As part of its modernisation plan Galeria 2.0, the struggling department stores’ group Galeria overhauled its e-commerce as well as its omnichannel processes and technology from the ground up last year. In addition to the introduction of a new web shop and the integration of the e-commerce processes into the SAP landscape, the focus was on a uniform view onto all stocks – an important prerequisite for delivery reliability and availability in times of increasing bottlenecks in the supply of goods.
With support of the retail technology specialists from CAS AG, Galeria was able to implement the SAP module Omnichannel Article Availability and Sourcing (SAP OAA) for omnichannel article availability close to the standard in a short time. Since July 2022, the real-time stocks of all stores and distribution centres have been made available for omnichannel and e-commerce processes, as have those of selected suppliers and marketplace participants. The rules managed in SAP OAA ensure that goods are always dispatched from the optimal location.
Customers of the newly renovated online shop Galeria.de can now reliably see whether an item is available and how long it will take to deliver it. The goods are either shipped from a shipping or distribution centre, from a branch, directly from the supplier or from a connected marketplace partner. Customers can also reliably reserve goods with Click & Reserve as well as Click & Collect in order to pick them up at a specific department store.
Complex rules can be changed in a user-friendly way
The routing, which decides from where which article is to be dispatched, is now calculated in SAP OAA. The software module enables the department stores’ operator much better than the legacy system to define even complex rules and to change them in a user-friendly way. For example, the retail managers can specify that perfume should always be shipped only from the central warehouse, in which cases the number of parcels and in which cases the delivery time should be reduced.
Above all, Galeria can reduce the burden of ship-from-store shipping by distributing the orders evenly among the department stores. Rules can easily be changed temporarily, for example to ensure a higher minimum quantity for brick-and-mortar sales before Christmas or during a promotional period.
All omnichannel processes from one system
With the introduction of SAP OAA, Galeria can now manage all omnichannel processes consistently in one system. The department stores’ operator is thus also well prepared to cope with new requirements in the area of e-commerce and omnichannel sales. With the introduction of SAP OAA, Galeria was able to replace numerous software systems that were only loosely connected via interfaces. “We benefit significantly from reducing the number of solutions we use – and thus costs and disruptions,” explains Ludger Banse, Head of IT at Galeria.
CAS AG has already been very successful in supporting Galeria with important SAP projects since 2018. At that time, for example, the consultants helped Karstadt to introduce SAP CAR, which is the basis of inventory management with SAP OAA. The experience that CAS AG had gained through numerous SAP CAR projects at well-known retail companies was very beneficial to the department stores’ operator.
Good experience with CAS AG
“We had already had very good experience with CAS AG during the SAP CAR implementation,” reports Galeria’s merchandise management team leader, Thomas Arend. Therefore, the decision in favour of CAS AG for the SAP OAA implementation was an easy one. The IT teams of the department stores’ group were not disappointed. They were once again very satisfied with the support they received from the Hamburg-based specialists.
“The CAS AG consultants are very committed and pragmatic in their approach. They have familiarised themselves very well with our processes, systems and organisation,” says Thomas Arend. The cooperation between the consultants and the users is also very good, as the CAS AG team understands their point of view very well. Galeria continues to rely on the support of CAS AG to implement optimisations in the SAP CAR environment.
The Galeria software team had already successfully completed the migration of the former Kaufhof shops to the Karstadt software architecture in 2020, so that all department stores in the group benefit from the new processes.
