Pandora shifts from a traditional IT function to a cloud-core, data-driven platform built on Rise with SAP and S/4HANA Cloud. With agile product teams and three AI bets, the retailer aims to improve stock visibility, omnichannel execution and customer experience while embedding real-time data into operations.
David Walmsley’s four-year arc at Pandora reads less like a sequence of IT upgrades and more like a fundamental reshaping of how a global retailer organises its data, processes and people. From an early insistence that Pandora needed to move beyond a traditional outsourced IT function, the chief digital and technology officer has steered a programme that, in his words, puts business outcomes at the heart of technology. The result, he has said, is not merely “big stuff” in the tech stack but a platform built to drive conversion, customer satisfaction, shelf-edge availability and manufacturing efficiency, with tight partnerships fuelling the journey. (sap.com)
A clean core becomes a growth platform
Pandora’s ERP transformation rests on Rise with SAP and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, a shift designed to standardise and simplify end-to-end processes across finance, inventory and sales while enabling a seamless omnichannel customer experience. The move is framed as a cloud-core consolidation intended to reduce custom code and accelerate the adoption of innovations across the business. SAP’s documentation on Pandora’s journey highlights a clean-core approach supported by a comprehensive toolchain, including SAP Signavio for process design, SAP Cloud ALM for lifecycle management, and SAP Build tools to accelerate development. It also emphasises the role of SAP Integration Suite and Event Mesh in connecting more than 15 disparate systems and delivering real-time data flow between them. (sap.com)
Pandora’s agile platform—the way, not just the stack
The Pandora team describes its development style as a customised version of agile, coined as “Pandora, the agile way.” Rather than imposing a rigid framework, teams in each business domain act as product lines, with quarterly planning cycles and granular delivery milestones, while still preserving flexibility in how they implement changes. The approach is designed to keep a lean core while enabling rapid experimentation and continuous improvement from engineers’ desks, with automation scaled where appropriate. The ERP upgrade sits alongside a broader shift to an autonomous, loosely coupled technology architecture that integrates with major partners. The result is a digital stack described as among the most modern Walmsley has encountered in his career, capable of supporting both front-end experimentation and back-end transformation. (sap.com)
Three AI bets—and the practical way to get there
Pandora has signposted three big AI bets as the data foundation solidifies. The first is agentic AI for selling and service, pursued in collaboration with Salesforce and its Agentforce product—a partnership already handling a meaningful portion of online customer-service activity. The second bet focuses on product development, exploring how AI can accelerate bringing new items to market. The third targets back-end automation, leveraging AI-enabled productivity tools from Microsoft and SAP to streamline operations across the organisation. Walmsley cautions CIO peers against chasing AI for its own sake, urging a focus on business-specific competitive advantages and the outcomes that matter most to the enterprise. Industry observers note that this aligns Pandora with a broader industry pattern: AI is most effective when it augments unique strategic strengths rather than serving as a universal panacea. (news.sap.com)
A growth engine built on a strong data backbone
Pandora frames its data foundations as the multiplier for future capability—crucial as it moves toward AI-enabled analytics and predictive capabilities. The cloud ERP core underpins this shift, with embedded AI features anticipated to enhance inventory planning, financial analytics and operational decision-making. In addition to ERP automation, the plan includes real-time stock visibility and better orchestration of manufacturing, distribution and retail operations, enabling more precise stock allocation and improved customer experiences across geographies. SAP’s analyses around Pandora’s transformation emphasise a “clean core” approach designed to minimise bespoke code while allowing rapid adoption of innovations across a globally connected business network. (news.sap.com, sap.com)
From five ERPs to a single digital backbone—and a broader digitisation of operations
Pandora’s ERP journey began with a fragmented landscape spanning multiple systems, including Microsoft Dynamics AX, with a five-system environment previously in place. The objective has been to standardise processes into a single, cloud-based core, anchored by SAP S/4HANA Cloud and complemented by Rise with SAP. The aim is not only to streamline finance and distribution but to enable seamless order-to-cash, procure-to-pay and a connected backend that can support high-velocity commerce. Tech-industry analyses of Pandora’s path emphasise the benefits of a lean, cloud-first core, while noting that the real change lies in how back-end processes—manufacturing, planning and analytics—translate into a more responsive, customer-centric front end. (techtarget.com, news.sap.com)
A digital hub, talent growth and sustained cost discipline
Pandora’s Copenhagen Digital Hub, which began with around 120 staff during the pandemic, has expanded to house hundreds of IT, digital and data analytics professionals. The organisation has framed this growth within a broader policy of sustainable technology—managing headcount and cost as part of the transformation, rather than treating people and technology as separate concerns. The hub’s expansion supports the global rollout of the cloud-core ERP and the associated data and automation capabilities that underpin Pandora’s omnichannel ambitions. In parallel, Pandora’s leadership stresses the importance of combining technology with human capability—empowering store staff with dashboards and tools that free them from administrative tasks and enable more meaningful customer engagement. (sap.com)
Real-time operations, realisable outcomes
The ERP and data platform is positioned to deliver tangible improvements in stock control, order accuracy and store-level decision-making. Pandora’s renewed backend is described as providing end-to-end visibility—from raw materials and manufacturing through to distribution and point-of-sale reconciliation. SAP’s reporting on Pandora notes tangible benefits already realised in stock management and back-office processes, while the broader ERP programme is designed to enable faster, data-driven decision-making across the business. The emphasis remains on outcomes: a platform that supports better customer experiences, more efficient operations and scalable growth, rather than merely a tech upgrade. (sap.com, news.sap.com)
A forward-looking view: AI-enabled growth and a leaner core
Looking ahead, Pandora’s leadership envisions embedding AI capabilities within the S/4HANA core to enable predictive analytics and scenario planning—supporting decisions such as where to push margins or how to balance supply and demand across stores and online channels. The company’s SAP-driven transformation is pitched as a long-term, multi-year effort designed to keep Pandora at the forefront of data-driven retail while maintaining a strong focus on the customer experience. SAP’s 2025 updates frame Pandora as a flagship example of how Rise with SAP and SAP S/4HANA Cloud can underpin growth through a clean digital core, integrated process discovery, lifecycle management and prebuilt accelerators that shorten time-to-value. Pandora’s own executives emphasise a careful balance of innovation with practical outcomes, a philosophy that underpins both the customer experience and the efficiency of back-end operations. (news.sap.com)
In synthesis, Pandora’s four-year odyssey has moved from a traditional IT function to a purpose-built, data-driven platform designed to scale with growth. By insourcing core engineering, building agile product teams, and anchoring the business on Rise with SAP and S/4HANA Cloud, Pandora seeks to turn data into a competitive advantage—one that can be felt at the storefront and across the supply chain. The story remains a work in progress, but the direction—standardised, connected, AI-enabled and outcome-driven—appears clear, supported by a foundation that brings together SAP’s cloud ERP, process design, lifecycle management and integration capabilities with Pandora’s own ambition to combine technology with a deeply personal, omnichannel customer experience. (sap.com, news.sap.com, techtarget.com)
Source panel: Pandora’s journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Rise with SAP, and a modern, data-driven retail platform is documented across SAP’s customer stories and press materials, with early reporting on the ERP consolidation and cloud-core strategy dating to 2022 and expanded, concrete updates through 2025 detailing the private-edition cloud core, process automation, AI integration and omnichannel uplift. The latest SAP materials describe Pandora’s cloud-core implementation, lean automation, and embedded AI capabilities as central to its growth narrative, while industry coverage provides additional context on the scale of the transformation, the distributed multi-system landscape Pandora is consolidating, and the role of partners in accelerating adoption. (news.sap.com, sap.com, techtarget.com, events.sap.com)
Source: Noah Wire Services
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