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 several 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 strategically expand their footprint in the Southeast region of the United States. In order to beat their competitors to new markets, executive management has devised plans to open 12 new BlueBox Retailer locations in suburban neighborhoods of multiple major metropolitan areas in the Southeast.
The impact of new store locations is that all product line purchase orders must be amended or supplemented to meet the demand of an entirely new geographical region. To meet this demand, Philip has reached out to CleanGoods Manufacturing.
Philip works with Lance, a Sales Support Specialist, to provide the necessary information. Since BlueBox Retailer is a realized customer, Lance does not need to initiate an onboarding process, but rather update the existing customer. To do so Lance must:
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Obtain the physical address of all 12 locations to create the relevant Ship-To addresses and Sell-To addresses.
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Obtain information on what specific product lines the new stores will carry
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Obtain any additional information specific to these new locations (Geographical, new product line availability, order frequency, etc.)
Kathy from Finance will work with Lance reviewing sales terms for the new locations. While new locations may have little to no impact to terms of sale, it is Kathy’s responsibility to ensure both parties agree of the negotiated terms. It is up to CleanGoods’ discretion whether they would provide special allowances to assist in promoting the BlueBox new store location.
George from Logistics must determine how to fulfill the order. This involves evaluating several factors such as projected order frequency, product assortment, volume, stock, package type, geography, etc. Since BlueBox Retailer requires that all products be shipped directly to their stores, George will leverage the new Ship-To addresses to plan out routes and scheduling.
The challenges faced by CleanGoods are:
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Lack of standardized collaboration mechanism between roles / departments; everything is transacted over email and/or in person notifications
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Lack of traceability of changes to data over time which leads to challenges during investigation and accountability
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Challenges to data governance leads to poor regulatory adherence and decrease in brand reputation
Current State
The current data flow of adding new stores and corresponding Bill-to and Ship-to locations does not provide a dynamic 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 necessary location information as well as relevant sales attribution. Lance may then assign a task to Kathy within the application.
Kathy will review and reference the updated information to enable them to finalize any 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 them to quickly turn around and establish a plan to meet the new order requirements.
The future state data flow is illustrated below:
