Retail Pet Products Chain Enables Faster Decisions and Enterprise-Wide Visibility with SAP Business Data Cloud

A prominent American pet supply retail chain faced mounting pressure to make faster, more informed decisions across supply chain, inventory, and sales operations. Their aging data infrastructure had become a bottleneck, slowing down critical business insights, increasing operational costs, and preventing the company from leveraging advanced analytics and AI to compete more effectively. 

With an outdated integration platform approaching retirement, the company partnered with Applexus to transform how business teams access and use SAP data. The result: real-time visibility into operations, significantly reduced IT dependency, and a modern foundation that positions the retailer for AI-powered innovation, all while eliminating legacy platform costs. 

Challenges

Slow access to critical business information limited competitive response 

• Business teams waited days or weeks for IT to deliver supply chain, inventory, and sales data, making it impossible to respond quickly to market changes or operational issues. 

Multiple data sources created conflicting reports and poor decisions 

• Different departments worked from different versions of the same data, leading to conflicting insights, finger-pointing, and decisions based on incomplete information. 

Costly legacy systems increased operational risk and blocked innovation 

• A retiring integration platform with 200+ custom workflows was expensive to maintain, created compliance risk, and prevented the company from adopting modern analytics and AI capabilities their competitors were already using. 

Heavy IT dependency prevented business teams from self-service analytics 

• Every data request required IT involvement, creating backlogs and frustrating business leaders who needed insights to drive their operations. 

Our Solution

Applexus implemented a modern, cloud-native data architecture using SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), SAP Datasphere, and Google Cloud Databricks that fundamentally changed how the business accesses and uses data. 

Key transformation elements: 

• Migrated 200+ legacy workflows to a modern cloud platform, eliminating technical debt 
• Created 170+ real-time data feeds covering all critical business areas 
• Enabled direct business access to trusted, governed data without IT intervention 
• Prepared the SAP foundation for the company's planned S/4HANA migration 
• Established the infrastructure for AI and machine learning initiatives 

Business Impact & Results 

Transformed decision-making speed across the organization 

• Business teams now access real-time supply chain, manufacturing, sales, and inventory data instantly—replacing week-long waits with immediate insights that enable faster response to market conditions and operational issues. 

Eliminated conflicting reports and created enterprise-wide trust in data 

• By consolidating multiple data sources into a single, governed system, the company established one authoritative version of truth. Departments now make aligned decisions based on the same reliable information. 

Reduced operational costs and eliminated platform retirement risk 

• The retirement of the legacy Informatica platform eliminated ongoing maintenance costs, licensing fees, and the compliance risks associated with end-of-life technology, while simplifying operations with modern cloud infrastructure. 

Empowered business teams with self-service capabilities 

• Line-of-business users can now access and analyze data independently, dramatically reducing IT workload and eliminating backlogs. Business teams control their own insights without waiting for technical resources. 

Created competitive advantage through AI and analytics readiness 

• The modern data foundation enables the company to pursue advanced analytics and AI-powered capabilities—from demand forecasting to personalized customer experiences—that weren't possible with legacy systems. This positions the retailer to compete more effectively in a data-driven market. 

De-risked S/4HANA transformation and future-proofed IT investments 

• The new architecture directly supports the company's planned S/4HANA migration, reducing transformation complexity and cost while ensuring current investments remain relevant for years to come.