From merchandise planning to allocation management, replenishment planning, advanced pricing and promotions, and everything in between, SAP Customer Activity Repository (CAR) enables SAP customers in the retail industry to extend the functionality of their solutions and maximize the value of their transactional data.
Read on to learn more about the SAP CAR solution, as well as where our senior-level SAP consultants can fit in your organization (and lead you to success in the process.)
Understanding SAP Customer Activity Repository
The SAP Customer Activity Repository (SAP CAR) solution is designed to act as a central repository for all sales data, customer behavior trends, sales transactions, and point-of-sale (POS) information to provide a more holistic view of customer activity across an organization.
With the SAP CAR module, users are enabled to…
- Leverage actionable insights on inventory, product fulfillment, and transaction history to manage demand and increase revenue
- Enable integrations between valuable sales data and POS transactions for better customer service across all business units
- Use unified demand forecasting functions to analyze historical customer data and gain early insights into future trends and business outcomes
- Engage with product allocation and replenishment solutions to reduce inventory and prevent unnecessary product waste
With a comprehensive view of customer activity and multichannel sales analytics, SAP CAR users have the tools and resources needed to build a stronger foundation for their sales and transaction data and make the most of their SAP ERP solutions.
Key Capabilities of the Solution
1) Assortment Planning
SAP CAR provides advanced functionality to support flexible assortment operations and facilitate integrations with merchandise planning budgets to ensure the planning process is planned, edited, and executed efficiently across different business units and departments.
SAP customers can also integrate production space for optimal assortment planning and management processes and rank products against key performance indicators (KPIs), business roles, and potential limitations to assess how products meet real-world requirements.
2) Unified Sales Repository
With the CAR solution, SAP users are enabled to connect all of their most important data from sales channels, customer transactions, and POS interactions to provide a unified source of truth for all consuming applications.
SAP CAR data can also be spread throughout different areas of an organization in multiple diverse formats to ensure customers have the information and tools needed to audit and manage sales transactions and assess sales performance and revenue insights in real time to get the most out of their solution.
3) Pricing and Promotion Management
SAP CAR functionality not only allows users to create promotions and special offers designed to align with financial objectives and customer preferences, but it also ensures consistent pricing to keep companies and consumers on the same page no matter what.
The intuitive Customer Activity module also enables SAP users to create “what-if” scenarios to leverage funding from vendors, optimize trade fund margins, and proactively forecast future financial performance across business units.
4) Replenishment Planning
SAP CAR offers advanced replenishment planning functions to help companies respond to change in the retail industry or their organizational structure more accurately and efficiently.
The SAP CAR module provides optimized order plans, comprehensive insights into product fulfillment and replenishment processes, well-defined cost and waste management functions, and advanced KPIs. And, with this, SAP users can not only prevent stock spoilage, but also facilitate optimized change management processes across the board.
5) Allocation Management
SAP Customer Activity Repository gives users the opportunity to leverage advanced inventory analytics, capacity data, and promotional forecasts to properly allocate merchandise for promotions and special offers.
And, for SAP customers whose business model is dependent on the season, the CAR module helps to trigger product allocation at the beginning of the season, leverage demand forecasts to meet demand, and automate allocation and replenishment processes during each season.
Main Advantages for SAP CAR Customers
Let’s take a closer look at a few of the key benefits of the SAP CAR solution for retailers…
Enhanced Inventory Visibility
Collecting, viewing, and assessing real-time inventory data plays a critical role in managing inventory levels according to demand, determining the stock status of products and orders, and route orders according to your current inventory position.
With the SAP CAR solution, users have the functionality needed to…
- Simplify order management processes
- Leverage real-time analytics for better inventory tracking across channels
- Automate and standardize inventory workflows
- Maximize the profitability and success of every sale
Improved Demand Forecasting
With advanced SAP CAR features, like the Demand Data Foundation (DDF) and Unified Demand Forecast (UDF) tools, retailers are enabled to analyze historical sales and transactions with customers and improve the accuracy and reliability of sales predictions and future trend forecasts.
SAP CAR functionality gives users the opportunity to…
- Collect and analyze transactional data from multiple independent applications
- Proactively react to product shortages across sales channels
- Merge master data (i.e., vendor and product specifications) and planning data (i.e., planned promotions and future pricing) for more actionable insights
- Improve product and sales visibility to advance customer retention efforts
Functional POS Integration
With SAP CAR, sales data and important point-of-sale information can be collected and exchanged across channels to provide a more comprehensive view of customer activity and bring previously siloed data from multiple independent applications together in a single source of truth.
Integration of sales and POS data in SAP CAR allows users to…
- Use POS Data Management functionality (i.e., POS Data Transfer and Audit) to collect and integrate important transactional data
- Gain a 360-degree view of sales activities across online and offline POS systems
- Leverage the real-time computing power of SAP HANA to share POS data between stores and their SAP CAR solution
Sales and Transactional Data Analytics
Integrations with the SAP HANA database and functional POS systems allow users to access more comprehensive information into customer preferences and behaviors and helps them drive more efficient retail operations across the board.
With SAP CAR, companies in the retail industry can…
- Identify and define the profitability of customers based on longer-term trends
- Use functional social intelligence tools to better understand brand perception and customer behavior in online and offline circumstances
- Forecast promotions, deals, and special offers with greater probability for success
- Assess short and long-term impacts of “limited-time” offers on consumer behavior, buying trends, and amount of customer visits
How Can We Help?
Whether you need help navigating a complex SAP CAR implementation project, additional support transforming your previous system landscape from outdate database technology to in-memory database technology, an extra hand integrating SAP CAR with other applications in your SAP ERP system, or anything else SAP-related, Surety Systems is here to help.
Our team of senior-level SAP consultants has the technical skills, functional expertise, and real-world experience needed to lead you to success, regardless of the complexity of your enterprise system or scope of your project needs.
Getting Started with Us
Interested in learning more about our SAP consulting services? Ready to get connected with our team to solve all of your SAP CAR implementation, integration, or upgrade issues?
Contact us today to get started with one of our expert SAP consultants!
