Ricoh Innovations Corporation ("RIC"), a Silicon Valley-headquartered subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd. that creates global new businesses based on advanced information technology, today announced the signing of a global reseller agreement with SAP. As part of the agreement, SAP will resell the RIC image recognition platform as the SAP® Hybris® Cloud for Customer, imaging intelligence add-on, which is available now. The solution is designed to enable consumer packaged goods (CPG) customers using the retail execution functionality in the SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer solution to derive a better understanding of in-store conditions to help drive sales, improve merchandising and shelf placement, and provide deeper insights for key business decisions.
The combination of SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer and RIC's image recognition platform helps field representatives to quickly and easily capture and analyze images of store shelves, which can be used to drive better in-store shelf execution. The potential benefits include correct shelf placement for each product, reduced out-of-stock situations, a more consistent brand experience and insights on optimizing the shelf for greater sales. The result of the RIC partnership with SAP is a solution designed to enable data-driven selling and a deeper, timelier understanding of store conditions for CPG staff managing category management, trade promotions and space planning, among others.
Dr. Nikhil Balram, CEO of RIC, stated, "Through the use of our image recognition platform, SAP's solution gives companies the ability to compare the real-world conditions in the store to their desired merchandising configuration and quickly make changes that drive improvement in sales. We are pleased to partner with SAP to bring this cutting-edge solution to the CPG and retail space."
"RIC image recognition technology is an excellent complement to the retail execution functionality in SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer," said E.J. Kenney, senior vice president and global head of Consumer Products, SAP. "Giving sales representatives and merchandisers the ability to capture images in-store on their mobile devices and sync up the data with SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer helps automate and validate product distribution and planogram compliance to help ensure consistent execution in retail accounts."
To view the original press release, please click here.
