Global exclusive goods manufacturer drives higher efficiency by reinventing its product data model

The need for transversal transparency of product data across the business

Our client, a global exclusive goods manufacturer, embarked on a broad digital transformation journey to meet its customers’ demands better. A key requirement of this transformation was managing all product data in one place and making it easily accessible to all their production sites, divisions and stores.

The client wanted to enable transversal data exchange across both the upstream business, covering all manufacturing plants and activity, and the downstream business, involving the product distribution network. To achieve this, they had to update and harmonize all of their IT systems, as well as improve data quality by removing duplicated entries and reduce the related manual administration work.

Modeling product data to reflect luxury goods specificities

BearingPoint worked with the client to design a flexible business data model that allowed for the integration of all business specificities while keeping a single-core model. The approach involved creating three different layers of a data model. The first layer gathered the common attributes of all product trades, such as color and size, available to all divisions and functions. The next layer collected more specific product features, such as the way a product can be used. Finally, the third layer gathered selected data available to certain divisions and functions only.

Data cleansing was then performed and inserted into the client’s product master data management tool. Based on the designed data model, the solution was deployed using a wave-by-wave approach. Together with the latest wave, the solution was implemented in most of the company’s business areas, which represent more than 90% of the company’s turnover. One more wave planned for the next period will prepare the client to roll out the solution to the retail area.

Smart data model to support smart business goals

The luxury goods manufacturer now has a single point of truth for its product information, easily accesible to all its divisions and channels, globally. The new solution enables cross-country and cross-division sharing of information, improves data quality, and enhances consistency. It also helps to mitigate any risks associated with cross-border product transactions, by making critical shipping information transparent, such as local regulations updates or mandatory documentation translation.

The automized data processing minimizes any risk of human error and reduces the time-to-perform data entry substantially, leading to higher productivity. Over 20 dedicated data managers have been recruited and appointed to ensure product data is well managed and to coach all involved functions to properly use the new solution.

Additionally, the flexible and scalable data model allows for quickly adapting to market demands, to simplify product navigation on the website, and to integrate other forthcoming digital features that can further improve customer journeys.