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CASE STUDY | RETAIL | xP&A

Transforming Retail Forecasting with Decision Inc. and SAP Analytics Cloud.

Solution Overview

Industry

Retail

Solution

Retail Forecasting with SAP Analytics Cloud

Client

The client is a global retail company with a diverse portfolio spanning across clothing, footwear, jewelry, mobile phones, technology, sportswear, and homeware. Their operations span across London, Australia and Africa.

Requirement

The retailer,  faced significant challenges when it came to disparate systems and using outdated technology. This created difficulties in gaining a complete view of the data distributed throughout the organisation.

Location

United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia

Results

Business Stakeholders have Visibility Into the Right Insights

Improved Decision Making

Improved Scenario Planning

Better Analysing Capabilities

Improved Forecasting Capabilities

Access to frequently updated information

Global retailer benefits from SAP Analytics Cloud implementation to better manage their unique forecasting requirements.

The Client

The client was a global retail company with a diverse portfolio spanning across clothing, footwear, jewelry, mobile phones, technology, sportswear, and homeware.

The retailer had outdated forecasting methods and to help improve the accuracy of its forecasts and manage the process more efficiently, they contracted Decision Inc. to implement an intelligent financial planning and forecasting solution built on SAP Analytics Cloud.

young adult shopping city

The Challenge before SAP Analytics Cloud

The retailer, with head offices based in South Africa, faced significant challenges when it came to disparate systems and using outdated technology.

This created difficulties in gaining a complete view of the data distributed throughout the organisation. For instance, collating data that had to be presented at executive board meetings was done manually using spreadsheets.

Furthermore, scenario planning was a complex process often seeing teams use different versions of the spreadsheet documents. It was a time-consuming and labour-intensive approach that was often prone to human error. This contributed to a lack of agility to meet a rapidly-changing environment with the retailer struggling to meet business continuity requirements.

From a workforce management perspective, the forecasting process was further impeded by the fact that business areas such as logistics, manufacturing, and HR and overhead planning were done using spreadsheet-based modules.

smart store management systems conceptmanager using digital tablet blurred clothing store as background

The Solution

As a longstanding business partner, Decision Inc. was chosen to assist the client in meeting all the unique requirements of its stakeholders and implement a centralised data model.

A critical requirement of the implementation was to get sight of operational details that ranged from granular ledger information to high-level summaries.

The client needed to deliver forecasting more frequently with scenario-based outcomes to ensure planning could be optimised. As part of this, the process from the time of forecasting to when the executives had a view of the information had to be improved. Additionally, each business unit at the retailer had different forecasting requirements which needed to be met. Due to all these requirements, SAP Analytics Cloud was the preferred technology to implement a new way of managing their Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A) Ecosystem.

The Benefits of the SAP Analytics Cloud Implementation

Thanks to the Decision Inc. implementation, all business stakeholders now have visibility into the right insights at the right time.

The solution delivered the following benefits:

Improved decision-making process that has enabled the organisation to better serve its clients.

Different scenarios now benefit from an integrated data set

The integrated data set empowers users to view variations of what-if scenarios and adapt planning in real-time.

By using the integration from source systems, the Decision Inc. solution is enabling the retailer to focus on analysing results by having access to more frequently updated information that enhances the forecasting process.

happy african american woman using laptop work study office

Start your SAP Analytics Cloud Journey Today

The SAP® Analytics Cloud solution is an agile analytics platform with powerful role-based interfaces for forecasting and modeling in real time. It is the ideal tool for all your business budgeting needs with the ability to integrate across your business.

Empower agile decision making in your organisation today with integrated planning and analysis.

We will gladly help you with your xP&A journey.

About Decision Inc.

Decision Inc. is a global digital partner that enables businesses to reinvent themselves to realise their full potential.

We deliver agility, resilience, and intelligence to any enterprise, enabling them to adapt quickly and thrive through innovation and opportunity. Our teams have engaged with more than 400 clients globally over the past 15 years, providing them with the expertise to build, operate, and optimise their digital businesses.

We achieve this by leveraging the world’s best technology to drive our client’s business ambitions forward into tomorrow’s reality.

Our success is ultimately driven by our entrepreneurial culture, industry exposure, and the passion of our people. We have three key cross-functional teams – Functional and Specialist Consulting, Development, and Engineering teams. Based in four global offices, our exceptional consultants focus on delivering value to clients by keeping them at the centre of our service delivery.

To find out more about our Consolidation & Financial Reporting solutions click here.

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