[lucb1e]

Human translation (I should practice my German anyway):

Because introducing a new data system didn't work out, the Deutsche Post (German Mail) has already booked higher losses a few years ago. The same now happened to Lidl. The planned system still doesn't work smoothly after seven years and more than half a billion euros in costs. Now, the discount store pulled the kill chord.

For years, Lidl is expanding operations. The discount store from Neckarsulm has stores in almost all European countries and is now also expanding in the USA. A new inventory management system should support purchases and logistics to keep track of ever more complex business. That was the decision in 2011.

System is not suitable for high-turnover countries

The software of the development concern SAP from Walldorf should be adapted to the needs of Lidl. Until now, the system is only being used in small places in Austria, Northern Ireland and the USA. It was clearly shown that the by over a hundred IT specialists developed SAP version is not suitable for high-turnover countries. Now, Lidl has stopped the project. In a paper called "Heilbronner Stimme", an article writes to the employees that the goal is not achievable "with reasonable effort". Until now, the project cost over half a billion euros according to expert opinions -- for example for costly IT consultants and SAP licenses. Now, Lidl says they want to further develop their old inventory management system.

---

Edit: I've never had much to do with SAP, but just today I've been applying for jobs in Germany and two of the places (out of five or so) use some SAP system for their online applications. The former threw a HTTP 400 and later HTTP 500 errors so I couldn't complete the application. The latter is currently stuck on registering: I've been waiting for the page to load for 4 minutes now. Pretty sure that one is broken, too.

[blattimwind]

> pulled the kill chord.

pulled the plug

> For years, Lidl is expanding operations.

For years, Lidl has expanded operations.

> high-turnover countries

high-volume or high-revenue

[pmyteh]

> > pulled the kill chord.

> pulled the plug

Kill cords are a thing (on powerboats, particularly) and the original metaphor is fine.

> > For years, Lidl is expanding operations.

> For years, Lidl has expanded operations.

'For years, Lidl has been expanding operations'. Past continuous tense is better if the expansion's still going on.

> > high-turnover countries

> high-volume or high-revenue

High-turnover is completely correct, at least in British English.

[394549]

> Kill cords are a thing (on powerboats, particularly) and the original metaphor is fine.

The expression "pulling the plug" is idiomatic English (at least in the North American variety). "Pulled the kill chord" may be an accurate metaphor, but the audience is far less likely to be familiar with the reference.

[762236]

It's not about being correct. It has to sound good to the audience too, which guides you to choose one of multiple correct ways to phrase something.

[sjwright]

Which is good advice if the audience is exclusively American and fears difference, diversity or the unexpected. Other than cord/chord (which my brain quickly dismissed as a typo) the original post sounds completely fine to me.

[blattimwind]

FYI, especially those who took this the wrong way: GP said he's practising German, so I simply offered how I (native German) would've translated it a bit differently. I never said and certainly did not mean to imply that "mine is right" and "his is wrong".

[xxpor]

high-turnover is a commonwealthism, not necessarily a bad translation.

[sp332]

What is a high-turnover country?

[Notre1]

I'm betting it's inventory turnover (e.g. busier stores). It sounds like they were have problems with the inventory management component of SAP keeping up with the rate and volume of transaction that they were putting through it.

[rbanffy]

Probably too many low-ticket operations to move stock, which is critical for keeping your margins low in grocery stores.

[why-el]

Just a bad translation. umsatzstarke means lucrative, so "lucrative, or high-profit" countries.

[bigpicture]

In the context of a retailer, "high turnover" means that individual products spend very little time on the shelf before being sold, and they are replaced with new products very quickly. For LIDL that means places where they have very busy stores. These places are "lucrative" because they are busy, but are not at all "high profit" - they sell products with extremely small profit margins.

[ju-st]

Umsatz means revenue not profit

[21stio]

High revenue country

[ahartmetz]

Germany, probably UK, France?... Any largish country with a high Lidl (sic) marketshare.