Wipro, SAP partner to develop solutions for retail and fashion

Bengaluru based information technology services (IT) firm Wipro has entered into an agreement with European multinational software giant SAP to co-develop solutions for the retail and fashion industries.

Wipro will use the SAP S/4 Hana cloud platform to develop solutions for retail merchandise management, fashion manufacturing and cloud offering for an intelligent store, Wipro said in a statement.

 The solutions developed through the engagement will help retail and fashion companies streamline business processes and improve customer experiences.

Read: Retailers must digitalise supply chain to serve tech savvy customers: Deloitte  

The new retail merchandise management solution will help address end-to-end processes such as procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, core finance and supply chain issues for retail. The key areas where both the IT giants will focus on are omnichannel pricing, assortment planning, and supply planning and store commerce.  

The solution for advanced fashion manufacturing will help companies strengthen end-to-end planning and execution while catering to last-minute changes.

Through the partnership, the companies will also develop cloud solutions for intelligent stores that will improve the productivity of employees through advanced store processes and automation. 

“Our strong domain capability, experience in SAP S/4HANA implementations, innovation using side-by-side extensions, and partnership with SAP puts Wipro in a unique position to build industry specific solutions,” Harish Dwarkanhalli, President - Cloud Enterprise Solutions, Wipro Limited, said.

According to Deloitte’s 2020 retail industry outlook report, consumer spending growth is expected to slow to 2.2% in 2020, down from 2.5% in 2019 due to escalating trade tensions and rising unemployment rates.

For the fashion industry, which is facing similar challenges as the retail segment, the growth is expected to fall from 4% to 3%, according to the “state of fashion 2020” report by McKinsey & Company.   

Retailers and apparel sellers are expected to adopt emerging technologies to woo customers back into buying.