Full speed ahead on the project
“When GK showed us their timeline for the integration into our SAP system, we were skeptical,” reports David Cohn, CIO of the Shoprite Group. “But they were right. The integration into our merchandise management environment went not only as promised; it was done in a record-breaking eight weeks. The native integration of GK into SAP was remarkably painless and slick.“
What the CIO of the largest retailer on the African continent is so enthusiastic about is not a stroke of luck in the world of retail systems integration, but the result of a structured process that GK has already used as the basis for project launches at retailers worldwide. This enables us to integrate our solutions into existing SAP systems in the shortest possible time.
Productive in less than 8 weeks
This quantum leap in integration efficiency is made possible by the GK Model Company, a method we have developed to connect standard solutions in a pre-configured way along ideal customer processes. The POS software is preconfigured and defined to such an extent that a clearly defined result can be achieved during integration. We follow the SAP strategy of Rapid Deployment Solutions. It is based on retail-specific data streams between GK OmniPOS and the SAP systems CPI, CAR and S/4HANA.
Master data from S/4HANA can be used almost immediately in our solutions with the GK Model Company. Retail transactions, such as sales data, can be made available in SAP CAR with minimal effort via SAP CPI. Other systems, such as those for sales forecasting and order optimization, can also be used. Basically, we provide a service package that allows the customer to work immediately with their data.
Test environment in the productive SAP system
For this reason, many retail companies use the GK Model Company to get an idea of the benefits of GK solutions with their system data in the shortest possible time before the actual introduction of GK OmniPOS or GK CLOUD4RETAIL. This helps retail organizations with regional companies, international business and different sales channels to prepare themselves better for the introduction of GK solutions and to test them. This saves time and effort during the introduction of the solution suite.
The GK Model Company has already proven itself in practice at companies such as Shoprite and Sopharma. For the retailers, the ability to set up test environments with their live SAP system at the start of the project was a significant advantage. “We were able to see exactly what the target process would look like with GK in a prototype environment that was presented to us before the project started," commented Iliyan Tishevishki, Business Applications Manager at Sopharma. This allows us to conduct very precise fit-gap analyses with our customers at an early stage of the project, prepare the entire data architecture precisely, and thus save significant project costs.
The challenge of every software solution implementation - that different companies have different processes and requirements - is increasingly met by combining a solid standard as a basis and agile development according to individual customer requirements as the crowning glory. This in no way detracts from the increase in efficiency achieved by the GK Model Company. Master and POS data must flow smoothly between back-end and front-end systems in every retail company. Regardless of which innovations or additional applications our retail customers have to supplement the checkout process or task management for employees on the sales floor. Thanks to the integration with our partner SAP we were able to provide different companies with different processes and requierements the appropiate software solution implementation.
To make the implementation of GK CLOUD4RETAIL or GK OmniPOS even more efficient, we have developed the GK Model Company in different versions for different retail segments. In addition, the GK Model Company can be easily adapted to specific business requirements in a concrete project with a retail company. All of our customers who have already gained experience with the GK Model Company agree: Having an integrated architecture right from the start of a project makes every implementation significantly more efficient.
Would you like to find out more about the GK Model Company or discuss further solutions for implementing a store platform with us? Please contact us here.
