SAP America

Neckarlsum, Germany — German discount grocer Lidl is applying business intelligence technology to its planned expansion into the U.S.

Lidl, which operates nearly 10,000 stores and 130 distribution centers across 26 countries, will use solutions based on the SAP HANA business intelligence platform to support its IT strategy for entering the U.S. market.

Chicago – When a retailer includes the word “brain” right in its name, a certain level of operational intelligence is expected. For 30-plus-unit specialty educational toy and game retailer Marbles: The Brain Store, smartening up operations has included organizing product data on the Salsify product information management platform to provide merchandise intelligence across the organization.

New York – Dan Berthiaume, senior editor of Chain Store Age, recently participated in a one-hour panel discussion, “Today’s Retail CMO – A New Outlook,” sponsored by SAP as part of its “Coffee Break with Game-Changers” Internet radio series. The discussion, broadcast live on the VoiceAmerica Internet media service, focused on how advances in cloud and digital technology are transforming the role of the chief marketing officer in retail.

Istanbul, Turkey – Mudo, a Turkish retailer for clothing, accessories, furniture and home decorations, operates more than 120 stores across the country and has a strong online presence. To obtain better insight into enterprise-wide transactional data, Mudo uses the SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) application, based on the SAP HANA business intelligence platform.

Seattle – Amazon.com is heading east with its Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosted cloud computing platform – all the way to India.

AWS will launch an “infrastructure region” in India in 2016, meaning customers there will have access to locally based hosted cloud services.

Calgary – When the concept of things changing at “Internet speed” is discussed, often overlooked is the fact that the Internet itself changes at Internet speed. E-commerce websites must offer functionality and overall shopping experience on par with the latest online consumer expectations. Canadian specialty outdoor retailer Wholesale Sports Outdoor Outfitters, which operates 13 stores in western Canada as well as a website, has had to face this issue.

With the advent of social media came an outburst of sharing content, expressing opinions and increasing expectations. And in an industry where brands and fashion houses were once responsible for creating trends, consumers are now taking the reins. They’re turning to social channels to chat with other shoppers and share likes, dislikes and the next best thing – which is often changing as fast as the social conversation.

The theme of SAP’s annual Sapphire conference, in Orlando, Florida, was “Run Simple.” SAP focused on how its HANA business intelligence platform and growing number of HANA-powered applications can assist companies with the complicated task of creating simple enterprises that run on real-time data.

However, underneath the SAP-specific information was a lot of more general insight into how IT is disrupting the way businesses operate and engage their customers. Following are three insights with particular relevance for retailers.