Ingles Markets Accelerates Digital Transformation powered by S/4HANA with Applexus
Customer Background
Ingles Markets, a prominent regional supermarket chain based in North Carolina, operates 197 stores across the Southeastern United States. The company specializes in regular groceries, dairy, and frozen food products. Ingles was running on a heavily customized SAP ECC FICO solution that involved a significant amount of paper-based processing and was constrained by a set of legacy ERP solutions with limited IT support.
Project Objectives
Ingles sought to modernize its IT infrastructure and streamline operations to improve efficiency and decision-making. The primary objectives of the project were:
Migrating ECC Finance, legacy merchandizing and food ERP systems to S/4 Retail in a Multi-phased digital transformation approach
Implement a modern, cloud-based ERP system to support growth and scalability
Offer more cost-effective SAP support to the business by leveraging Applexus AMS Services for all SAP solutions
Improve Enterprise inventory management capabilities
Enhance customer experience and operational efficiency
What Applexus Did – A phased approach to Digital Transformation
Applexus partnered with Ingles to develop a multi-year roadmap for their digital transformation, representing one of the largest SAP Retail implementations in North America.
The project encompassed multiple phases:
Phase 1 - SAP S/4HANA Finance Migration & Payroll Migration to SuccessFactors
Applexus successfully migrated Ingles' SAP ECC Finance to S/4HANA Finance leveraging its proprietary migration tool CeleRITE, an AI-powered platform for comprehensive S/4HANA migrations.
Phase 1 also included migrating Ingles' HCM and payroll processes to SuccessFactors
Managed Services: Applexus provided ongoing managed services, including Center of Excellence (COE) and SAP roadmap support.
Phase 2 - SAP Customer Activity Repository (CAR) and Sales Audit:
Ingles was currently using a 20-year-old custom sales audit solution which had only department level posting. They were looking for capabilities to support curbside and online business models for future growth while also being able to derive actionable insights from their sales data.
Applexus implemented SAP CAR Sales Audit and integrated it with their legacy POS, E-commerce system and their S/4HANA environment. A new trickle feed of POS data enabled Ingles to get intra-day sales from across their stores for the first time. 2 Applexus add-on solutions to CAR were also implemented – Payment Reconciliation automated reconciliation between multiple payment processor data and CAR omni channel sales data. The Store Reconciliation enabled Ingles to reconcile transactions by media type and by store easily.
Phase 3 - S/4HANA Retail and Merchandising Implementation, Data & Analytics
Applexus carried out Greenfield implementation of S/4HANA Retail and Merchandising, covering retail pricing and promotion, procurement, and store replenishment. This was a major transformation journey for Ingles where all Logistics processes - Purchasing, Inventory Management, Retail Pricing, Master Data, Store Replenishment and Reverse Logistics were moved from disparate Legacy systems to S/4. Applexus also implemented SAP Datasphere and SAC solution to provide access to historical data from the legacy systems.
Applexus Enhanced Industry Solutions for Grocery
Key Benefits Realized
Applexus' partnership with Ingles resulted in significant benefits, including:
Improved operational efficiency: By consolidating multiple legacy systems into a single, integrated platform, Ingles achieved streamlined operations and reduced manual processes.
Enhanced decision-making: The implementation of SAP Analytics enabled data-driven insights, allowing Ingles to make informed business decisions.
Increased agility: The modern SAP S/4HANA platform provides Ingles with the flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions and customer demands.
Cost savings: By leveraging Applexus' managed services, Ingles optimized IT costs and resources.
Enhanced customer experience: The improved data and analytics capabilities enabled Ingles to better understand customer preferences and deliver personalized experiences.
Some key business metrics
Solutions Live across: 200+ stores
Over 2000 Store Orders (STOs) shipped per day
More than 2000 price changes implemented daily
$165+ Million DC to store shipments per month
13,899 Direct Store Delivery deals per period
10K+ Truck Routing/Month
Client
Leading American supermarket chain
Solution
Migrating to S/4HANA Retail in a Multi-phased digital transformation approach
At a glance
Ingles Markets, a regional supermarket chain with 198 stores across the Southeastern U.S., aimed to modernize its IT landscape by migrating from a heavily customized SAP ECC environment and legacy ERP systems to the SAP S/4HANA platform. In partnership with Applexus, Ingles executed a multi-phased digital transformation that included the migration of core financial and HR processes, the implementation of SAP Customer Activity Repository (CAR), and a Greenfield deployment of S/4HANA Retail and Merchandising. This transformation enabled Ingles to achieve real-time data processing, advanced analytics, optimized operations, and a scalable infrastructure that supports future growth while significantly enhancing decision-making capabilities and operational efficiency.
