Business Challenges

Main Pain Points In The Current Context

Companies are focusing more and more on customer data in order to analyze their behavior. Moreover, consumer behavior is not the only reason to think of, in a data management strategy.

Companies are facing a new challenge. Important data concerning clients, products, suppliers and locations is spread in disparate systems, databases, across all distribution channels and business units. Master Data Management is a holistic approach to identify key data at the company level and to maintain them in a centralized manner.

The Master Data Management Solution has as main purpose to assure an accurate data interchange between databases and communication channels by automation and standardization of the data transfer. Thereby, business processes are improved, with the following impact: increased profitability, efficient inventory management and increased sales performance.

Description

Description of Master Data Management
The involved entities, which are getting benefits from this solution, are:

1. Products – The products generate the biggest challenges regarding data maintenance, due to the variety of channels and to the relation with the suppliers. The same product can be found under different names depending on the warehouse or on the supplier which delivers it. This data is necessary both for internal departments (financial, acquisitions) as well as for stores and warehouses.

2. Clients – Companies often have huge information related to consumers that is used in order to better understand consumer’s behavior. Data comes from stores databases and from the financial departments.

3. Suppliers – Big retailers have on average 40.000 active suppliers. The suppliers database is continuously changing according to products characteristics (ex: price, popularity) offered by the suppliers. An efficient management of this database is necessary for the payment system, the acquisition system and for stores management.

An efficient data transfer is realized through the automation of data validation and of the communication between all the actors involved in the system, and also by assuring information traceability using process management.
The automation of the data transfer is implemented as follows:

• Automation of data introduction in the system;
• Error identification and elimination in real time, before integration is made in the main data base;
• Replacement of Item’s and Supplier’s Files with dynamic web interfaces with greater functionality;
• Construction of a platform that allows an efficient management of commercial actions and the related items, to be used by the Purchase Department;
• Efficient communication between all the involved departments (Acquisitions, Logistics) due to an automated notifications system, a unique web working platform and validations made according to specific roles in each department.

The Master Data Management Solution administrates the data validation and the method in which data is processed (creation, editing and cancellation phase). The MDM principles are:

• Unique data entry (using restrictive and standardized web interfaces);
• Validation and Control Management – efficient administration of the validation parameters and flexibility at the decision level;
• Automatic Comparisons and Validations – directly in the web interface and within the process;
• Automatic Communication – notifications at the department level and alerts according to business scenarios;
• Task Management – how participants interact with the system;
• Modifications Management – the track to be followed by modifications at the web portal field level and within the process;
• Reporting system – activity reports by entity, by activity, by user and by supplier’s portfolio items.

Benefits

Benefits of Master Data Management Solution

• Error identification and elimination in real time, before being recorded in the company’s database, together with an identification of the error’s source.
• Creation of an optimal system that avoids redundancy of data in the company’s database – for example, there will be no necessity of introducing many times the same information (EAN code, article code, etc.)
• Efficient communication with information that are currently on external support and that will be integrated in the database – automatic generation of PLU codes, automatic fill-in of bank’s branch code.
• Acceleration of data processing speed – item recording/editing, supplier recording/editing – using an efficient interfaces platform, eliminating the redundancy of information and integrating all the external necessary information in the database.
• Optimization and automation of communication methods – automatic e-mails between departments, task management, automatic notifications.
• Error correction through automatic processes and through operations of accountability, validation and decision management;
• Minimization of manual activity and integration in an efficient process, based on validations at user level.

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