Software AG Solution Series: Retail

Your Problem: The demands on a brick-and-mortar store have grown in the 21st century. Store personnel still need to stock and sell merchandise, but increasingly, the store is now being called upon to act as a call center; a pick, pack and ship center; and more. You may be turning to technology to help, implementing smart carts and queue management systems to monitor customer traffic flows and dwell times, but for many retailers these technologies stand apart—even from each other. The smart carts can’t tell the queue management application that more cashiers will soon be needed up front. The head office can’t see how merchandise is moving in response to a promotion or product launch. And still no one on the floor can find answers to the questions that customers are asking about shipping and inventory availability. How can a store meet the demands of the head office while still fulfilling the needs of customers who expect the personal touch and the curated experience that only another human being can provide?

Software AG Solution: With a smart store monitoring platform, you can create the exceptional experience your customers are seeking and close the insight gaps that currently separate your head office and in-store personnel from the answers they seek. You can understand and anticipate customer needs, respond in real time to customer questions and requests, and seize real-time opportunities to provide a better experience than the competition.

Problem DetailsIn the age of omni-channel commerce, the store is no longer simply the place where customers come to shop. It may serve as a pick-up and return point for merchandise purchased over the Internet. It may act as the local pick, pack and ship depot; a customer service center; even as nothing more than a showroom where customers can see and touch merchandise that they will later order online.

The demands of these new roles place a considerable burden on store personnel while simultaneously increasing the frustration of head office planners who want greater insight into what is happening in the store in real time. While some retailers have deployed technological solutions to aid both the store and the head office, the results have been mixed. Many of the individual technologies—from smart carts and mirrors to footfall sensors and electronic shelf labels—don’t communicate well with one another, let alone the back office systems that lie at the heart of the digital enterprise. As a consequence, head office planners and merchandisers can’t get the real-time insights they want. Nor can in-store personnel get the information they need to provide the personalized, informative experience that customers want.

What’s the Software AG Difference?A Smart Store Monitoring solution, designed to capture, analyze, aggregate and act upon data arising from a wide variety of sources inside and outside the store itself• Real-time analysis of high volume data streams

• Configured for action in response to real-time data triggers

• Flexibility to meet ever-evolving demands

Smart Store Monitoring for Retail SuccessActionable, real-time insights enable the brick-and-mortar store to play a starring role in the digital retail world.

SOLUTION BRIEF

Get There Faster

SOLUTION BRIEF

Get There Faster

Get There Faster

ABOUT SOFTWARE AGSoftware AG helps organizations achieve their business objectives faster. The company’s big data, integration and business process technologies enable customers to drive operational efficiency, modernize their systems and optimize processes for smarter decisions and better service. Building on over 40 years of customer-centric innovation, the company is ranked as a “leader” in 14 market categories, fueled by core product families Adabas-Natural, Alfabet, Apama, ARIS, Terracotta and webMethods. Learn more at www.SoftwareAG.com.

© 2015 Software AGAll rights reserved. Software AG and all Software AG products are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Software AG. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

SAG_Real-Time_Inventory_SB_Jun15

Find out how to power up your Digital Enterprise at www.SoftwareAG.com/US

Software AG Solution Series I Retail | Smart Store Monitoring for Retail Success

Software AG’s Solution Ingest, monitor, analyze and act upon real-time and historical data from all relevant retail sources

• Connectivity tools can ingest data from a wide range of systems and sensors—in the store or elsewhere.

• In-memory data management and real-time analytical tools ensure that information is readily accessible and actionable.

Orchestrate in-store processes within the broader context of an overall omni-channel retail strategy

• Connectivity and process management tools ensure that you can manage in-store processes as easily as any connected with your omni-channel retail strategy.

• Share information from the store with other planning and decision-making systems used within the organization.

• Respond to opportunity and risk triggers in any manner desired (from alerting an identified individual to initiating a specific business process automatically).

Provide answers—in real time—to the questions asked by internal planners, floor personnel and customers

• Gain real-time insights to the information that matters—through customized dashboards, real-time alerts and more.

• Facilitate access to the information that matters from personnel on the floor, via smartphones, tablets, kiosks and more.

For many retailers, though, the problem lies not in the absence of data. It lies in the inability to bring together all the data they already have. It lies in the inability to construct predictions from that data in real time and to foresee needs and opportunities in advance.

Software AG’s Smart Store Monitoring solution, powered by the Software AG Digital Business Platform, can bring that data together, in real time, and enable each of the key players in the digital retail environment to gain answers to the questions they’re asking—also in real time. Merchandisers and promotion planners can see all the information streaming in from the store’s sensors and in-store apps, which enables them to see how their campaigns and programs are progressing as they progress. Sales managers and floor personnel can get information quickly—about merchandise, about inventory and shipping options, about a customer’s shopping history and more.

The brick-and-mortar store should reside at the center of a multichannel execution strategy. It’s the place where customers come to buy goods, get answers to questions and develop that last bit of confidence in the decision they’re making—and the experience created in the store can make or break that outcome. Software AG’s Smart Store Monitoring solution puts the store in that central position by bringing together the data that retailers need, in real time, from wherever it resides or is being generated within the broader digital business environment. In-store sensors and RFID tags? Yes. Store inventory management and point-of-service systems? Yes. IP cameras? Yes. The list goes on without apparent end because the Smart Store Monitoring solution is designed for flexibility and data connectivity. In-memory technologies ensure that this data is instantly available—for real-time analysis as well as real-time execution. The solution even provides tools for building, managing, monitoring and automating processes built upon the data that swirls around in this dynamic environment.

Critical Aspects of a Smart Store Monitoring Solution• The ability to ingest, monitor, analyze and act upon real-time and historical data and predictive models from

all relevant retail sources

• The ability to orchestrate in-store processes within the broader context of an overall omni-channel retail strategy

• The ability to provide answers—in real time—to the questions asked by internal planners, floor personnel and customers

Figure 1: Smart Store Monitoring powered by Software AG’s Digital Business Platform