IBM and world leading enterprise business solution provider, SAP AG have announced a major strengthening of their relationship, providing additional capabilities to mutual retail-industry customers.
Among the new joint offerings, involving product, technology and services, are IBM`s Makoro for Merchandise Planning application for SAP customers, and the integration of IBM`s Payment Suite. This incorporates Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) technology with SAP Retail Online Store using Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPIs).
According to SAP Southern Africa retail and consumer products (CP) product manager, Bruce Jones, Makoro for Merchandise Planning is especially significant for local retailers as it was originally written by a major local retailer. "One of the largest South African retailers wrote Makoro, or Plan-it as it was called, and is still using the solution.
"Makoro provides a powerful way for retailers to optimise planning for higher margins, increased turns and fewer out of stocks. Many retailers require a level of specialisation that addresses all of their merchandising requirements - from fashion to seasonal and replenishable items. These retailers require a planning system built for the dynamic plan and re-plan workstyle demanded by their customers, as offered by Makoro Merchandise Planning."
In the Internet shopping arena, SET technology helps to improve the confidence of both retailers and consumers in the security of electronic commerce. Jones explains that SET is an open industry standard enabling the secure use of credit and debit cards on the Internet.
"This standard was initiated in February 1996 by Visa and Mastercard together with other financial participants to create a technical standard, guaranteeing the safety of payment-card purchases made over open networks such as Internet."
The comprehensive SET specification is based on advanced encryption technology, including digital signatures that electronically confirm the identity of each party (the customer, the retailer, the clearing institute and the certification authority) involved in an electronic transaction. The integration with SET also enables SAP Retail customers to take full advantage of the IBM Payment Suite - one of the industry`s first end-to-end solutions for quick, easy and more secure credit card commerce on the Internet.
Says Dr. Dietmar Saddei, director, retail Industry Business Unit, SAP AG: "The integration of the SET technology in IBM`s Payment Suite, along with SAP Retail and SAP Retail Online Store also offers all participants electronic credit-card transactions with SET, the most advanced security standard available on the market," he adds.
"IBM and SAP have teamed up where it matters most today getting the right product to the right customer at the right price and at the right place, which increasingly means online," says Ron Hovsepian, general manager, Global Distribution Industry Solutions, IBM. "Through these joint solutions, we will help our customers extend their reach from suppliers through to consumers."
The extended relationship builds on a long history of joint activities in the retail sector including IBM`s participation in creating the SAP Retail data model, the development of the Retail Interchange interface as an option to connect Point of Sales (POS) systems to SAP Retail, and the participation from IBM in benchmarking for SAP Retail.
"Continued cooperation in the product area is accompanied by IBM`s increasing investment in consulting capabilities to implement SAP Retail," explains Jones. "For example, a worldwide SAP Retail Industry Centre of Excellence (ICoE) has been established by IBM and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Also, the newly created IBM Global ERP solutions unit significantly enhances IBM`s ability to design, size and implement the most appropriate IT infrastructure to support successful SAP Retail implementations."
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