For one of South Africa's leading retailers, a fast-tracked digital transformation of its transaction and reconciliation processes built on SAP S/4HANA has unlocked immense benefits and efficiency across the business.

“We have seen a huge increase in transaction volumes, with more than 30 billion transactions processed across our stores per year,” says Elize de Klerk, IT Supply Senior System Manager at Pick n Pay. “However, our old system was no longer able to keep up with the growing demand, and we experienced delays in processing and reconciling transactions of up to a day. We chose to implement SAP Customer Activity Repository to eliminate delays and streamline our reporting.”

Pick n Pay operates a network of more than 2,000 stores in South Africa as well as an extended footprint into several African markets, including Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Eswatini and Lesotho.

The retailer has been a long-standing SAP customer, leveraging SAP technologies to support core business processes for more than two decades. To ensure the business runs optimally and can continue to meet growing customer demand, Pick n Pay chose to implement SAP Customer Activity Repository built on the powerful SAP S/4HANA platform. “We needed more efficient and accurate inventory management as well as simplified financial and administrative reporting to ensure our decision makers have a real-time view over the business,” says de Klerk. “We chose to work with implementation partner Beyond Technologies to deliver a state-of-the-art solution.”

Christian Bowker, Managing Partner at Beyond Technologies, says: “Pick n Pay had been a very successful SAP customer for years, and the SAP Customer Activity Repository solution was a perfect match for them. SAP S/4HANA was powerful enough to manage Pick n Pay’s billions of monthly translations and help them meet growing customer demands. They particularly appreciated Beyond’s retail accelerator and team of seasoned S/4HANA experts that brought value to Pick n Pay in a short space of time.”

De Klerk says the support from Beyond Technologies was superb throughout the implementation process. “Beyond Technologies had the expertise to deliver the project on time and within budget, supported by an experienced team that offered great collaboration to deliver a highly successful programme.”

Following the implementation, Pick n Pay has gained access to accurate, real-time data and analytics, which is particularly significant for its point-of-sale data transfer and audit (POSDTA) operations, including transaction processing and reconciliation. This has delivered considerable benefits for Pick n Pay's ecommerce division by providing enhanced and up-to-date stock and inventory management capabilities.

“Since adopting SAP Customer Activity Repository, we have fast-tracked the transaction reconciliation process, eliminated delays, and gained more accurate inventory oversight, especially for our ecommerce business,” says de Klerk. “Thanks to the expert work of our implementation partners and the powerful capabilities of SAP technologies, Pick n Pay now enjoys optimised, one-click administrative and financial reporting, allowing us to substantially increase our sales and profitability across our business.”

Commenting on the project, Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at SAP, says: “Pick n Pay’s superb deployment of SAP technologies and focus on driving efficiency and optimisation has delivered a ground-breaking project that will support its growth and success for years to come. Supported by the outstanding work of expert implementation partners at Beyond Technologies, Pick n Pay can confidently meet the growing demand from their customers and continue its proud tradition of innovation and leadership in the retail industry.”