Digital business models integrated at the POS

consenso’s showcase on the topic “Customer loyalty with SAP Leonardo”

Digital transformation, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, design thinking, big data – concepts the SAP world is currently preoccupied with.

But where is the practical benefit of these new technologies? Is it – still – all about mere ideas for a further digitised future or can these ideas and the according technologies already be of profitable use today?

In order to answer this question, consenso has put into practice a fully integrated showcase. Developed based on an SAP Leonardo Design Thinking process and subsequently implemented with components of the SAP Cloud Platform, consenso’s showcase makes the current SAP “hype topics” touchable and transparent. As a result, by overcoming the separation of online and offline trade, stationary retailers may virtually expand their assortments as desired, thus strengthening customer loyalty.

But one by one:

The retailers’ trains of thought are – naturally – based on classical trading processes. Based on this, trade is looking at technology and considers how it can be used for the further digitisation of the trading processes. This thought structure needed to be broken during the design thinking process. The starting point in this regard was a clear differentiation between “classical” and “digital” (online) trade. The goal was to develop a showcase describing a purely digital value-adding process at the POS of stationary retail, aiming at using a “new” perspective to profitably transfer the attributes of online trade to offline trade.

The scenario of consenso’s showcase starts at the GK POS of a food retailer in the context of a “normal” sales process. The customer tells the cashier that he/she needs to purchase a further article that the retailers assortment does not cover – in this case e.g. a blue smartphone charging cable. The cashier or shop assistant explains to the customer that the POS functionality also enables the sale of such articles that are not part of the retailer’s standard assortment – in general all articles that can also be ordered online via appropriate platforms.

The selection of an article is technically made via an SAP Fiori app on GK OmniPOS. The Fiori app in the design of an online shop does not initially contain any special articles. Searching for the blue charging cable results in a list of the article in different specifications, e.g. regarding length or USB generation. These data are the results from various offers on online platforms determined with APIs and web crawlers in real-time.

The price is then detected from all offers found via machine learning and a previously defined strategy. Additionally, the algorithm can determine a customer-specific price. One strategy in the context of price calculation could be to maximise profits, but to give an advantage to existing customers. The option of customer-specific price optimisation comes into place as soon as relevant customer master data are available at the POS before the scenario starts. Furthermore, the master data can be used to deliver the purchased article to the customer’s residence. Alternatively, the article can also be delivered to and collected at the store via the Click & Collect process.

After purchasing the article via the SAP Fiori app, it can be paid for in the “classical way” with the normal receipt together with the articles purchased at the store.  Then, the best supplier is selected via an OAA (omni-channel article availability) strategy. Order and delivery can be tracked at the POS. Here, you can get an overview from which online platform the article was ordered, and embedded analytics in the Fiori launchpad allow for evaluations on the sales and profits resulting from the scenario.

The delivery of the charging cable can be accompanied by a dash button enabling easy reordering of the article at any time. As soon as the customer hits the button, an according purchase order will be issued in the S/4HANA system and the customer will receive a purchase confirmation via email. This form of reordering may especially generate added value in the case of consumer goods. Once the scenario has been established for a while, supported by machine learning, the button will only be sent if it has proved useful with other customers and the same article. This way, a fully integrated scenario will be established, starting at stationary retail, but with a purely digital implementation. Thus, the retailer’s intermediary status comes to the fore and is less depending on the stationary assortment.

This scenario ensures customer loyalty by serving almost all customer demands. The customer no longer needs to go to various stores, customer retention is strategically more important than the assortment. The implementation of the scenario already covers five of the main areas of SAP Leonardo: Internet of Things, analytics, data intelligence, machine learning and big data – digital transformation with added value!

We have already introduced our showcase at various events, e.g. at the “SAP Forum für den Handel 2019” (trade forum). Are you interested in experiencing and learning more on the details of our “translation” of digitisation and Leonardo in the context of a live and specific application scenario? Come and join us!