MDM PIM: Product Information Management: E-commerce Strategies

Master Data Management in Food Services Industry

Multi-billion dollar food service distributors in the US have a similar pain. Many have grown throught acquistion and now fought to tame an ocean of legacy sytems and data. Hundreds of thousands of SKUs are tracked in disparate databases. Over 800 new products introduced in to the mix each week. Inaccuracies always surface in managing this number of items while servicing a customer set measured in the low hundred thousands. Control of product and customer data, the core competency of a food service distributor needed to be increased.

Approaches considered may be internal development or selecting a MDM for operations software solution. Several reasons point to a MDM software partner:

• An MDM for product information management solution, or PIM, wound minimize disruption. Internal IT staff already overworked, had no bandwidth for intense development.
• MDM for PIM would leverage, not replace legacy back end systems.
• MDM for PIM tracks items for introduction to retirement. and provides metrics for all inter-departmental processess.
• MDM will integrate product information, vendor and customer information, optimizing the offer process to product data publishing to multi mode sales channels and customers.