Bringing together ingredients from all corners of the globe is key to creating the perfect gingerbread. To ensure these treats make it to supermarket shelves on time and customers enjoy a seamless shopping experience, the retail and CPG industries depend on the seamless integration of processes—especially during the busy Advent and Christmas season. In this blog post, we share a ‘magical recipe’ for a smooth and successful pre-Christmas period in the retail and CPG sectors.
Setting the table – integration technology and gingerbread
Let’s first look at the connection between IT integration and the beloved Christmas cookies. How are they related? This question can be answered from two different perspectives.
- For perfect gingerbread, all ingredients—some of which are quite exotic—must be available in the right quantities and at the right time. Given their global sourcing, coordination within the retail and CPG industry can become a critical challenge, especially during peak periods like the Christmas season. To highlight the pressures faced by retail and consumer goods manufacturing during the holidays, consider this: On average, 19% of total annual retail sales occur in November and December1. In this context, the scalability of resources is crucial to ensure processes and systems can handle the increased demands, maintaining business continuity and ensuring product availability at all times.
- Just like creating the perfect gingerbread, where every ingredient must be perfectly balanced, the right coordination between different stakeholders, systems, data and processes is essential in the retail and CPG industry. This impacts several business areas, all of which must work together smoothly and efficiently—from supply chain and warehousing to purchasing and quality control, ensuring only the best ingredients are used. Moreover, effective inventory management is key to preventing shortages, while marketing and sales teams need to forecast market demand accurately. Seamlessly integrated system components are key in achieving harmony between all these departments and processes.
In the following sections, we’ll share the magical recipe for navigating the Christmas season with ease and strong margins, ensuring that delicious gingerbread is always a part of the holiday experience.
The ingredients – data and systems as the basis for success
The quality of ingredients is key to making the perfect gingerbread. In the digital world of retail and consumer goods, these ingredients are various data sources: inventory levels, customer information, supply chain updates and sales trends. Just like in the bakery, where each ingredient needs to be carefully prepared and combined, IT requires seamless integration of systems. Let’s start by looking at the different components that must work together to get gingerbread ingredients from all over the world to the supermarket shelves in the right quantities in time for the holidays. To follow the recipe for a basic modern IT landscape in the CPG and retail industries, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- A generous handful of ERP
The core component of any business IT infrastructure is the ERP system – the heart of essential business data, such as orders, inventory levels and financial information. Without seamless integration between the ERP system and other systems, such as the Warehouse Management System (WMS) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM), information gaps can arise, leading to inventory issues or delayed shipments. This can be particularly damaging to business operations during the holiday season, when demand is at its peak. - A spoonful of POS
Point-of-sale systems provide real-time data to retailers, enabling them to monitor inventory levels and quickly initiate restocking when needed. By integrating POS and ERP systems, businesses can respond immediately to unexpected stock-outs. - A substantial amount of SCM
Real-time inventory monitoring is just as vital as an optimized supply chain that ensures retailer reorders flow seamlessly from the manufacturer through logistics centers to the end customer. If the supply chain management system is not properly integrated with the ERP or WMS, delays can occur that not only affect sales but also disrupt the customer experience. A lack of connection between these systems can result in late or incorrect deliveries. - A generous scoop of e-commerce
The e-commerce platform must be seamlessly integrated with a warehouse management system (WMS) before it can be fully incorporated into the wider IT ecosystem. Online stores need to be continuously updated to reflect real-time inventory levels and automatically transmit orders to both the ERP and WMS.
Today I’ll bake, tomorrow I’ll brew – many ways to enjoy great flavor
What is your favorite gingerbread recipe? There are countless ways to combine the ingredients and achieve the perfect balance; it’s often a matter of personal taste—some may prefer their cookies spicier, while others opt for a sweeter, more chocolatey version. Similarly, in IT, there are various strategies for building a cohesive and efficient IT ecosystem in which all endpoints are connected, processes run seamlessly and stakeholders always have access to the data and information they need. The goal is always to create something that delivers optimal results. The ideal integration approach—or the perfect gingerbread recipe—depends entirely on the specific needs and individual preferences.
- Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) should not be viewed as a standalone “ingredient” or technology. Instead, it represents a comprehensive strategy for integrating data, functions and processes through coordinated approaches, architectural frameworks and specialized tools. The primary objective is to enable seamless data and function exchange between systems, thereby automating processes, eliminating redundant data and ensuring its availability, accuracy and integrity.
The SEEBURGER BIS Platform’s robust EAI and A2A capabilities ensure seamless and reliable integration of data and information across diverse enterprise applications and SaaS solutions. - Service-oriented architectures (SOA) offer an approach where applications are structured as modular, reusable and independent services that interact through standardized interfaces. Each service performs a specific function and can be utilized, scaled and updated independently. This enables seamless and efficient integration of diverse systems, simplifying both adaptations and expansions.
- An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) functions as a central hub for data exchange, facilitating seamless communication between applications. Its core responsibilities include transforming data models, managing connectivity, routing messages, converting communication protocols and orchestrating multiple requests when required.
- In software development, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) serve as standardized interfaces that define the protocols and rules that govern how applications interact with each other. By enabling data exchange through a predefined syntax, APIs promote consistency and interoperability across the application landscape.
To effectively fulfill their integration role, APIs require proper management. API management involves overseeing, securing and maintaining these interfaces. It also ensures controlled access, monitors performance and safeguards the consistency and security of data flows to drive sustainable integration success.
Baker’s Tip: To help you avoid spending the entire Christmas season and holidays baking, we offer seamless connectivity and pre-built connectors to streamline your preparation process. Of course, you can still add your own personal touch to suit your taste.
A unique taste experience – real-time insights for greater customer satisfaction
Ultimately, when it comes to baking gingerbread, it’s not just the ingredients or preparation that count—it’s the taste experience that truly sets it apart. In the retail and CPG industry, this “taste experience” translates to gaining tangible business and competitive advantages, made possible through the seamless integration of all systems.
- Integrating real-time data across various business functions enables swift responses to shifts in demand. This agility is particularly vital during peak periods when sales volumes often surge and inventory levels can fluctuate significantly. With the right integration tools, reorders can be triggered automatically, minimizing delivery bottlenecks while allowing IT resources to be scaled up or down with flexibility.
- The integration of e-commerce platforms, POS systems and CRM data ensures a seamless shopping experience across all channels. When customers are assured that the product they desire is in stock and will be delivered on time for the holidays, it strengthens their trust and boosts their purchasing confidence—providing a distinct competitive advantage for any business.
- Automated processes resulting from integration reduce manual interventions and minimize errors that could lead to delays or incorrect deliveries. This not only saves time and money but also frees up resources that can be redirected from routine tasks to strategic initiatives requiring human creativity and critical thinking.
- Integration also offers significant advantages for data and trend management. By consolidating data into a central system, sales figures, trends and customer behaviors become more visible and accessible for analysis. This enables businesses to respond quickly to seasonal trends, launch targeted marketing campaigns and strengthen their customer base.
SEEBURGER is your master baker in the CPG/Retail bakery
We support you in seamlessly integrating applications, people and processes, allowing you to focus on your core business during peak seasons such as the holidays. By holistically integrating all your processes, applications and systems into a single agile platform, you can ensure a smooth holiday season with maximized margins, while your customers enjoy reliable product availability.
With the BIS Platform, all retail supply chain processes can be seamlessly integrated and managed in real time, ensuring optimal customer satisfaction throughout the year—not just during peak seasons. Additionally, our iPaaS solution, built on hyperscaler infrastructures like AWS, offers exceptional scalability. This enables you to dynamically adjust resources to meet growing demand, ensuring smooth business operations that remain resilient even under increased load.
Source: https://blog.seeburger.com/the-retail-industry-during-christmas-time-how-smooth-processes-production-and-logistics-bring-gingerbread-to-retail-shelves/