A garden center and plant nursery may seem like a seasonal business, but Merrifield Garden Center is continuously evolving to meet the needs of its customers no matter the time of year.

Since its humble beginnings in 1971, Merrifield has flourished into one of the largest full-service garden center, nursery, and landscaping companies in its region, employing more than 600 individuals and comprising over 70 acres of plants, property, and storefront in northern Virginia. Its business includes three brick-and-mortar locations carrying plants, gardening supplies, and home and holiday décor; an online store; a wholesale division that supports other local landscape contractors; a materials production division that recycles materials from landscaping jobs; and a line of private-label products tailored specifically for the environmental conditions in the greater Washington, D.C. area.

Clearly, the business has expanded and evolved over the years to meet changing industry and customer standards, but its founding principles of providing the highest quality customer services and unparalleled plant and product selection remain steadfast. The same is true for the systems supporting the products and services in Merrifield’s retail operations. With its omnichannel strategy, it’s critical that Merrifield delivers a consistent, seamless, and personalized experience across all its customer touchpoints.

Blooming into a modern, tech-savvy enterprise

Luckily, CFO Lynn Warhurst has made it one of her personal goals to bring technology into the company since joining in 1978. “There was zero technology…so we knew going forward that if we wanted to grow and be successful, we needed to change something,” she said.

After coming across SAP at an NRF event in the early 2000s, Merrifield went live with SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) in 2013 to replace its 20-year-old garden center legacy system, providing the company with modern audit trail capabilities and increased data reliability.

Continuing its long-standing innovation journey and partnership with SAP, Merrifield is now transitioning its SAP ECC system to the cloud with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, retail, fashion, and vertical business.

Merrifield Garden Center sees up to 300 transactions per hour per location, Warhurst said, and so the company needed a solution with enhanced processing speeds that can handle a high volume of retail transactions. What’s more, the company also wanted a system that supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, has customer loyalty tracking and data analytics capabilities, and ensures enterprise security and compliance.

Merrifield also wanted to bring together its retail and wholesale divisions onto one platform as opposed to hosting them on fragmented solutions. “We knew [SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition] could handle our complexity and give us the detail we needed to run and grow our business,” Warhurst said. “After 54 years in business, both divisions will run on the same platform. It’s very exciting that we can interchange cashiers for retail and wholesale, which means being more efficient as a company.”

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, retail, fashion, and vertical business is a new solution introduced in January of this year. Built specifically for retailers, the ERP solution is tailored to the industry’s unique complexities around scaling, merchandising, store operations, and supply chains. The flexibility of its public cloud architecture helps unify and integrate industry-specific processes with out-of-the-box integrations.

Merrifield is also implementing SAP Omnichannel Sales Transfer and Audit to help ensure the completeness of sales transactions across multiple channels, improve data reporting, and comply with local regulations.

Strong partnerships build a foundation for success

To facilitate its cloud transformation, Merrifield engaged Syntax as its implementation partner. “Having a trusted partner is very important,” Warhurst said, explaining that Merrifield has worked with Syntax since 2018.

For the move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, retail, fashion, and vertical business, Syntax came on-site to Merrifield to experience its current system first-hand and better understand what the business sees as mission-critical during this transformation, Warhurst said. Together, they identified solution provisioning and integration, data migration, and business continuity as priorities. With this insight, Syntax is working with SAP to integrate any remaining project gaps into an upcoming solution release in August.

“Syntax and SAP have been great. We are one of the first to go public cloud for retail and they have been there for us,” Warhurst said. “It was very important to find somebody who believed in us and was there for us, and I feel that that’s really one of the most important things for our success.”

While the new system is projected to go live in September, the project is currently in the configuration and realization stage and Merrifield is excited for the future. Adopting this holistic, omnichannel, cloud-based solution will help the garden center achieve its goals of expanding into more locations and online offerings by having trusted, complete data from across its divisions available in one place.

Gillian Hixson is an integrated communications specialist at SAP.

Top image courtesy of SAP employee Tom Lennart-Krupp.

A great employee experience isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a business imperative. Every interaction, every HR touchpoint shapes how employees feel, engage, and perform. But as expectations rise and workplaces evolve, HR teams need new ways to meet the moment. That means delivering faster, more personalized, high-quality support—and doing so at scale.

With AI-powered innovation and a unified approach to HR service delivery, organizations can create the seamless, connected experiences employees expect while unlocking new levels of efficiency and strategic impact for HR. That’s exactly what SAP is enabling with the SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management solution, recently delivered in the 1H 2025 SAP SuccessFactors HCM release and now available.

Leading companies like Döhler Group, a global producer of natural ingredients for the food and beverage industry, are already seeing the impact, with benefits such as:

• 33% reduction in case resolution times
• 4X productivity increase
• 80% reduction in e-mail writing time using generative AI

Paul Wittig, head of HR Operations & Services, Döhler, said, “Enterprise service management for HR is a huge step towards a more digital and, therefore, more transparent and structured way of work.”

The future of HR service delivery is now

The employee experience is shaped not just by big career moments, but by everyday opportunities, interactions, and the ability to get support when it’s needed. That’s why one of the most critical HR touchpoints in any organization is the HR help desk—and it’s also one of the most overburdened.

HR service reps at large enterprises often work in shared business centers and are responsible for managing high case volumes and diverse requests, ensuring accuracy and compliance. They may process hundreds of service requests in a month, each taking 1-3 days to resolve depending on the complexity of the issue, leaving employees waiting for the answers they need and HR teams overwhelmed by volume.

But this model is evolving—advancements in technology solutions are fundamentally reshaping how this work gets done. It’s no longer just about processing more cases, faster. It’s about preventing many of those cases from being raised in the first place. Intelligent, AI-powered tools enable employees to find answers independently, reducing case volumes and allowing HR teams to focus on more complex issues that require human expertise.

According to Gartner*, “By 2025, 70% of organizations with more than 2,500 employees will have invested in an HR service management solution.”

The momentum is clear, and organizations taking action are already seeing the benefits: reduced case volumes, faster resolution times, and a more seamless experience for both employees and HR teams.

The potential of AI to transform service delivery is also reflected in recent SAP SuccessFactors research. In one survey, 89% of employees said their workplace experience would improve if they could use AI to get answers to HR questions. In a related survey, HR leaders identified self-service and other AI-enabled administrative tasks as the most valuable use cases for their teams—freeing them from repetitive requests and creating space for more meaningful conversations with employees, from career development to conflict resolution.

The question is: what does HR service really look like in an era where embedded AI has the potential to transform not just the speed, but the entire nature of support?

The benefits of a single cloud platform, powered by AI

SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management enables organizations to completely reimagine HR service delivery with a unified cloud platform powered by AI.

Enhancing the employee experience is among the top benefits of SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management. Delivering added value to HR, the solution can harness the power of AI to help search, analyze, and update the underlying knowledge base and policy data, enabling it to better address employees’ questions in the future before cases are generated. SAP’s AI copilot Joule can give employees instant access to the answers and support they need through collaboration tools, a rich knowledge base, and omnichannel self-service experiences.

For example, imagine an employee with questions about parental leave. Instead of submitting a case and waiting for an HR response, the employee can simply ask Joule the question from directly within the platform. Joule can provide accurate, personalized guidance based on company policies and the employee’s specific eligibility, helping to instantly resolve the inquiry without any manual intervention. If the question is more complex or requires documentation, the technology helps seamlessly create and route the case to an HR service rep, along with all relevant details, working to ensure fast, informed support. The best part: Joule can be accessed from anywhere across SAP and is not just contained within HR.

The solution also benefits HR teams by helping to simplify daily operations and significantly scale efficiency. SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management can enhance HR service delivery behind the scenes with AI-driven case management, automated document handling, and intelligent knowledge updates, working to reduce manual effort for service reps and improve compliance. AI at work is central to this process, enabling auto-classification of service requests, content summarization to give agents a concise, contextual view of each case, and next-best action recommendations to help resolve issues quickly and effectively. The solution can continuously learn from past interactions, helping to make classification and resolution processes smarter and more accurate over time. Generative AI can further elevate efficiency by automatically generating clear interaction summaries, consistent resolution recaps, and professional, personalized e-mail drafts—helping to accelerate case handling, enhance communication quality, and ensure a more seamless, consistent service experience for both employees and HR teams.

With embedded SAP Analytics Cloud, HR teams can gain real-time visibility into service performance, enabling data-driven decisions to further optimize operations and elevate the employee experience.

A win for the business, employees, and HR

SAP customers that already use SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central for core HR are well positioned to quickly implement and reap the benefits of SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management. Together, these solutions can create a unified, AI-powered foundation that can deliver personalized, compliant HR support at every touchpoint.

Real-time, trusted core HR data from SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central helps ensure employees receive accurate, context-aware support, while quick actions embedded in the solution can make it easy to complete common HR tasks with just a few clicks—all within the flow of work. Within SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management’s case management experience, HR service reps can also benefit from direct access to the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central people profile, available as a mash-up, helping to provide immediate, secure visibility into relevant employee information without the need to switch systems. The solution can extend core SAP SuccessFactors HCM investments with a secure, compliant service layer to help maintain centralized data governance, streamline service processes, and reduce manual effort—working to ensure a seamless, intuitive experience for employees and HR teams alike.

We all know that HR is not just a back-office function. It is central to shaping employee experience and driving business outcomes. With SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management, powered by SAP Business AI, organizations can deliver the support employees expect while reducing HR workloads and improving efficiency. The result? A triple win for the business, employees, and HR.

Learn more about SAP SuccessFactors Enterprise Service Management for HR service delivery.

Lara Albert is chief marketing officer at SAP SuccessFactors.

*Source: Gartner: Market Guide for Integrated HR Service Management solutions, May 2024

German city centers are fighting for survival, and they need to reinvent themselves. How? With innovative technologies that improve efficiency, boost customer loyalty, and unlock new revenue streams for retailers. Retail media is the name of the game here. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe, it will generate some €25 billion in revenue in 2026—more than twice as much as in 2022.

It’s the same story everywhere: Germany’s downtown shopping streets are struggling with high retail vacancy rates. Holstenstraße, one of the country’s oldest pedestrian shopping zones, is no exception. Here, in the heart of the Baltic Sea coast city of Kiel, capital of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, the store vacancy rate is 38.5%. In an effort to revive the city’s retail scene, its marketing department launched an innovative initiative known as Zukunftsraum (“future space”). In the brick-and-mortar shopping environment of a pop-up store, retailers can explore the opportunities that new technologies bring. “Collecting data and using it effectively is central to gaining a better understanding of customer requirements and to unlocking new revenue streams,” Käthe Fleischer says. As an interim manager for business development on the Kiel pilot project, she knows that data collected in stores is the key to more effective and personalized marketing.

Grasping the power of a new business model

Enter retail media, an opportunity for retailers to generate additional revenue and bolster their cash-strapped coffers by selling physical and digital advertising space. “Many retailers have not yet recognized the value that this new form of advertising can unlock,” says Marlene Lohmann, head of Marketing Research at Germany’s EHI Retail Institute. Referring to the results of a recent study, she reports that while some front-runners—including leading German retailers REWE, Lidl, OBI, dm, and Douglas—have adopted this new business model, the retail landscape as a whole has a lot of catching up to do. “Retail media is still very much in its infancy,” she says.

Yet its potential for the sector is immense. And ultimately, it’s a win-win for everyone: retailers profit from new sources of revenue and manufacturers can target potential buyers with greater precision. Quoting a consumer study by Kantar, Dirk Sperrfechter, an expert at the market research firm, says: “Consumers rate contextually relevant advertising at the point of sale as particularly authentic and helpful.” The number of touchpoints, he adds, also plays a key role in how retail media advertising is perceived.

Retail media unlocks a multitude of benefits

Retailers should be using these findings to their advantage. And, indeed, more and more are doing so, at least online. Sponsored ads are everywhere these days—in web shops, on social media, and in online newsletters—but they still leave much to be desired in terms of personalization. But the potential of in-store solutions such as screens and digital totems often remains untapped as well. This is probably partly because different sales channels are often poorly integrated, making it difficult to consolidate the first-party data they generate.

“What retailers need most of all if they want to unlock the added value of retail media are powerful technologies for collecting, cleansing, and enriching customer data,” Lohmann says. Ultimately, they need to be able to analyze their first-party data in detail and segment it. If they do not have reliable metrics at their fingertips, they will struggle to persuade interested manufacturers and brands of the potential of the advertising space they want to sell.

Smart technology and SAP Business Data Cloud as enablers

This is where SAP comes in. “Our cloud solutions for retail help retailers generate and provision relevant data about customer behavior, clearance sales, promotions, and prices,” explains Stefan Binkowski, vice president, Retail & Wholesale Advisory, SAP Deutschland. In the newly launched SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) solution, retailers can consolidate data from manifold sources with ease. First presented at SAP Business Unleashed, SAP BDC can integrate all SAP and non-SAP business data and, in so doing, helps provide a foundation from which to get up and running with retail media.

SAP offers what enterprises need to build and implement a robust retail media strategy: smart store technologies for tracking customer frequency rates, interactions, and so on with ease; intelligent analyses for gaining detailed insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs; a data platform for collating all the relevant information; and, last but not least, an omnichannel customer engagement platform for planning and implementing targeted retail media campaigns. “Generating added value from data is central to SAP’s strategy,” Binkowski says. “Once retailers recognize the value of their data, they can take full advantage of the untapped potential that retail media offers.”

Retail media is one of the topics on the agenda for the German-speaking SAP User Group’s retail conference (DSAG-Handelstagen) on July 1 and 2 in Osnabrück, Germany. The event will look at the technological aspects of leveraging customer data and retail media in the industry, which smart technologies come into play, and how SAP BDC can contribute to the success of this marketing concept. Sign up today.

This also appeared on the German SAP News Center.