERP system like SAP S/4HANA for retail helps to meet the ever-changing demands of the retail industry in this digital era.

 

SAP S/4HANA is highly sophisticated and uses artificial intelligence to transform the overall process of business in the cloud or on-premise. SAP S/4HANA cloud consists of intelligent emerging technologies like AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics, which streamline diverse business operations and enforce comprehensive management seamlessly. In addition, it allows companies to adopt new business models and adapt to sudden market changes too.

With SAP S/4HANA, retailers can think about having standardized and automated processes, which would increase their overall business efficiency.

 

 SAP S/4HANA for Retailers

 

SAP S/4HANA for retailers is designed as an end-to-end IT solution that supports the merchandising process across the entire value chain. It should be noted that in recent times, the success of a business is entirely dependent on the customers.

Now, let's understand how a digital approach can help retailers to understand their new-age customers -

• With a digital approach, real-time information can be known in both offline and online environments.


• It helps in lowering down the product creation and optimization cycle.


• It also helps in attracting a new customer base and building their loyalty towards the brand.


• Digitalization can help to streamline the operational process and create an adaptive workforce.


• Creation of a new business model which gets perfectly aligned to the digital capabilities.

 

How can retailers benefit from SAP S/4HANA?

 

• Consumer-focused strategies

The first step towards the digital transformation is to strategize the business so that the main focus would lie to the customers. Retailers need to understand that being a consumer-centric organization can help their business to grow. They can use consumer insights to analyze their buying behaviors. There has been an increasing focus on collecting consumer insights to understand their preference and design their products accordingly. Companies use the enormous volume of data that customers give out while shopping online to frame their work model.

As a customer, one can notice that e-stores and websites often offer consumers buying choices depending on their preferences. The personalization touch enhances the overall shopping experience of the buyers, increases their loyalty, and keeps coming back for shopping more.

 

• Customized offers

Retailers can influence their buyer's behavior positively by offering them personalized products according to individual preferences. Recent surveys have shown a considerable increase in conversion rate when buyers are exclusively offered the products they like. The real-time personalization experience has enhanced the customers' purchasing journey and increased the profits of the retailers.

Retailers take a close look at each of their buyer's profiles to offer them exclusive deals. They analyze their purchasing patterns and look at their shopping history to understand their preferences in the context of location and product availability.

 

Are there any challenges faced by SAP S/4HANA for retailers?

SAP S/4HANA for merchandisers can be described as the backbone of the retail industry.

However, the retail market can be very volatile, and if a merchandiser is dealing with seasonal products, he needs to be extra conscious as his product cycle will keep on changing with time. This can confuse the retailers in terms of keeping proper track of the product data - they might lose a lot of money due to issues with the master data across the chain of operation. It would not only bother the business but can also impact the consumers due to data mismatch across all sales channels. The satisfaction levels of the customers can also decrease due to inconsistency in the pricing of the products.

 

Solutions offered by SAP S/4HANA

When retailers use SAP S/4HANA for merchandisers, it nullifies the challenges related to seasonality features. It works for the product lifecycle as a whole, starting from master data creation to sales, including managing stocks and price procurements.

The SAP S/4HANA platform is user-friendly, and it helps retailers create and maintain the data of their products in an effortless way. In addition, using SAP S/4HANA, retailers can rest assured about the pricing and promotional offers consistency across all the operational channels.

Using SAP S/4HANA can increase the revenue of the business and give more returns from the promotional offers. It also reduces the number of errors caused during data creation and management. In addition, it will help make your business customer-centric, which will increase your consumer's satisfaction level and loyalty towards your brand.

 

Apart from these, it is also essential for retailers to access accurate inventory data. Inconsistency in these reports can lead to a long response time. SAP S/4HANA interface can help with that; it is a single platform for managing everything related to warehouse and transportation. It also has capabilities to do labor management, real-time analytics, shipping management, etc. In addition, it enhances the transparency level within the organization by enabling the capacity to manage inventory live.

 

Final words

 

SAP S/4HANA is equipped with features that can manage the entire business solution portfolio, from procurement to sales. In addition, it simplifies the overall automation process by redefining retail and creating a great customer servicing experience, which adds to the value of the retail business. Investing in SAP S/4HANA by retailers is the first step towards getting access to a world of better business opportunities. And most importantly, it is a solid effort to future-proofing the brand.