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In New York, CRM & Customer Experience

Mercaux Pulse of Retail report showcases retailers’ digital transformation strategies in 2023

The latest edition of the annual Pulse of Retail report, exploring the strategies of leading retailers for the upcoming year, was officially released at last week’s NRF 2023 event in New York.

The Mercaux offering, which surveyed more than 500 retailers, has for the first time been jointly commissioned by fellow MACH Alliance members, Fluent Commerce, commercetools and Orium.

According to the research, the top technologies in “launch phase” are centered around customer experiences, with 87% of retailers focusing on this area during 2023.

Additionally, the survey found that composable architectures are important for 91% of respondents, suggesting that retailers are recognizing the need for flexibility and scalability in their technology systems, in order to quickly adapt to changing customer needs and market trends.

Meanwhile, transitioning from legacy to next generation Point of Sale (PoS) systems is important for 79% of retailers.

However, the survey revealed that just 11% of retailers currently offer a frictionless omnichannel experience, where customers can seamlessly transition from shopping online to in-store, and vice versa.

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In Foundries, CRM & Customer Experience

WISY PLATFORMS: BRINGING VISIBILITY TO PRODUCT AVAILABILITY IN CPG RETAIL

Wisy Platforms is building a predictive, decision-analytics retail operations and execution platform to help retailers solve and overcome the product availability challenges that they have lived with until now.

Using Wisy;

  • Employees performing visual inspection of retail shelves experience an improvement in the amount of time they would otherwise spend doing this task. Practically speaking this is a reduction from 20 minutes of work doing manual inspections to no more than 1 or 2 minutes using Wisy’s AI-enabled platform.

  • Retailers, CPG manufacturers and brokers experience a 90% or higher improvement in the accuracy of data about product availability on store shelves, and

  • Retailers, CPG manufacturers and brokers experience revenue gains of between 3% and 10%.

In addition to bringing visibility to Product Availability, Wisy also offers the following:

  • Price checks,

  • Real-time share-of-shelf KPIs,

  • Planogram compliance checks, and

  • Competitive intelligence: Wisy detects known or unknown competitors’ products on the shelves and transforms the data into business intelligence. This is particularly useful for addressing an industry trend where new niche brands gain market share at a much faster rate than established brands. Wisy provides alerts when new competitors come into a category and keeps track of their growth over time and per location.

Wisy is currently working on real-time object tracking using the video mode on mobile phones. This feature makes it easier for users to capture large shelves without the need to take many pictures. Wisy is also developing predictive analytics to optimize product assortment and basket analysis.

The platform enables CPG retailers, manufacturers, suppliers,wholesalers and brokers to make better strategic, tactical, and operational decisions by decreasing the complexity of the systems they have to interact with while introducing simplicity and convenience into their workflows. Employees just have to be able to take pictures or videos of retail store shelves using any mid-range smartphone.

Wisy’s breakthrough is in its ability to instantaneously run all its analytics processes and algorithms on an employee’s mobile device without the need for an always-on internet connection.

Incumbent solutions are complex, difficult, slow, cumbersome, and impractical for the fast pace at which retail execution must move. Most incumbent solutions require a high speed internet connection in order to produce results.

Wisy is lightweight, portable, simple, fast, and affordable. Anyone who can use a smartphone camera can be trained to use Wisy to perform retail operations tasks. The platform works for large multinational CPGs and retail chains, and for smaller CPGs, retail stores and brokers. It works on a stand-alone basis. But, it can also be with retail execution systems, ERP systems, retail data clouds, retail analytics systems and so on. It can be integrated into a retailer, manufacturer or broker’s existing systems – for example, customers of SAP can find Wisy in the SAP App Center.

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In Consumer Industries, Announcements, Shanghai, Foundries, Featured

New “Future of Shopping” Startup Program at SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai

October 27, 2022 – SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a new startup program focused on consumer and retail technology that will shape the future of shopping at the SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai. A jury of SAP experts, partners, venture capitals, government innovation departments, and SAP customers, including Shui On Land and others, joined the selection committee and finalized seven startups to join the program and build partnerships with SAP.

The COVID pandemic has accelerated the process of global technology and digital transformation, gradually penetrating into every detail of our life. Consumption habits are undergoing tremendous changes, which also brings various business opportunities to new consumer and retail technologies.

SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai launched its “Future of Shopping” cohort to recruit retail and consumer SaaS startups, partnering with SAP to serve global customers in consumer, catering, retail, hospitalization, fashion, and more.

Sophie Zhang, General Manager of SAP Customer Experience (CX) Greater China, “I am very happy that the new SAP.iO cohort can work with CX. We are always looking for innovative solution partners to expand our portfolio and deliver local SaaS solutions to CX customers.”

Meng Xu, Vice President of SAP China Strategic Industry Consulting, adds: “The consumer, retail and fashion industries are the top priorities of China’s strategic industry group, accounting for 40% of our revenue. We pay great attention to the ecosystem of these industries. The seven startups we recruited this time can well meet the different requests of local customers.”

During the program, the startups will have access to curated mentorship from SAP executives, exposure to SAP® technology and APIs, and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers worldwide.

The following startups are participating in the program:

  1. XForcePlus provides enterprises with supply chain information collaboration services and VAT invoice management solutions.
  2. Freemud focuses on rapidly upgrading chain brand stores into smart stores, so that stores can adapt to all the challenges of digital transformation.
  3. Reabam provides flexible configuration and highly scalable SaaS services for chain brand enterprises in the field of large consumer brands.
  4. Zjian offers enterprises with self-developed tools and shopping assistants to revitalize the company’s existing members to improve the customer experience.
  5. Shenyan Intelligent delivers full-stack solutions of data and business centers for domestic and foreign enterprises.
  6. Qiyuesuo is an electronic signing SaaS platform, providing electronic signing and certificate deposit services.
  7. Apexdata helps customers achieve intelligent credit assessment and enhance credit value.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 450+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

In Uncategorized, Foundries, Featured, Business Technology Platform, Inspiring Innovators

Inspiring Innovators: Neha Singh Founder and CEO of Obsess, On Listening to Your Gut

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how leaders of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Neha Singh

Her unique path to entrepreneurship included combining her experiences with her ability to listen to her instincts and trust herself to know what to do. Neha Singh combined her love of fashion with her knowledge of technology to create something entirely new for the market, finding her right fit as the Founder and CEO of Obsess.

Neha studied computer science during undergrad and then attended MIT for her masters. Her appreciation for computer science gave her a way to build the things she imagined, prizing the logical aspect of how inputting a set of instructions can result in predictable outcomes. Her accomplishments are many; for Google, she was on the team that created the first dashboard for Google Ad Words. She then spent time on Google News which she described as an amazing learning experience. At this point, she realized she liked the product side, specifically figuring out how to build something and defining it based on how users interact with it.

Neha took fashion design classes discovering she would excel on the technology side of fashion. When she joined an eCommerce marketplace startup, she realized that all eCommerce sites look the same and have a grid-of-thumbnails database interface. This was because that’s the template the eCommerce platforms provide brands and retailers to showcase their products.

After that experience, Neha was the Head of Product at Vogue and worked on projects for launching the Vogue digital properties, including Vogue.com and Vogue Runway. She saw how much luxury brands were struggling with their online eCommerce experience and especially their mobile experience.

As more brands move online and look to differentiate their experience to engage consumers, Neha knew things had to change. To spearhead this effort, Neha launched Obsess in 2017, creating the next-generation eCommerce interface for today’s consumers. Obsess is a Metaverse Shopping Platform that enables brands and retailers to create highly interactive, visual, and branded Virtual Stores on their websites and metaverse platforms. The Obsess platform creates HD-quality, beautiful, photorealistic 3D 360 experiences that increase awareness, engagement, and conversion. Her team combines expertise in platform engineering, consumer web, mobile tech, fashion, e-commerce, gaming, and 3D. Obsess customers include Coach, Ralph Lauren, Charlotte Tilbury, Mattel, General Mills, and NBC Universal among others.

“When your entire brand gets reduced to four to six thumbnails on a mobile screen, you cannot translate the brand experience you are creating in retail stores, fashion shows, and events, into a digital shopping format. That’s when I understood the need in the market for a better digital shopping experience.”

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In New York, Featured, Consumer Industries, Sustainability, Announcements

SAP.iO Foundry New York Launches Sustainability in Retail and Consumer Industries Program

October 19, 2021 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) welcomes a new cohort for its startup program focused on sustainability in retail and consumer industries at SAP.iO Foundry New York. Seven startups were selected to join the program by a jury of SAP experts, partners and customers among hundreds of startups.

The startups are using next generation technologies to drive sustainability across the value chain in areas such as reusable packaging, responsible and ethical supply chain as well as circular economy. Over the next 16 weeks, the startups will have access to curated mentors, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry New York sustainability in retail and consumer industries program:

  • Algramo offers a circular platform that encourages consumers to buy in a more convenient, affordable way with zero waste and connects people, brands and retailers to change consumption habits.
  • Ecocart calculates the carbon emissions of business activities, then programmatically offsets those emissions by funding impactful certified carbon offset projects like planting trees or building windfarms.
  • Everledger leverages blockchain and internet of things technology to offer transparency into supply chains for clarity on quality, origin, sustainability footprint and compliance standards.
  • EVRYTHNG helps customers run their business differently with real time data intelligence from each of their products, end-to-end from factory to consumer and beyond.
  • Inspectorio provides a dynamic and risk-assessment based quality compliance program for digitization, automation, transparency and traceability.
  • LimeLoop is a platform for sustainable shipping including reusable packaging, real time tracking, and predictive analytics.
  • Specright delivers a purpose-built platform for specification management that changes how brands, suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers manage data and collaborate to bring products to market.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 330+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit https://sap.io/.

In Berlin, ERP & Finance

How CPG Brands Are Keeping Up With Retail’s Fastest-Moving Consumer Demands

Nobody understands the frustration of consumers who can’t find the products they’re looking for more than the experts at Teamcore, an AI-based startup with operations in Latin America and the United States. Teamcore’s cloud-based software platform uses machine learning to power intelligent workflow automation that tells CPG companies and retailers why products aren’t selling and what they can do about it fast.

“We help CPG companies and retailers make sure products are available when their customers are ready to buy,” said Sergio Della Maggiora, founder and CEO of Teamcore. “Whether someone is shopping online or in a physical store, our retail execution platform based on intelligent workflows helps connect data across the supply chain from warehouse to shelf virtually or in-store, so companies don’t miss out on sales opportunities.”

Based on sales data analytics, Della Maggiora said that Teamcore’s machine learning algorithm detects when products aren’t selling as planned, and in over 94 percent of cases, finds the root cause of the problem before assigning a task. Unlike garden variety alerts, Teamcore’s intelligent workflow notifications keep going until they reach the people who solve the problem. If someone in replenishment can’t find the product in the warehouse to restock virtual or in-store shelves, the workflow automatically routes that task to the appropriate store sales representatives, all the way up to regional store and supply chain managers.

“Teamcore connects the whole CPG and retail team for opportunity detection sales, and doesn’t stop until someone actually fixes the problem,” said Della Maggiora. “Over time, the collected data trains the model, improving its accuracy and ability to make predictions about potential issues.”

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