Automating Supply Chain Insights for Global Retail Teams
Mockup of the automated reporting tool. It replaced 10+ SAP T-codes and manual workflows
Timeline
Jan 2019 - Dec 2021
Platform
Mobile + Desktop
Role
UI/UX Designer, Consultant
Team
Kalyan(me), Imran, Atri, Nidhi, Srini
Apple uses SAP for their ERP solutions, and while it's powerful, it has a steep learning curve. For employees who aren't power users—like analysts or retail staff, it's easy to get lost and spend more time than necessary retrieving data. This isn't a big deal in day-to-day operations, but during NPI(New Product Introduction) events, when every second counts, employees can't afford to spend 20-30 minutes hunting for info. They needed a faster, more intuitive solution to keep things moving smoothly.
A batch of products arrives at retail stores, but some are damaged during transit. Now, an analyst wants to track this issue, generate a report, and send it to the relevant supply chain manager(s) to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. Here's the challenge. To access that data, the analyst has to jump through multiple selection screens and tables to track down products flagged with exceptions. Worse, the exceptions aren't categorized. Retail teams record the issue as an option from a predefined list or add a custom message but the data was recorded in the database as a simple note instead. So now, the analyst has to sift through unstructured notes, filter through the data manually, and add each item to the report one by one.
Build a new tool that uses data from SAP and automate frequently used workflows and is easy to access.
Ensure the tool is scalable to support future automations and expansions.
The breakthrough came from paying attention to what wasn't being said. While managing the product backlog, I noticed a pattern: certain user stories consistently spiked in priority during and immediately after NPI events. These weren't feature requests—they were desperate attempts to access critical data faster. The stories all centered on the same pain: reports for items lost or damaged in transit, area-specific product performance data, returns and defective item tracking, and supply chain visibility by region.
Rather than just designing another interface, I shadowed analysts during their daily work and walked through the exact workflows myself. What I discovered was staggering.
To generate a single report, analysts were performing work that should have been automated:
Navigate through 10+ different T-codes (SAP's cryptic navigation system)
Manually query multiple disconnected tables: Purchase Order, Regional codes, Country codes, Store codes, Lost in Transit, Damaged Goods
Copy data from each table into a spreadsheet
Manually cross-reference codes to join data
Filter and format for their specific needs
Create charts and visualizations manually
Export and share with stakeholders
17-25 minutes
Time per report
100-300+ clicks and keystrokes
Clicks & keystrokes
3 months
3-month SAP training course required
"Employees were doing what APIs should do."
Retail teams, business analysts, finance, and supply chain teams, as well as global leadership, who relied on the system for data-driven decisions and smooth NPI operations.
Retail Store Manager
Emma's always on the move, managing her store and team. SAP's outdated system slows her down, especially when reporting damaged devices or updating repair codes. Training new hires on it? A nightmare. She wants a user-friendly dashboard that gets her the info she needs in seconds. For Emma, time saved = a smoother store + happier customers!
Navigating complex systems
Quick access to data for daily decisions
Workflow speed up, time to focus on her team
Senior Business Analyst
Seamus loves data, but SAP's complex system makes generating reports a time-consuming chore. He's tired of spending hours digging through data when he could be focusing on strategy. He needs a streamlined dashboard that gives him quick, accurate insights so he can do what he does best: analyze and plan. For Seamus, efficiency is key.
Time-consuming reporting
Efficient, quick access to accurate data
More time for strategic work, less time on data prep
Supply Chain Lead
Mei runs a tight ship in the supply chain, but outdated systems make tracking inventory a hassle. She needs real-time updates to keep things moving smoothly and avoid bottlenecks. Juggling numbers across multiple regions shouldn't be this hard. Mei wants an efficient, easy-to-use system that lets her keep stock flowing without the headaches.
Tracking inventory across regions
Real-time updates to avoid delays
Faster inventory management, smoother operations
Rather than write a requirements document, I partnered with our tech lead and a developer to build a proof of concept. We spent a few weeks creating a simple prototype that automated the most common workflow: Lost in Transit and Damaged in Transit reports.
Dropdown menu to select report type, filters to choose product category, region, and country (by name, not code), and automated charts showing percentages vs. successful deliveries plus exportable data.
Behind the scenes, the tool automated all the table lookups, code translations, and data joins that analysts previously did manually. It transformed SAP from a system requiring expertise into a database that served insights on demand.
I conducted 6-7 individual sessions with stakeholders across retail teams, development, and QA. Rather than a formal presentation, I showed them the working prototype and watched their reactions.
The response was immediate and unanimous: 'When can we have this?'
Around the same time, Apple was launching a new unified web portal for organizational reporting. This project aimed to make SAP data accessible to employees globally without requiring extensive training—exactly what my prototype did.
Rather than build this tool in isolation, I could integrate it into a platform that thousands of employees already used. This tool solves a high-value problem, aligns perfectly with the portal's mission, integration would be low-effort with maximum impact, and it would showcase the portal's value to retail teams.
Executive sponsorship, two engineering teams assigned to support it, and green light to proceed.
While the UI components were standardized, where reports lived and how they were organized was critical. I introduced a methodology my team had never used: card sorting workshops.
Participants included end users and stakeholders from multiple regions. The task was to organize 15-20 report types into logical categories. The goal was to understand mental models across different departments.
Users from different departments wanted similar groupings—they were thinking about business problems, not organizational silos. We created a navigation structure that matched user mental models and provided redundancy in categorization.
Unlike consumer apps where you start with sketches and wireframes, enterprise SAP development follows strict design system conventions. SAP Fiori provides comprehensive UI components, patterns, and guidelines. This meant no need for low-fidelity prototyping of UI patterns, no debates about visual design, and focus could shift entirely to information architecture and automation logic.
What started as a single report type evolved into the foundation of a comprehensive platform. Here's the feature I can showcase:
Automated the collection and analysis of delivery issues across Apple's global supply chain. Users could filter by product category, item name, business region, country, or specific store—all using human-readable names instead of cryptic SAP codes.
During NPI events, understanding loss rates and damage patterns helped teams calculate financial losses, identify problematic shipping routes, make real-time inventory adjustments, and negotiate with carriers based on data.
Visual charts showing loss/damage percentages, detailed data tables with full context, and one-click export to CSV/XLSX for deeper analysis in Tableau or Power BI.
In the end, automating these workflows didn't just save time, it made the entire process smoother and less error-prone. Not to mention, the user doesn't even have to login to SAP so, goodbye Tcodes! By addressing gaps like uncategorized exceptions and creating a more streamlined backend, we empowered analysts and teams to focus on what really matters, without getting bogged down in manual, repetitive tasks.
Things were evolving at Apple. With NPI events ramping up every year, the need to optimize their supply chain became even more critical. As part of this optimization, Apple began upgrading their SAP systems to S4/HANA. This shift created the perfect opportunity to experiment with new solutions and streamline workflows. Around the same time, a new web-based portal was introduced and it was used across departments for organizational support, designed to be more accessible globally and user-friendly than traditional tools. Before we came on board, few other retail projects had already been added to this portal with impressive adoption rates. Seeing the potential, we took the opportunity to integrate our tool into the portal as well, which not only improved accessibility but also boosted our tool's adoption rate far more than we anticipated.
Projected Adoption rate
35%
Actual Adoption rate
78%
17-25 minutes per report
Before
<1 minute per report
After
~19 minutes per report
Saved
~7,000
Reports weekly
2,216+
Hours saved/week
115k+
Hours saved/year
$5.18M
Productivity gains
P1
Retail Store Manager
"This tool is exactly what we needed. I can't believe we used to do this manually. Now I can pull up reports in seconds instead of waiting around for someone to compile data."
P2
Senior Business Analyst
"The time I used to spend wrestling with SAP is now spent on actual analysis. It helps a lot with my workflow, I would love to see it talking directly to tableau someday"
P3
Supply Chain Lead
"Best part is, I do not have to search for store codes and prodcut codes anymore and yet find what I need"
P4
Global Retail Team
"I really like how we can have niche data from multiple regions at once"
Was featured in quarterly business reviews as a model for SAP modernization initiatives.