How Canac Built a Retail Operational Layer on SAP to Simplify Inventory, Orders, and Store Execution

Large retail organizations rely on ERP systems like SAP to manage inventory, pricing, orders, logistics, and financial control.

Canac is no exception.

Five years ago, Canac undertook a major transformation: moving from a legacy system to SAP to standardize its operations across stores, plants, and distribution. The objective was clear: stability, scalability, and long-term control. The SAP deployment was intentionally kept as close to standard as possible.

That decision paid off.

But as day-to-day retail operations evolved, a new reality emerged:

while the system worked, execution on the floor became harder.

Rather than re-customizing SAP or fragmenting its architecture, Canac chose a different path, introducing an operational layer on top of SAP to better align systems with how work actually happens in stores.

That decision led to the integration of Frontleap.

The operational challenge after SAP standardization

SAP brought structure, rigor, and control to Canac’s core processes. Inventory, orders, and pricing were centralized and reliable.

However, in a fast-moving retail environment, Canac identified growing friction for frontline teams and operations leaders:

• inventory and product availability spread across multiple systems
• slow, fragmented search across items, locations, and stock types
• complex steps to create quotes and convert them into orders
• operational steps disconnected between stores, plants, and logistics
• increasing cognitive load during peak periods

Each year, more than 1,500 employees are trained on Canac’s operational processes. Even with solid training, the gap between system logic and store reality remained.

The issue was not SAP.

It was the absence of a unified operational layer across SAP S/4HANA, SAP Sales Cloud, and SharePoint, built around day-to-day execution.

Starting with the most critical retail use case: inventory & availability

Canac and Frontleap intentionally began with the highest-impact operational domain:

inventory and product availability across all stores and plants.

For retail operations, availability is everything.

If teams cannot answer “Do we have it, where, and when?” quickly, execution breaks down.

What Frontleap enabled

Instead of navigating multiple SAP transactions and data tables, Frontleap introduced a snappy, task-oriented operational interface that allows teams to:

• search inventory across stores, plants, and warehouses
• query multiple data entities (products, variants, locations, quantities) in one action
• access availability in real time without switching systems
• move from availability to quote or order creation seamlessly

This single improvement removed dozens of micro-frictions repeated hundreds of times per day.

Extending the operational layer across core retail workflows

Following the  deployment of inventory and product availability, Canac has committed to progressively extending the value delivered by Frontleap across other high-impact retail workflows.

One of the next focus areas is quotes and order creation. By building on the availability foundation already in place, Frontleap is expected to help streamline how quotes are generated, ensure tighter alignment between quoting and ordering, and reduce friction between sales teams, store operations, and back-office processes. The objective is not to change underlying systems, but to make the path from customer request to confirmed order clearer and more reliable.

Future phases will aim to simplify execution for warehouse and logistics teams, promote greater consistency across locations, and improve synchronization between operational actions and SAP records. As with earlier phases, the emphasis remains on standardizing how work is executed without introducing ERP customization.

Across all current and future extensions, the guiding principle remains the same: simplify execution at the workflow level while preserving the integrity of the ERP.

Understanding real work before designing workflows

A defining element of the project was Canac’s openness to direct operational observation. Rather than relying solely on documentation or system metrics, the organization chose to expose real store operations to close, hands-on analysis.

As part of the collaboration, Frontleap’s co-founder David Dupont spent one day per week on site, working alongside store and operations teams in real conditions. This immersion surfaced realities that dashboards rarely capture. Employees routinely develop workarounds to compensate for system complexity, small frictions repeat hundreds of times per day and quietly erode productivity, and the same task is often executed differently depending on context. In practice, ERP steps do not always align with operational intent.

These observations reinforced Canac’s strategic conclusion: the objective was not to re-engineer SAP, but to re-engineer execution.

Frontleap as an operational layer on top of SAP

Frontleap was deployed as a business process operational layer positioned between SAP and frontline teams. Rather than replacing existing systems, it orchestrates workflows across them, translating complex system logic into clear, task-oriented execution for daily operations.

By presenting information based on what teams need to do rather than how data is structured in the ERP, Frontleap reduces navigation and cognitive load. Operational actions are synchronized with SAP in the background, allowing teams to work without waiting on system responses while preserving data integrity. This approach keeps the overall architecture clean and stable, ensuring that execution improves without introducing fragile customizations or compromising the ERP.

Impact across the entire organization

For frontline users

• faster, clearer daily workflows
• reduced cognitive load
• fewer screens and repetitive steps
• easier onboarding and training

For operations leaders

• full control over how processes run
• standardized execution across stores and plants
• fewer errors and exceptions
• ability to improve workflows without waiting on IT

For IT teams

• no heavy SAP customization
• clean, modular architecture
• better visibility into process and data flows
• managing processes instead of custom development projects

Preparing operations for AI the right way

Canac did not adopt Frontleap with the goal of adding AI features for their own sake. The objective was more foundational: to make operations AI-ready.

In many organizations, AI initiatives struggle because operational data comes from fragmented processes and inconsistent execution. When work is done differently from one person or situation to another, the data becomes unreliable.

By standardizing execution through a dedicated operational layer, Canac is creating cleaner and more consistent process signals. Tasks are executed in a uniform way, operational steps are clearly defined, and data enters core systems in a more structured and reliable form. This reduces variability and removes much of the ambiguity that typically undermines AI initiatives.

As a result, Canac is building a solid foundation for future AI use cases such as forecasting, optimization, and decision support, without relying on assumptions or guesswork.

Why this model matters

Canac’s journey reflects a broader shift in how enterprise organizations approach operational improvement.

Meaningful progress no longer requires replacing core systems, launching large-scale transformation programs, or relying on fragile customizations. Instead, it comes from understanding how work actually happens, simplifying execution at the workflow level, and introducing a clear operational layer between systems and the people who use them.

For ERP-driven organizations, in retail and beyond, this model offers a pragmatic path to improving daily operations while preserving system stability—and to preparing for the next generation of capabilities with confidence.