By Michael Niestroy, Managing Partner, retailsolutions UK & Nordics
Approximately 80 attendees from 20 retail organisations across 8 countries enjoyed the presentations from 9 speakers covering the following topics:
- Sindre Stabell from EINR talked about the importance of a world class assortments process for Forecasting and Replenishment
- Sebastian Andersson and team from Elkjøp Nordic talked about UI matters – rolling out a Forecasting & Replenishment solution to 10,000 users in a few weeks requires excellent planning and involvement. However, taking advantage of new and intuitive user interfaces for new applications is a key enabler to adoption
- Kristel Lundegaard from EINR shared her Lessons Learned & Key take-away points from real world implementations of Forecasting and Replenishment processes
- Heine Sort from Jysk walked us through the key points during their implementation of SAP F&R, focusing on the Store User Interface, the importance of super users, a well defined definition of presentation stock, the campaign process and their emergency plans
- Sylvia Ludwig, Igor Martic and Hans-Georg Kloep from SAP covered a range oftopoics including:
> Planned SAP F&R Innovations
> Latest features in UDF and integration with SAP F&R
- Oliver Fischer from Coop Switzerlandshared with the audience their journey with SAP F&R since 2006 and their experiences in collaborating with SAP on F&R for Fresh Item Forecast
- Karl Bend from retailsolutions dispelled some myths and showed how SAP F&R can address business requirements in highly seasonal and promotion-driven general merchandising retail environments
- Frank Theobald from retailsolutions shared his experiences with us around implementing the latest SAP F&R Fresh Item Forecast functionality in a grocery supermarket environment
All presentations will be made available to registered attendees in due course.
The feedback from the attendees was very positive as can be seen by the excitement of the audience after the presentation of Oliver Fischer below.
In summary, all contributions were very interesting and informative, and some of the key learnings were that it does not just depend on having a stable SAP F&R solution in place, but that the foundation for efficient replenishment processes consists of consistent assortment processes as well as quality master data. In addition, it is not only possible but almost mandatory for retailers to include promotional DIF’s (Demand Influencing Factors) into the Forecasting & Replenishment process to cater for quantity uplifts.
Personally, I was impressed by the Neptune based UI5 screens that Elkjøp have deployed to their user base, allowing the review of order proposals as well as enabling stores to add products to their local assortment from a range of pre-selected items.
Given the success of the event, we are certain that we will continue to run it next year and are already thinking about additional forums on topics such as customer experiences with SAP CAR and/or SAP PMR – your feedback on these would be welcome.
Thanks to all who attended and contributed, and see you again next year!