Who is Impacted?
Philip, a Category Manager at BlueBox Retailer, serves as the primary contact for the company’s manufacturers and suppliers with a focus on the household cleaning supplies product line.
Lance, a Sales Representative for CleanGoods, has the responsibility of validating the legitimacy of BlueBox Retailer as a prospective customer that CleanGoods Manufacturer wishes to do business with. This may involve validating against third-party syndicated data analytic companies (i.e., Nielsen TDLinx or IRI) which provide insight on the prospect’s business operations, retail sales data, corporate structures, and information on individual retail locations.
Kathy, a Controller from the Finance team, runs validations of the prospective customer including a credit check, which may also contain usage of third-party data providers (i.e., Dun & Bradstreet). Such validations enable CleanGoods Manufacturer in identifying any type of fraudulent activity.
George, a Logistics Specialist, is responsible for determining how to fulfill the order. This involves evaluating a number of factors such as projected order frequency, product assortment, volume, stock, package type, geography, etc. to determine how the customer is to receive the products.
Jennifer, an MDM Specialist, serves as the primary owner of the MDM system and approves all changes submitted by the various departments during the onboarding process.
What is the Business Problem?
BlueBox Retailer is seeking to expand their in-store selection of household, consumer-grade charcoal to take advantage of the upcoming BBQ season. To do so, BlueBox has initiated sales negotiations with CleanGoods’ charcoal line of business under the sub-brand, CleanCoal. Although BlueBox is an existing customer, onboarding a new line of business requires a similar governing process as onboarding a new customer.
Alexander works with Lance to initiate sales negotiations for CleanCoal's line of business. Since there is no need to validate BlueBox as a legitimate business entity, Lance must determine and update the following information:
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Trade Channel - How products reach the end-consumer (i.e., In-store retail, e-commerce, mail order, warehouse stores, etc.)?
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Product Lines - What types of products will BlueBox Retailer be purchasing?
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Location Setup - Determine whether existing Ship-To and Sell-To locations are sufficient or if new locations are required to be set up for the new product line.
As part of the process, Kathy from the Finance department must ensure finance-related enrichment activities takes place. This may include working with Lance during sales negotiations to provide pricing and trade promotion of products sold to BlueBox that is specific to the CleanCoal line of business. Pricing usually originates and is maintained within an ERP system.
Once the customer sales & financial enrichment process is complete, George from the Logistics department must determine if the customer requires:
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Ship to Store
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Ship to Customer Distribution Center
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Direct pick-up at the manufacturer
Considerations must be given to storage requirements as well as any regulatory requirements or hazardous material protocols for transporting and storing charcoal.
Current State
The current data flow of adding a new line (or lines) of business, relevant sales terms, and corresponding Bill-to and Ship-to locations does not provide a way for the various teams to easily collaborate. Currently Lance must email Jennifer (MDM Specialist) to notify of upcoming changes to an existing customer, BlueBox.
Jennifer must then update the customer record in ERP and notify Kathy to evaluate the financial impacts. Should Kathy have any questions for Lance regarding the request, Kathy must contact them separately.
Lastly, George must also be notified so they may consider the logistical impact of multiple new Ship-to locations.
Without a centralized ownership of the maintenance process and governance in place to ensure validations and regulatory requirements are adhered to, CleanGoods often finds that their data is prone to error, duplicated, and leads to unreliable business analytics, regulatory fines, and damage to brand reputation.
The current data flow is illustrated below:
Future State
With an MDM system in place, the various departmental responsibilities of updating an existing customer record is now within a centrally governed and collaborative solution.
Lance will now be able to edit the existing BlueBox customer record by adding the new line of business as well as relevant sales attributes; they may then assign a task to Kathy within the application.
Kathy will review and reference the updated information to enable them to finalize any additions or changes necessary to sales terms and related pricing.
Once the task is assigned to Logistics, George is now able to access the updated Ship-To locations which allows George to quickly turn around and establish a plan to meet the new order requirements.
The future state data flow is illustrated below:
