SAP: Beall’s Rings in New Era with SAP

Continuing its successful track record of providing retail customers around the world with best-in-class business software, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Beall’s, Inc., a privately held retailer operating more than 600 stores in the United States, will implement SAP® for Retail solutions to support its organic growth strategy of opening additional stores in existing and new geographies. The end-to-end retail solution portfolio from SAP will help Beall’s standardize its business operations on one unified, scalable platform.

After conducting an extensive search and narrowing its choices to SAP and Oracle, Beall’s overwhelmingly selected SAP to serve as the company’s business software partner. Beall’s is looking to leverage the integrated applications from SAP for point-of-sale for department stores and off-price outlet stores, finance, human capital management, merchandise management, supply chain management and master data management.

“We chose to work with SAP because we felt that SAP has the best solution for us, has a clear road map and has a strong track record of delivering on its vision,” said Joe Iannello, vice president and CIO, Beall’s, Inc. “We were particularly impressed with SAP’s retail industry, end-to-end solution and road map. As a result, we believe that more and more retailers will sign up with SAP for Retail in the future.”

Beall’s will adopt the SAP NetWeaver® platform as the strategic business and technology architecture of its system, allowing the company to have one single source of information, to integrate and replace existing systems and infrastructure and to provide a modern engine for growth. SAP for Retail will provide Beall’s with the application set and technology tools needed to help the company achieve its company growth goals.

“We are committed to building a strong relationship with Beall’s and to being a trusted advisor and partner for many years to come,” said Jim McMurray, senior vice president and general manager, SAP Retail, Inc. “We understand that retailers need the ability to quickly adapt and innovate their businesses to continue to create value for their own customers. SAP allows companies such as Beall’s to flexibly design, implement and execute new, agile business strategies and processes.”

About Beall’s, Inc.
Beall's, Inc. is the parent company of Beall's Department Stores, Inc, Beall's Outlet Stores, Inc., and Burke's Outlet Stores, Inc. The corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates over 600 retail store sites in states across the Sun Belt, from Florida to California with annual sales over one billion dollars. Since its modest beginnings in 1915 Bealls has grown to be a major employer in the State of Florida as well as a valued asset to all the communities it serves throughout the country.

With Corporate headquarters located in Bradenton Florida, the operating companies take advantage of resource sharing by utilizing the synergistic functions provided by Beall's, Inc., including Distribution, Finance, Information Systems, Loss Prevention and Human Resources. Conversely, each company has its own buying staff, product development group and advertising strategy.

Bealls is a privately held company, rich in tradition, owned by the founding family and its employees. The company's principal operating strategy is to grow the corporation through the use of its profits. A long history of strong ethical values and commitment to customers, employees and community has earned the company trust and respect in the marketplace.

About SAP for Retail
SAP for Retail is a solution portfolio that combines mySAP™ Business Suite solutions with a broad set of integrated retail applications to help companies profitably serve consumer demand across multiple channels. With the acquisitions of Triversity and Khimetrics, SAP’s end-to-end solution now includes SAP Triversity Point of Sale (POS) and SAP Khimetrics Demand Intelligence. Today, more than 3,200 retailers worldwide are SAP customers, more than 470 of which are using merchandising-specific applications from the SAP for Retail solution portfolio. Built on the open architecture of the SAP NetWeaver® platform, SAP for Retail includes core capabilities for financial management, human resources, supplier relationship management and customer relationship management, as well as support for industry-specific merchandise management and planning, store and channel management, demand forecasting, replenishment, sophisticated allocation, workforce management, POS data management and RFID. (Additional information at http://www.sap.com/retail/)