After the great success with which Lidl introduced its customer loyalty app, Aldi Süd is now also building a CRM infrastructure for its global business in order to generate a better database for its listing decisions. For this, Aldi Süd is relying primarily on tools from Adobe and Salesforce. Job advertisements indicate that the discounter also wants to expand its apps into customer loyalty tools.
In the constant competition with Lidl, Aldi Süd is listing more and more manufacturer brands in fear of losing important target groups to its competitor in Neckarsulm. The increase of manufacturer brands on the shelves, which is untypical for Aldi, is also based on the assumption that customers with an affinity for brands are particularly valuable customers.
But since existing Aldi Süd stores are threatening to burst at the seams and costs are known to rise with the breadth of the assortment, the Mülheim-based discounter need a better data basis for tougher listing decisions. It could get this from the moment it can assign at least part of its POS data to its customers.
Mega CRM project
Lidl managed to launch its own international customer loyalty programme with its Lidl Plus app, which at least brings its participants out of anonymity. And this is exactly where Aldi Süd’s mega CRM project, which is currently taking off, comes in.
The decision for software from Adobe and new modules from Salesforce was already made last year. But the priorities of Aldi Süd’s IT have so far been the mammoth tasks of introducing SAP’s merchandise management system, Product Information Management (PIM) from Informatica and forecast-based replenishment, also based on SAP.
Analysis with Adobe
Now Aldi Süd is taking off in the area of customer data analysis with Adobe Analytics solutions, thus creating an internationally uniform framework for the development of its own customer loyalty programme. As in other areas in the meantime, Aldi Süd is taking an agile approach to the development of customer data analysis using the Scrum method.
The goal of the project is for the discounter to get a consistent view on its customers, across all points of contact: from registration on the countries’ marketing websites for newsletters, social media contacts and, of course, purchases in online shops in the countries where they exist. Aldi Süd builds its websites with Adobe Experience Manager, online shops with SAP Hybris. Customer data is held in Salesforce.
Judging by Aldi Süd’s job advertisements for app developers, it is very likely that the discounter wants to expand its customer apps into a customer loyalty programme and thus catch up with Lidl also in the area of data analysis for the right assortment decisions.
