SAP America

By Mike Troy

Mobile, social, solution, cloud, big data, SaaS, optimize and engage. It was impossible to have a conversation at the National Retail Federation convention in New York without hearing these words — a lot.

New York -- SAP AG on Monday announced that Crocs Inc. is implementing the SAP Apparel and Footwear application to replace a legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Implementation is already underway and will help give Crocs complete control of its global supply chain — from procuring raw materials to delivering finished styles across the globe.

Getting closer to the customer has always been important to retailers, but never more so than it is today. Chain Store Age spoke with SAP’s Lori Mitchell-Keller about the transformational shifts that are shaking up the retail model.

All the buzz today is about how retailers need to get closer to the customer, but what exactly does it mean?

New York -- The sales figures are in for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Using a sophisticated social media analytics platform, SAP tracked consumer sentiment on these critical shopping days via Facebook, Twitter and 165 million other sites across the social web to identify patterns and uncover revealing shopper insights.

View SAP’s sentiment-tracking infographic here.

Where did the idea for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Consumer Face-Off originate?

NEW YORK — On Wednesday, Nov. 28, Chainstoreage.com will unveil an exclusive and revealing look at how shoppers felt — what turned them on and off — on two of the busiest and most critical retail days of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The Holiday Shopper Sentiment Report: Black Friday and Cyber Monday Consumer Face-Off by SAP will explore real-time trends and insights that will inform the next generation of retail.

Loyalty programs may be commonplace across the retail industry, but few are capable of rewarding members on a personal level. Société de transport de Montréal (STM) may not be a retailer, but retail chains can learn a valuable lesson from how the transportation company rewards individual consumers for their loyalty.

New York -- On Wednesday, Nov. 28, Chainstoreage.com will unveil an exclusive and revealing look at how shoppers felt — what turned them on and off — on two of the busiest and most critical retail days of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The Holiday Shopper Sentiment Report: Black Friday and Cyber Monday Consumer Face-Off by SAP will explore real-time trends and insights that will inform the next generation of retail.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Fujitsu has teamed up with its longstanding partner SAP AG to build a new packaged integration component, which will integrate Fujitsu's next-generation retail Point of Service application with the SAP(R) for retail portfolio solutions. The resulting extended capabilities will deliver significant multichannel benefits in terms of customer service, front-office business process improvements and point-of-sale improvements to retailers.

Dallas -- SAP has launched a new service to help retailers influence consumer behavior at the moment of decision.
 
SAP's Precision Retailing solution is said to deliver personalized offers and suggestions in real time to consumers across multiple channels, including mobile devices, in-store kiosks and websites. The company also announced the SAP Retail Store Ops Manager mobile app to further enhance in-store productivity.