SAP Introduces Machine Learning to Optimize the Shopping Experience

BARCELONA, Spain--()--SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today introduced new technologies, such as facial recognition, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT), to enable targeted marketing campaigns and help consumers optimize their shopping experience. With its SAP® Hybris® solutions, SAP continues to innovate and invest to drive the future of customer engagement and commerce. This announcement was made at the SAP Hybris Live summit being held October 17–19 in Barcelona, Spain.

Sharing Is Caring: SAP Survey Reveals What Makes Customers Happy (and Angry)
Nine out of 10 customers (89 percent) expect an answer to their query within 24 hours, according to the 2017 SAP Hybris Consumer Insights Report. The survey of 20,000 shoppers worldwide found that the easiest way to keep customers happy is to be responsive, and the fastest way to lose them is to share their data without their knowledge.

Four out of five shoppers (80 percent) are willing to share some of their customer data with brands, the study found, with Japan being the least inclined (52 percent) compared with Colombia and India (both at 92 percent). Respondents from all countries, except Russia, are willing to share their e-mail addresses, but only half of Middle East–based consumers want to share their mobile phone numbers.

Download the 2017 SAP Hybris Consumer Insights Report here.

For more information, read “The customer dating game: Know the tell-tale signs to avoid a brand break-up.”

SAP Powers Marketers with Tools to Touch Customers
The SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud solution now encompasses an array of solutions to help companies ensure they use the right messages to target customers who matter the most and ensure customers’ data and privacy are protected. Paired with the tools listed below, companies can create more transparency into their own marketing performance and spend.

  • Digital boardroom for the CMO: Based on SAP Digital Boardroom, the new marketing executive dashboard presents to chief marketing officers a view that includes reports gauging the success of campaigns and transparency to detect impending problems. It also shows and identifies new marketing opportunities.
  • Machine learning facial recognition: The SAP Leonardo digital innovation system now powers facial recognition technology within SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud, introducing a new way to engage in-store shoppers. Using facial analysis, the software connects shoppers’ genders and ages to a company or store’s available inventory and stock, enabling personalized product recommendations presented on large displays.
  • Embedded customer attribution: The SAP Hybris Customer Attribution solution (formerly Abakus) provides marketers with accurate measurements of marketing campaigns and activities that lead to a customer purchase. Data is collected across all touch points of the customer journey, giving insight into what’s driving customer conversions and where to reallocate activities and budget in real time.
  • Internet of Things (IoT) to trigger campaigns: Marketers can tap IoT devices to personalize offers. For example, brands can send a relevant marketing message when a consumer hits a new milestone on their fitness tracker.
  • Support for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Full support for the May 2018 global privacy regulation enables marketers to execute sophisticated targeting with consumer data protection as top priority.
  • WeChat integration: By supporting the Chinese social media application, SAP Hybris solutions are helping marketers expand their global footprint to more than 889 million users across China.

Read more on the Future of Customer Engagement & Commerce blog: “Marketing: Data is their biggest asset and challenge.”

SAP Introduces Machine Learning Co-Innovation Program
Ten customers are joining SAP Hybris to embed machine learning capabilities into the SAP Hybris Sales Cloud and SAP Hybris Service Cloud portfolios. SAP Hybris solutions have access to customer and product data across the front office. With SAP software touching more than 76 percent of the world’s business transactions, SAP is uniquely positioned to access data at this level.

Several use cases are available covering marketing, sales, service and commerce. They include advanced personalization, contextual merchandizing, a shopping assistant bot, affinity scoring, sentiment analysis, service ticket text analysis and a customer service bot.

Additionally, labs run by SAP rely on machine learning for several of their prototypes, including Galaxy, Charly the Chatbot and Pepper Instore Assistance. Hear more about SAP’s perspective on the impact of machine learning on customer engagement in the blog: “Machine learning: Putting it into practice with customers.”

Breaking Barriers to Digital Business with Agile Microservices
Customer engagement expectations are rising to new heights in the digital era, and organizations understand the need to transform. This can only be done by introducing agility into the infrastructure. Of 285 marketing, line-of-business, and IT leaders surveyed, more than half said that by introducing a microservices-based software architecture, they could increase scalability, improve discovery and resolution, and reduce dependency on a single technology stack. The problem is that while nine out of 10 digital strategy decision-makers would like to see their organizations accelerate digital business, only one third of organizations have a clearly defined digital strategy. More information can be found in the September 2017 SAP-commissioned thought leadership paper sponsored by Forrester Consulting titled “Leverage Agile Software Development to Deliver Business Flexibility.”

The study’s findings will be discussed during a dedicated panel at SAP Hybris LIVE: Global Summit. For further information, read “Agile microservices: The key to breaking barriers to digital business.”

For more information on SAP Hybris (SAP)*, visit the SAP Hybris News Center or follow SAP Hybris at @saphybris. For more information on SAP, visit SAP News Center or follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

About SAP Hybris Solutions
SAP Hybris solutions provide omnichannel customer engagement and commerce software that allows organizations to build up a contextual understanding of their customers in real time, deliver a more impactful, relevant customer experience, and sell more goods, services and digital content across every touch point, channel and device. Through customer data management, context driven marketing tools and unified commerce processes, SAP Hybris solutions have helped some of the world’s leading organizations to attract, retain and grow a profitable customer base. SAP Hybris software for customer engagement and commerce provides organizations with the foundation, framework and business tools to create a holistic customer view across channels, simplify customer engagement and solve complex business problems. For more information, visit www.hybris.com.

*SAP Hybris is a brand name launched in January 2016 to represent the SAP solutions for customer engagement and commerce as well as the offerings, employees, and business of acquired company hybris AG, which continues to be our legal entity until integration with SAP is complete.

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 355,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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Contacts

For more information, press only:
PAN Communications
Jenny Radloff or Nikki Festa, +1 617-502-4300
SAPHybris@pancomm.com, ET
or
SAP Hybris
Michael Baxter, +49 151 1719 6185
m.baxter@sap.com, CET
SAP News Center press room
press@sap.com

Contacts

For more information, press only:
PAN Communications
Jenny Radloff or Nikki Festa, +1 617-502-4300
SAPHybris@pancomm.com, ET
or
SAP Hybris
Michael Baxter, +49 151 1719 6185
m.baxter@sap.com, CET
SAP News Center press room
press@sap.com