Chinese retail giant to implement SAP

BEIJING: Wumart Group, one of the largest and fastest-growing private supermarket chains in China has selected mySAP™ ERP and SAP® for Retail to upgrade the company’s information systems to drive profits.

With the selection of SAP, Wumart becomes the first Chinese supermarket chain to implement an international enterprise resource planning (ERP) and retail package from a top global enterprise software provider.

The agreement marks another major success for SAP in the highly competitive retail market in China. As a retail giant, Wumart extends SAP’s portfolio of Chinese customers, which already includes leading manufacturers and financial services and petrochemical companies.

SAP will enable Wumart to roll out an ERP and retail system that connects its headquarters with more than 500 outlets to enhance management control, optimize business operations and support corporate core business processes, including category management, internal supply chain management, commodity planning and chain store management. With the SAP implementation, Wumart will be fully equipped to improve the company’s sensitivity and response time in a market where competition is becoming increasingly fierce. In addition, the SAP system will accommodate the integration of existing and future acquisitions.

The first phase of the project includes SAP for Retail at the Wumart headquarters and Tianjin branch; a logistics system for the distribution centers in Beijing; plus an interface to Wumart’s point-of-sale (POS) system and the SAP retail outlet system. The overall implementation will take approximately one year.

"Wumart has always played the leading role in applying advanced information technology for the retail industry in China," said Dr. Zhang Wenzhong.

"Wumart was the first retail group in China to adopt commercial point-of-sale and management information systems and utilize the Internet to connect the headquarters with the chain stores. By implementing SAP for Retail, we can establish an integrated management and information system for retail, finance and logistics. We will also draw on SAP’s best practices for the global retail business to improve our management processes and operational efficiency and to integrate our acquisitions so that we can make the most of the synergies they bring."

"We are thrilled that the Wumart Group, China’s fastest growing retail giant, has selected SAP," said Klaus Zimmer, president and CEO, SAP North Asia. “We look forward to providing Wumart with our experience in the global retail industry to help the company build a truly advanced management platform, fostering further business growth and setting international standards for the retail industry in China.”

SAP China Consulting will provide the implementation on this project.

CIOL Bureau