Foodstuffs South Island 2024 Best Run Award: SAP Datasphere at the core of price integrity and the price verification process
The Price Integrity project at Foodstuffs South Island ensures daily price verification across all stores, enhancing customer trust and operational efficiency. Utilizing SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud on GCP, the solution provides proactive monitoring, data exploration, and quick resolution of pricing discrepancies, driving customer confidence and competitive edge. Download the DocumentSAP Australia and New Zealand
Best Run Awards 2024
Best Run Awards 2024
Best Run SAP
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Retail & FMCG www.foodstuffs-si.co.nzSupermarkets, retail food
warehouses, grocery and small
convenience stores and fuel sites
SAP Retail (S4), SAP Promotion
Management, Datasphere, Sap Analytics
Cloud, GCP
From sunny Golden Bay all the way to Stewart Island, there's a Foodstuffs store serving your South Island community.
We’re a team who make sure all South Islanders have access to the groceries and essentials they need. Our stores are locally owned and operated, with individual
owners there on the shop floor every day, directly connected to their teams, their customers, and their communities.
Our people are at the heart of our co-op, our suppliers are instrumental to our success – and together we work hard to positively impact the lives of South
Islanders everyday by bringing them better value, quality groceries, and friendly service.
We have 200+ stores and 14,000 team members across Te Waipounamu, working in the heart of our communities, and providing grocery essentials to our
customers through sunshine, storms and snow.
We want to see our communities succeed – our team members and their families, our customers, local community groups, our supplier partners, and our
environment. We’ve been a part of New Zealanders’ lives for nearly 100 years, and we’re dedicated to doing our part to make Aotearoa a better place for future
generations.
Price Integrity: SAP Datasphere at the core of the price
verification process
Foodstuffs South Island
Data & Analytics
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Retail & FMCG www.foodstuffs-si.co.nzSupermarkets, retail food
warehouses, grocery and small
convenience stores and fuel sites
SAP Retail (S4), SAP Promotion
Management, Datasphere, Sap Analytics
Cloud, GCP
From sunny Golden Bay all the way to Stewart Island, there's a Foodstuffs store serving your South Island community.
We’re a team who make sure all South Islanders have access to the groceries and essentials they need. Our stores are locally owned and operated, with individual
owners there on the shop floor every day, directly connected to their teams, their customers, and their communities.
Our people are at the heart of our co-op, our suppliers are instrumental to our success – and together we work hard to positively impact the lives of South
Islanders everyday by bringing them better value, quality groceries, and friendly service.
We have 200+ stores and 14,000 team members across Te Waipounamu, working in the heart of our communities, and providing grocery essentials to our
customers through sunshine, storms and snow.
We want to see our communities succeed – our team members and their families, our customers, local community groups, our supplier partners, and our
environment. We’ve been a part of New Zealanders’ lives for nearly 100 years, and we’re dedicated to doing our part to make Aotearoa a better place for future
generations.
Price Integrity: SAP Datasphere at the core of the price
verification process
Foodstuffs South Island
Data & Analytics
Challenges
As with any Retail company, pricing is one of the most important and complex parts of Retail operations.
Hundreds of thousands prices, flexible pricing update options, geographically distributed system architecture
with hundreds of servers, specifics of food retailer and most importantly, a vision ‘to be the South Island’s
most loved and trusted retailer’ required a dedicated process of price verification between core SAP systems
(S4/PMR) and Customer facing channels.
Initial requirements for such verification process were:
• To compare current retail and promotion prices in all stores, in all customer facing systems, for all articles
• To complete verification and present results at the beginning of the operational day
• To provide Users with a tool for a flexible data exploration to support investigation process
As with any Retail company, pricing is one of the most important and complex parts of Retail operations.
Hundreds of thousands prices, flexible pricing update options, geographically distributed system architecture
with hundreds of servers, specifics of food retailer and most importantly, a vision ‘to be the South Island’s
most loved and trusted retailer’ required a dedicated process of price verification between core SAP systems
(S4/PMR) and Customer facing channels.
Initial requirements for such verification process were:
• To compare current retail and promotion prices in all stores, in all customer facing systems, for all articles
• To complete verification and present results at the beginning of the operational day
• To provide Users with a tool for a flexible data exploration to support investigation process
Solution
Price Integrity project was initiated with a vision to Create a daily view that illustrates price
alignment between source systems and customer facing channels.
The project delivered daily comparisons between ‘source of truth systems’ (SAP S4 for retail pricing
and SAP PMR for promotion pricing) and consumer facing systems at a store level such as: Point of
Sale, Loyalty Promotion Engine, Tickets and Talkers, Electronic Shelf Labels. SAC Dashboards were
implemented to present and share results of the daily verification process. SAC Data Analyzer views
allowed self-service and data exploration.
Implemented solution is based on:
• Setting up data feeds from all systems involved
• Ingesting data into GCP BQ, running daily comparisons
• Using SAP Datasphere for creation of centrally managed Semantic Models and providing
Analytical Models for reporting and self-service
• Creating Dashboards in SAC to present data straight out of GCP BigQuery
• Sharing results with relevant Teams
Scope of the solution:
• 4 Retail Banners
• 120 Stores
• 2 main "source of truth systems" (S4 and PMR)
• 300+ systems to compare
Price Integrity project was initiated with a vision to Create a daily view that illustrates price
alignment between source systems and customer facing channels.
The project delivered daily comparisons between ‘source of truth systems’ (SAP S4 for retail pricing
and SAP PMR for promotion pricing) and consumer facing systems at a store level such as: Point of
Sale, Loyalty Promotion Engine, Tickets and Talkers, Electronic Shelf Labels. SAC Dashboards were
implemented to present and share results of the daily verification process. SAC Data Analyzer views
allowed self-service and data exploration.
Implemented solution is based on:
• Setting up data feeds from all systems involved
• Ingesting data into GCP BQ, running daily comparisons
• Using SAP Datasphere for creation of centrally managed Semantic Models and providing
Analytical Models for reporting and self-service
• Creating Dashboards in SAC to present data straight out of GCP BigQuery
• Sharing results with relevant Teams
Scope of the solution:
• 4 Retail Banners
• 120 Stores
• 2 main "source of truth systems" (S4 and PMR)
• 300+ systems to compare
Impact
Monitoring of price updating channels
Risk mitigation in case of widespread
price updating channel failures Proactive pricing monitoring
Ability to access price verification results
for all retail articles, in all stores, every
morning and facilitate proactive fixing of
any discrepancies found
Driving Customers' confidence
The implemented solution has switched the process of price realignment from “fixing issues found by Store Teams / Customers”
to proactively monitoring, identifying potential issues and fixing the real issues before they are noticed by the Store Teams /
Customers. The solution has also enabled the identification and resolution of technical and operational root causes.
Using a hyperscale platform such as Google Cloud Platform and Big Query database made it possible to regularly perform such
vast and time restricted comparisons.
Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud powered by GCP BigQuery enabled Business Teams to analyse data that was previously
handled by more technical users and provided ability to not only access information, but also perform deep data exploration in
one interface.
The ability to access valuable insights on pricing verification isn’t just saving the organisation time and resources previously
spent on data verification but ensures a more seamless pricing management process. Managers can easily understand current
pricing state and action any corrective measures if required. It drastically shortens time from discrepancy found to resolution
and allows us to work proactively.
Monitoring of price updating channels
Risk mitigation in case of widespread
price updating channel failures Proactive pricing monitoring
Ability to access price verification results
for all retail articles, in all stores, every
morning and facilitate proactive fixing of
any discrepancies found
Driving Customers' confidence
The implemented solution has switched the process of price realignment from “fixing issues found by Store Teams / Customers”
to proactively monitoring, identifying potential issues and fixing the real issues before they are noticed by the Store Teams /
Customers. The solution has also enabled the identification and resolution of technical and operational root causes.
Using a hyperscale platform such as Google Cloud Platform and Big Query database made it possible to regularly perform such
vast and time restricted comparisons.
Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud powered by GCP BigQuery enabled Business Teams to analyse data that was previously
handled by more technical users and provided ability to not only access information, but also perform deep data exploration in
one interface.
The ability to access valuable insights on pricing verification isn’t just saving the organisation time and resources previously
spent on data verification but ensures a more seamless pricing management process. Managers can easily understand current
pricing state and action any corrective measures if required. It drastically shortens time from discrepancy found to resolution
and allows us to work proactively.
“”Ensuring price integrity across our products is the number 1 priority to ensure we are doing the right
thing by our customers. As a large, complex, 7 day a week business it is critical to get this right. Having
the right price integrity systems, with great data accuracy, is giving us a competitive edge. It means we
are transparent and reliable in the eyes of our customers allowing them to shop with confidence,
knowing they're always getting a fair deal.
Damian Lynch
General Manager Merchandise
The work done here is of the utmost importance and I am very pleased to see the end result.
Our customers confidence in us is the only thing that really matters, so knowing that price integrity has
moved to yet another level of accuracy gives me great confidence as an operator.
Thank you for the work, it is appreciated.
James Flanagan
Owner Operator
PAK’nSAVE Rangiora
thing by our customers. As a large, complex, 7 day a week business it is critical to get this right. Having
the right price integrity systems, with great data accuracy, is giving us a competitive edge. It means we
are transparent and reliable in the eyes of our customers allowing them to shop with confidence,
knowing they're always getting a fair deal.
Damian Lynch
General Manager Merchandise
The work done here is of the utmost importance and I am very pleased to see the end result.
Our customers confidence in us is the only thing that really matters, so knowing that price integrity has
moved to yet another level of accuracy gives me great confidence as an operator.
Thank you for the work, it is appreciated.
James Flanagan
Owner Operator
PAK’nSAVE Rangiora