Accelerator for Retail Key Concepts

Data Management Accelerator for Retail is a solution that manages product data across your company. But who creates, enriches, and classifies this product data? Even if the answer varies for each organization, the following standard actors are typically involved in Master Data Management:

	User	Role
	Retailer	Buys products from suppliers and sells them to customers.
	Supplier / Vendor	Sells products to retailers.
	Data Provider	Produces product data as a service.
	Customer	Buys products from the retailer.

The retail's actors are discussed below.

Retailer's Actors

From the retailer's perspective, the following tables show the users and roles involved in the Accelerator for Retail solution:

User	Also Known As	Role
Buyer		Negotiates and buys products from the supplier.
Quality Assurance Expert	QA Specialist	Ensures the quality of the data.
Marketing Specialist	Copywriter	Writes copy and manages the product's marketing data.
Image Specialist	Digital Asset Manager	Maintains the images and assets of the product.
Warehouse Specialist	Logistics Manager	Manages warehouse-specific product data.
Enrichment Specialist		In smaller organizations, the Enrichment Specialist can cumulate the work of the Marketing Specialist, the Image Specialist, the Warehouse Specialist.
Data Steward		Performs data governance tasks in the PIM UI to manage category-specific attributes, LOVs, primary product hierarchy, and classifications.
Translator		Translates product content to the required language, either directly in PIM UI or via an external translation service.
Translation Reviewer		Reviews product content translations completed by the translator.

Technically, MDM also involves machine-to-machine (M2M), where exchange and automation happen between the systems. This means the external systems must also be considered as actors.

	System	Role
	ERP	Optionally sends data to STEP, including a unique SKU ID, and a value used to classify the product automatically (the 'ERP line' attribute).
	STEP	Master Data Management
	E-Commerce Platform	Receives the MDM product data to be used on E-commerce channels.
	PDX	Product data exchange is a simple, fast, cost-effective way for manufacturers and brands to share and update product data with retailers, data pools, and content service providers. The suppliers and manufacturers use PDX to publish their products to Accelerator for Retail.