Using MDM solution to manage product data

across systems

Case: Funster Company Oy

Agenda

• Starting point – Why project was initiated?

• Possible solutions – Why MDM approach was selected?

• Project outcome – What was the value gained?

• Next steps – How to gain more value from MDM solution in future?

WHY PROJECT WAS INITIATED?

Starting point

Existing ecosystem

• Three companies with wholesale, eCommerce and retail

operations in sports industry

• Wholesale provides products for over 100 retailers

• Own eCommerce via two online stores

• Own retail via two physical stores, amount growing

Existing ecosystem

• Several product suppliers

• Almost two hundred brands

• Over 50000 product variants annually

• Considerable amount of same products needed in business

operations of all these three companies

Existing ecosystem

• All companies have existing IT-infra

• ERP

• Ecommerce

• POS

• Multivendor environment

• Grape Consulting

• Talent Base

• Talend

• Solteq

What were the challenges?

• Lot of manipulation work required to transform various

supplier product lists to uniform format that could be loaded

to ERP

• Amount of time and manual work needed to enable product

data usage across business areas – All systems have their

own product data models

• Products created inconsistently to different systems – Single

view on product missing

• Need to integrate ERP with eCommerce

Original product data flow

2. ERP 1. SUPPLIER PRODUCT LISTS 2. POS

MANUAL WORK

NEEDED

MANUAL WORK

NEEDED

WHY MDM APPROACH WAS SELECTED?

Possible solutions

Possible Solutions 1/2 – System to system integration

• Typical DI Project: Utilize current processes and integrate ERP

to eCommerce

ERP Data Integration Web Shop

POS

Possible Solutions 2/2 – MDM approach

ERP

MDM

Solution POS

Web Shop

Data

Integration

• MDM Project: Streamline processes and distribute product

data to all applications via centralized MDM solution

Why MDM approach was selected

• Many of data related processes were manual and hence it was

more effective to built MDM solution instead of various system

to system integrations

• It was seen as an opportunity to streamline processes and

define shared product data standard

• Company is expanding and it can bring more product data

consuming systems to landscape

Why Talend was selected as MDM tool

• Easy to use

• Beat big vendor in POC

• Easily accessible

• Versatile

• Data Integration, MDM and Data Quality tool in ”same package”

• Flexible and cost effective

• Different versions (and pricing) available according to complexity of

planned solution

• Free community version has a versatile component library

WHAT WAS THE VALUE GAINED?

Project outcome

What has been done?

• Requirements gathering and MDM Solution concept

• Data standard and reference data model: Product, brand, product groups,

size groups

• MDM solution

• Legacy data profiling, standardization and migration from ERP to MDM

• Unified template that can be used for all supplier product data imports

• Web user interface to manage product master data and simple interface

for product imports

• Integrations from MDM to ERP and POS which can handle the different

product data models in the receiving systems

Product data flow after MDM solution

1. SUPPLIER PRODUCT LISTS 2. MDM SOLUTION 3.ERP, POS & ECOMMERCE

STANDARDIZED

DATA IMPORT DATA DELIVERY

CAPABILITIES

WEB UI TO MANAGE

MASTER DATA

Realized benefits

• Operational efficiency: Reducing unnecessary work as product information

can be now created once and used many times (ERP, eCommerce and POS)

• Improved time to market: Products are more quickly available for sale

• Consistent product information: Single view on product improves reporting

capabilities across companies and their sites

• Enhancement to existing processes: Store and logistics operations benefit

from EAN code information as it is now added in product master data

• Investment on future: MDM solution can easily be scaled up to cover all

future master data needs and its value only rises with wider set of data

consuming systems

HOW TO GAIN MORE VALUE FROM MDM

SOLUTION IN FUTURE?

Next steps

What can be done to benefit more out of MDM

solution?

• Technical improvements

• Real-time integration between MDM and eCommerce

• Improved data quality functionalities: Duplicate matching for new

products

• More sophisticated interface to manage data imports

• Wider utilization of Funster’s product master data

• Open interface for external parties, like retail customers, to subscribe

and utilize product data in their operations

• Implement BI to support business decision making

• Expand MDM Solution to cover other domains like customer master data

Possible product data flow in future

1. SUPPLIER PRODUCT LISTS 3.ERP, POS, ECOMMERCE,

DATA DELIVERY

CAPABILITIES

STANDARDIZED

DATA IMPORT

DUPLICATE CHECK

FOR NEW DATA

2. MDM SOLUTION

WEB UI TO MANAGE

MASTER DATA

INTERFACE FOR

EXTERNAL PARTIES TO

UTILIZE MASTER DATA

& EXTERNAL SUBSCRIBERS

WEB UI FOR

MANAGEMENT

REPORTING

MANAGEMENT REPORTING

Lessons learnt

• It is not easy to convince management – Prepare a strong

business case

• Start small, scale up

• Standardize information elements to guarantee usability across

systems

• MDM usually requires process changes in organization and

process changes requires change management and

commitment

ADDIOTIONAL SLIDES

Excel import template

• Product excel format differs between suppliers -> need for

standard import template

• Reference data as dropdowns -> better quality input

• Product data is enriched in the import

Talend MDM

• Eclipse based development environment and Jboss server

• ETL/Integration, Data Quality and MDM

• Web interface to create and maintain master data

• XML Data model and validation, multidomain

• XML repository for master data (eXist)

• Community and enterprise versions

ERP – Visma Nova

• Norwegian company, quite popular in nordic countries

• About 8000 customers in Finland

• Wholesale, accounting and industry

• 60 modules

Webshop – Smilehouse workspace

• Ecommerce platform

• Can be used as hosted service or own install

• Wosbee – free version

POS – Solteq Tekso

• Point of Sale system with integrated payment handling

• Kesko and Top-sport are other big Finnish clients

Architecture overview

Talend

MDM

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Excel import template for

product data

POS

(Tekso)

Webshop

(Workspace)

ERP

(Nova)

CSV dailyCSV daily

CSV,

manual

• Wholesale business

• Funster and Lamina

Import

• B2C

•Two webshops: Lamina and

Backhill

• Retail stores

•Two locations: Lamina Kamppi

and Backhill Ruka

• Product and Reference data