Empowering Retail Transformation: Gravity’s Leadership in SAP CAR Implementation

How the Gravity IT Resources SAP team helped a leading national retailer transition to SAP CAR before migrating to SAP S/4HANA.

CLIENT DETAILS

Industry:  Retail
Revenue:  $13B+
# of Employees:  +/- 35,000
Practice Area:  SAP Program Leadership & Advisory
Project:  SAP Program Execution Services

CLIENT OVERVIEW

Our client is a leading national retailer with 1,000 retail outlets (convenience stores and gas stations) located across the eastern part of the United States.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Gravity worked with the client, implementation partner and SAP to develop and establish a project roadmap for this 1.5-year SAP CAR implementation project. Gravity then provided program management services and execution oversight to guide this client through a successful SAP CAR implementation across all their 1,000 retail locations. Gravity’s SAP executive leadership assisted client with all aspects of project planning, setup and execution.

The following deliverables were provided to the client:

• SAP Program Execution Services

BUSINESS PROBLEM & OBJECTIVE

The client’s underlying technology and SAP footprint was outdated (including end of life applications), preventing centralized and informative views of sales, inventory and customer activity transactions across their many store locations.  The client also lacked access to key retail performance drivers, including real-time inventory visibility, efficient POS sales processing and reporting.  Our client decided to implement SAP CAR (Customer Activity Repository) prior to migrating to SAP S/4HANA as a foundational element to leverage POS data for more efficient and effective merchandising.

GRAVITY SERVICE

Gravity served as the program leader for this engagement and was instrumental in providing hands-on project management input and advisory services to the client throughout the entire project lifecycle.  In this role Gravity led all aspects of project planning, handled day-to-day project operations, managed project activities, risks and issues, provided project management status update, dealt with project escalations and guided client’s management team including Steering Committee through project agenda and status.

RESULTS

Through a hands-on approach leveraging 28 years of deep SAP program management experience, Gravity guided project implementation teams, SAP partners and client’s Steering Committee through a successful SAP solution deployment across 1,000 retail stores.  In the years following program completion, our retail client was able to realize 15% sales growth directly attributed to the program and a significant improvement in customer experience and satisfaction levels.