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SAP Retail Merchandise Management

Merchandise Management SAP’s merchandise management application is a completely integrated retailing solution that covers the core processes of a retail company. It maps the complete set of business processes required for competitive assortment strategies, different retail formats, and ECR-driven logistics and distribution. It provides all the functions necessary for modeling business processes in a retail company. With SAP’s merchandise management system, SAP has endeavored to model the full "Value Chain", all the links in the logistics pipeline from consumer to vendor. Retailers can thus optimize the whole array of business processes and control checks in managing the flow of merchandise and information among vendors, retailers and consumers. Merchandise management comprises the procurement, storage, distribution and sale of merchandise. The key merchandise management processes include: Management of Master Data Provides efficient management for high volume retail master data such as SKUs, locations, vendors, vendor cost, delivery and order cycles and other retail relevant master data. Multiple consistency checks and automatic inbound routines are provided to reduce maintenance effort and insure consistent data, thereby increasing overall efficiency of business transactions. Merchandise and Assortment Management Is a sophisticated and highly flexible application for structuring your merchandise ranges. A range consists of a number of SKUs which can be managed as a group and which can be assigned to one or multiple locations for a specific timeframe for procurement, merchandising and sales. Price and Revenue Management Allows retailers to stay profitable in highly competitive markets, faced with the challenge of low margins and broad assortments. To better manage product lifecycles, in-season performance of merchandise dictates the pricing strategies needed to best achieve profitable goals, often at the store level. Promotion Management Comprises all processes, which retailers need for setting up their strategic merchandise budget plans, then buy and price the promotional assortment as well as implementing the promotion program. This means all necessary steps starting with the planning, procurement of actual quantities, announcement and distribution of promoted items and prices to stores and customers as well as reporting and analysis of realized sales in the target group. Purchase Order Management The supply chain costs can heavily be reduced by optimizing the company internal procurement processes. An integrated purchase order, allocation and distribution, and settlement process is mandatory to manage and control the complete procurement process. DC and Store Replenishment Replenishment is a method of supplying distribution centers and stores with merchandise in line with the demand for the merchandise. In replenishment planning, requirements are calculated using the current stock situation. When this has been done, follow-on documents (for example, purchase orders or sales orders) are generated for supplying merchandise. Inventory Management Enables the retailer to manage and monitor stocks and values and hereby keep the balance of keeping inventory low and at the same time make sure that there are less out-of-stock situations. Goods movements are made in real time and tightly integrated to the financial to keep inventory up-to-date. Warehouse and DC Management Helps to store and move goods efficiently and thus keeps the inventory low by guaranteeing a high service level. Picking and packing, controlling logistics documents, and in and outbound monitoring are all part of the process. One addition that facilitates warehouse management is the integration of mobile devices that provide reliable information about goods stored and moved through warehouse locations in real time. Integration of Store Processes (e.g. POS Integration) Supports connectivity to store and POS systems through standardized interfaces. Inbound processing of TLOG data, including sales audit as well as outbound processing of price/item information via ARTS compliant interfaces is provided. Inventory data and other merchandising information is provided to support de-central store systems. In combination with the analytics capabilities of the Business Information Warehouse Retailers are enabled to control and coordinate the whole value chain, and thus react swiftly to changes in consumer behavior. Item Management SAP Retail provides an integrated merchandise management solution that helps retailers overcome their pain points. For example, if a retailer is using many point solutions and multiple item databases this may lead to inconsistent master data.  Furthermore, retailers also often struggle with large volumes of master data records as a result of many items, many locations, and frequent changes. With SAP Retail, retailers can create and manage large numbers of master data using user-friendly mass maintenance tools; exception-based management; referencing logic to limit data creation; manual input matrices; and electronic import/export mechanisms to collaborate with vendors, bring in data from planning applications, and access industry data pools.  Master data maintenance screens can be tailored to meet simple or sophisticated requirements. As part of that solution, item management means that you only need to set up your items once in one place and all areas of your organization that require access to that information can access it immediately. The finance department, distribution center, merchandisers, buyers, etc. can all view the same consistent data.  Since inventory transactions and adjustments, as well as item maintenance (pricing, promotions, UPCs, etc.) are updated in real-time, retailers will always have an accurate view of performance. Item Management: o        Multiple Item Types o        Single Item; Displays, Sets; Fashion; Samples o        Item Attributes o        Standard Attributes – Product Status; Season; ABC; Commodity Code; Origin; Hazmat; Import/Export Attributes o        Product specs – document management o        Cost, retail, margin, markup o        Vendor (w/ multi-vendor capability) o        Unlimited customer-defined attribute assignments o        SKU creating characteristics – fashion input matrix o        Item Control o        Comprehensive data control – UPC, EAN, GTIN, Internal Assignment, multiples o        Unlimited units of measure - eaches, inner, case, tier, pallet, etc. o        Required vs. optional fields o        Create items with reference – auto populate fields o        Forecast reference SKUs o        Interface to space optimization o        Manage serial numbers o        Full discontinuation process (item, store, DC, and vendor) o        Item Hierarchy o        Multiple hierarchy capabilities o        Unlimited merchandise hierarchy levels o        Asymmetrical hierarchies allowed o        Ability to reclassify items to new hierarchies o        Assign attributes to hierarchies – items will inherit hierarchy level attributes. o        Inventory Control o        Assign and authorize items to stores/store groups o        Maintain and track inventory units by sku/location o        Maintain and track inventory valuation by sku/ location o        Vendor Communication o        Delivered electronic interfaces to receive vendor catalog information – new items, UPC, pricing, description, etc. o        Portal capabilities to share vendor performance, inventory positions, etc. o        Security o        Authorization profiles gives access to only the right people at the right time o        International Operations o        Multi-currency o        Multi-language o        POS Integration o        POS interface to send item data (UPC, pricing, valid period, text for POS, etc.) to the stores   Merchandise Categories: Merchandise categories enable you to classify and structure all aspects of the merchandise for efficient merchandise category management. Each item is assigned to a specific merchandise category, which is valid throughout the enterprise. Merchandise categories can be assigned to stores and store departments. Furthermore, they can be grouped into hierarchies. Item Hierarchies: The item hierarchy is an alternative, parallel structure which enables you to group items using a customer-oriented structure for planning, management, or reporting purposes. You can then map any grouping of items, in particular the consumer decision tree (CDT). The CDT is oriented around consumers and their needs and, as far as possible, it reflects how, and according to what needs the consumer takes into account during a purchase decision. The grouping of items in a customer-oriented structure supports the eight-step-process for business planning in Category Management. This business planning process was developed by SAP, together with Roland Berger – Strategy Consultants and it follows the findings of the ECR Category Management Best Practices Report. There are no restrictions as to the depth of an item hierarchy. However, experience has shown that a structure depth of a maximum of seven levels is recommendable.