The Item Master Management Challenge

Accurate, comprehensive item master data is the critical foundation for many essential business processes. However, creating and maintaining a high-quality, single source of truth for item master data has traditionally been considered nearly unachievable.

In most companies, item master data is entered and maintained in one or more ERP, procurement, maintenance, PLM, inventory and other legacy systems. Consistency and synchronization between the various instances of the data are typically nonexistent as each system, location and user group uses different data standards, naming conventions, and classification taxonomies.

The problem grows exponentially over time as underlying systems and users change and evolve. Duplicate entries, incomplete records and out of date information become too commonplace. As a result, it is difficult or impossible to manage inventory effectively, compare alternate sources of supply, analyze spend, ensure Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, integrate new company acquisitions and implement or upgrade ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle. Day-to-day operations can be impacted and business improvement is impeded.

SAQQARA CDM for Item Master Management

The SAQQARA Item Master Management (IMM) Solution is a comprehensive solution — technology, process, and people — designed specifically to help companies improve the quality and usability of their item master data.

Technology. SAQQARA's Commerce Data Management (CDM) platform provides our customers with the latest product data quality technologies. Offered as a web-based, managed service, it does not require a large, up-front capital expense and there is no software to buy or to install. CDM is cost effective and simple to deploy. CDM's capabilities include:

• Easy-to-use management and visibility tools that ensure content management teams work efficiently and effectively
• Workflows that rigorously enforce our proven processes
• Reference databases of product classifications and taxonomies, rationalized vendor manufacturer names, and product and attribute information
• Normalization and cleansing tools
• A Taxonomy Manager that provides a controlled environment to maintain and manage your taxonomy, including impact analysis of considered changes
• Tools and processes for the ongoing maintenance and improvement of item master data, as parts are changed and new items are added to the database

Process. A step in all successful projects is having a proven project plan and methodology. SAQQARA's 7-Step Process model, outlined below, is easily adapted to varying customer-specific requirements.

(1) Organize - establish data organization standards (i.e., the taxonomy)
(2) Validate - assess data quality relative to taxonomy and data quality standards
(3) Normalize - ensure common attribute values are used when appropriate (e.g., manufacturer names)
(4) Classify - assign parts to their appropriate categories
(5) Cleanse - create consistent formats, correct misspellings, enforce common abbreviations and acronym usage
(6) Enrich - extract and add attribute data to parts
(7) Publish - syndicate data in proper formats to all consuming systems (e.g., ERP)

People. SAQQARA realizes that no one knows your company's business better than you do. Your business and domain expertise is essential. To make best use of your people's valuable time, they will be complemented by our process management consultants and linguistics experts. Together, we will help ensure that your project is grounded in a sound plan, uses a proven methodology and takes advantage of the latest advances in taxonomy theory and industry best practices. The result is effective and efficient use of your time and resources leading to a successful project.

It is SAQQARA's goal to provide companies with accurate and up-to-date item master data and a sustainable maintenance process. With well organized, cleansed, and maintained item master data, companies can:

• Trust their business intelligence reports and analyses and make enterprise-wide, strategic decisions with confidence
• Find new ways to improve inventory management
• Lower costs in the sourcing and procurement processes

To help our customers get started, SAQQARA offers a Taxonomy Workshop to help you fully understand the challenges and potential pitfalls of item master data projects, giving you the knowledge needed to plan and implement a successful project.

This two-day, data quality and taxonomy workshop is for companies that either have embarked on a product data project or will start one in the next twelve months. The workshop details the issues around data quality and related best practices. It also covers the history and science behind taxonomy design and taxonomy development, usage, and maintenance. Deliverables from the workshop include a written evaluation and recommendations report on your existing classification/taxonomy and data quality.