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Sharaf DG gains store IT agility with Openbravo

We have crossed the first significant milestone of our UAE stores. For any challenge we encountered, Openbravo’s support and leadership helped us to overcome them.

Ramkumar Sunkari, CFO, Sharaf DG

Award-winning retailer drives customer experience and operational excellence with omnichannel growth

Since opening its doors in 2005, Sharaf DG has become a leading retailer for electronics in the Middle East, including United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Oman. Today, this award-winning retailer runs 32 stores and online stores offering the widest selection of products and accessories available. Moreover, Sharaf DG has built a reputation for exemplary customer service, quality products, and knowledgeable staff, backed by a strong best-price guarantee proposition.

Challenges

Achieving omnichannel integration and IT agility to deliver enhanced customer experience

Sharaf DG needed to unify their formerly separate mobile POS and desktop solutions to simplify POS rollout in new stores. The company needed a complete, robust and flexible solution that would allow them to move forward in their omnichannel strategy, lower time-to-market when introducing new products, promotions and prices changes, and offer customers a more convenient shopping experience. And finally, the company required a solution that could easily integrate with SAP, which it planned to adopt as its central back office system.

Sharaf DG store

Our next big challenge is in rolling out this solution in other countries and implementing Mobile POS in UAE by end of 2018, for which I am certain we can count on Openbravo’s support.

Ramkumar Sunkari, CFO, Sharaf DG

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Solution

Comprehensive POS functionality and platform flexibility

After an initial pilot in four locations, Openbravo is used today in all +40 UAE stores and includes 500+ POS. Openbravo’s full web-based and mobile-enabled POS solution offered Sharaf comprehensive POS functionality that has helped to boost stores performance and deliver an enhanced shopping experience. The solution is built on top of a highly flexible and easily adaptable technology platform which simplifies POS rollout in new stores and reduces the time needed to introduce changes. The implementation also included integration to Sharaf’s central SAP system (SAP S/4 Hana) with the available Openbravo-SAP connector.

Results

Faster, more convenient in-store checkout experience

Openbravo’s POS solution empowers Sharaf DG staff to focus more in customer service and deliver a faster and more convenient check-out experience. Already, time-to-ticket has been reduced dramatically.

The mobile POS are capable of supporting a variety of modern payment methods in eight different currencies. These include gift cards on Qwikcilver and (YouGotaGift), platforms, and accumulated Airmiles loyalty points. Mobile POS at airport stores are capable of capturing passenger information.

Omnichannel readiness

The ability to prepare online orders from stores and other solution capabilities enables new omnichannel scenarios to be supported, helping Sharaf DG progress in its omnichannel strategy. The system now supports delivery options such as Order Online and Pick-up in Store, along with the ability to manage and optimize deliveries from the warehouse, the supplier, other stores, or deferred.

Simplified IT management and costs

Openbravo has allowed Sharaf DG to simplify the overall in-store IT infrastructure and to unify mobile and desktop POS solutions. The new system has facilitated the application of over 20,000 discounts and promotions for more than 60,000 products. Thanks to Openbravo’s flexibility, changes can now be introduced much faster, which helps increase IT responsiveness and the overall business agility. Openbravo’s offline resistant technology also allows the company to continue selling in stores even in the case of a connectivity loss.

Seamless integration with central SAP system

The Openbravo-SAP connector has allowed Sharaf to reduce the integration efforts and provides a single point of integration between the two systems that was completed in only 6 months. Data in SAP and Openbravo are synched transparently from one system to the other, making it easy to update all stores and terminals and provide detailed and up-to-date daily sales information at headquarter level.

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