November 8: Chinese retailing giant Suning Group has signed a partnership deal with the German multinational software corporation, Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (SAP), which includes a partnership with Suning’s sports business. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Suning Sports, the sports offshoot of Suning Group, and SAP will jointly work on Suning football clubs' data ‍‍management consisting of Jiangsu Suning FC, Jiangsu Suning Ladies FC and FC Inter Milan based on the sports-specific cloud solution, SAP Sports One. As a SaaS cloud computing model developed by SAP, SAP Sports One can be used to record and analyze the data of players’ condition and skills, which will help in optimizing their performance on the pitch. 

Additionally, Suning will integrate the data analysis system offered by SAP into their other sports business sectors, including sports media, sports e-commerce and their sports-relayed real estate business.

In fact, Suning took their first step into cloud services in August with Suning opening their "self-service" smart sporting goods retail shop ‘Suning Sports Biu’ in Nanjing, where customers can pay their bills by simply passing through the checkout aisle and their bills will be automatically sent to their cellphones and payment is automatically completed.

Source: ifeng 

Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick