Pho­to Cred­it: SAP 

If day one and day two of SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence were about process and tech­nol­o­gy, day three’s main theme cen­tered on peo­ple — specif­i­cal­ly, cus­tomers with sto­ries to tell and phil­an­thropists. SAP brought out exec­u­tives from sports brand Adi­das and ware­house store Cost­co Whole­sale in the keynote, along with rock­er Jon Bön Jovi, founder of the Jon Bön Jovi Soul Foun­da­tion to help the home­less in Philadelphia.

SAP Leonar­do for a New Retail Sup­ply Chain

Adi­das CIO Michael Voegele took the stage to describe how the com­pa­ny is chang­ing the way it han­dles the retail sup­ply chain using data. ​“Dig­i­tal and tech­nol­o­gy are enablers to achieve what we set out to do — change lives and be the best sports brand in the world,” he said. But to do that, Adi­das needs to build a direct rela­tion­ship with the consumer.

To help strength­en that rela­tion­ship, Adi­das has cre­at­ed a con­cept store/​factory using machine learn­ing. The con­sumer designs their cus­tomized appar­el in the store, and it’s then shipped to them with­in 24 hours. Now, the Adi­das con­cept booth on the show floor made even more sense: The idea behind using SAP Leonar­do is not only for Adi­das to pre­dict trends, but also to get these prod­ucts made using body scans and cus­tomer pref­er­ences. This dras­ti­cal­ly reduces sup­ply chain time. Adi­das has opened one of these ​“speed fac­to­ry” stores out­side Atlanta as a test, Voegele said.

This isn’t the first time Adi­das has used data to improve the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Voegele explained that the com­pa­ny went all-in for omnichan­nel to make sure that cus­tomers who order online can pick up their items in the store. Adi­das want­ed to dri­ve the inven­to­ry to meet demands and know where every part of every prod­uct was around the world — and it used SAP prod­ucts to ful­fill these cus­tomer expec­ta­tions, he said.

Pre­dict­ing Demand to Reduce Bak­ery Waste

When Cost­co Whole­sale decid­ed to take on an ini­tia­tive to reduce the amount of unsold goods, it sin­gled out its bak­ery depart­ment and launched an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence project to pre­dict what was need­ed, when, and where. Jeff Lyons, Costco’s Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Head of Fresh Foods, first had this busi­ness prob­lem in his mind. One day, he saw a com­mer­cial for IBM Wat­son then picked up the phone and asked his IT man­ag­er if Cost­co could get it. Instead, he was steered toward SAP Leonar­do prod­ucts so that he could launch this ini­tia­tive while the IT team was going through its own modernization.

Pilot­ing the pro­gram in its San Jose bak­ery, Cost­co fed sev­en years of data into the sys­tem, along with exter­nal data on oth­er fac­tors like weath­er (which affects the company’s foot traf­fic and sales). ​“In the bak­ery, we want­ed to make sure we weren’t spend­ing hours mak­ing things that wouldn’t sell,” Lyons said. While the excess prod­uct was donat­ed to home­less shel­ters, spend­ing time mak­ing these prod­ucts was a waste. The result of the project was reduced labor hours and far less excess prod­uct. Cost­co plans to roll out the tech­nol­o­gy to its 500 U.S. bak­eries, as well as its ser­vice deli and food court. 

Pho­to Cred­it: SAP

A Relaxed Chat With Jon Bön Jovi

The pace of the third day of SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence always starts to slow and get more relaxed. It cer­tain­ly did when SAP CEO Bill McDer­mott sat down for a fire­side chat with Jon Bön Jovi, singer and founder of the Jon Bön Jovi Soul Foun­da­tion. In a dis­cus­sion about Bön Jovi’s life jour­ney, includ­ing his child­hood, he recalled as an adult look­ing out from his hotel room in Philadel­phia and see­ing a home­less man sleep­ing under the stat­ue of William Penn. It inspired him to start the foundation.

The show floor began look­ing a lit­tle sparse as the after­noon rolled around. Atten­dees either were head­ing home or prepar­ing to see Justin Tim­ber­lake at the Amway Cen­ter, this year’s entertainment.

All-in-all, the more than 21,000 atten­dees at the 2018 SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence had plen­ty to learn, inter­act with, lis­ten to, and dis­cuss while in Orlan­do this year.

Quote of the Day

“In the beef indus­try, AI means some­thing dif­fer­ent.” – Jeff Lyons, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Head of Fresh Foods, Cost­co Wholesale

Find out what hap­pened on day one and on day two in our 2018 SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence cov­er­age. Or read a recap of Dr. Has­so’s keynote.

Inter­est­ed in how SAP can help you enhance your cus­tomer expe­ri­ence? Keep the con­ver­sa­tion going at the Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence Inno­va­tion Forum, our newest event for retail­ers, con­sumer prod­ucts com­pa­nies, and wholesalers.