The trade industry employs 5 million people and is divided into trade intermediaries, wholesale and foreign trade companies, and retailers. In this context, wholesale and retail trade together generate a combined turnover of around 1.7 trillion euros (excluding VAT). The industry is largely characterised by continuous changes in customer needs, technological developments and competition-specific market conditions.
Special requirements for the information system landscape are strongly growing data volumes, the control of different branch formats and high sales dynamics. In this context, flexibility and mastering complexity are particularly important issues. Due to the large number of suppliers and customers, the business processes of retail companies and their IT design are additionally specified or influenced by business partners. Another important topic is the mapping of purchasing and sales conditions as well as the optimization of order picking.