MDM for product information

Challenge

Operational efficiency and faster time-to-market are of great importance to businesses of any size. Creating new products and updating product information in different systems often require multiple manual phases, thereby being laborious and vulnerable to errors. Suppliers often offer information on their products in different formats, making it arduous to harmonize it and transfer it to the company's own systems.

The client uses several information systems for product information processing. The ERP system, web store and point-of-sales systems all need the basic product information. This information must be consistent and simultaneously available in all the mentioned systems. Previously, product information was created manually in each separate system. Funster and Lamina Import represent a great number of brands, such as some of the best-known snowboarding brands. All goods suppliers deliver the information on the season's product selection electronically - typically in an Excel sheet. The number of season-specific items may reach up to 100,000 different products. The existing systems process products in a number of different ways. For example, the management of size selections varies per system.

Solution

We implemented a Master Data solution for the client's product information, using Talend's open source code MDM and data integration tools. The product information management process went through a complete overhaul. Products are now set up in a standardized manner in the product master to be further distributed to systems that need the data. Our work on the solution design comprised the following areas:

Strategy: Evaluation of the business case, preparation of a project plan, and top-level architecture design.

Specification and solution concept: Requirements specification, concept development, specification of the data model and standard, and the configuration of Talend MDM and DI tools.

Roll-out: Training and deployment support.

Results

Thanks to the solution, the amount of manual labor has been significantly reduced. Product information is standardized and of higher quality. Reporting allows the combination of data from different systems and sales channels. And most importantly, the time-to-market of products is shorter.