Oracle’s Cloud-based Product Data Hub empowers product and supply chain management to drive efficient omni-channel ecommerce objectives
A world-leading plumbing and kitchen products manufacturing company based in the US, employing over 6000 people across 22 countries. Before our intervention, the client faced a significant challenge in implementing a strategic Master Data Management process. The client entailed greater visibility and governance by integrating product data across the enterprise to manage product organizations and reduce syndication time for e-commerce partners. The roadblock to this change was a legacy Oracle EBS deployment that required manual operations to drive the processes. The application had a redundant architecture and the client highly customized it to accommodate agility for product operations. This resulted in differential product management that required significant person-hours, time, and resources. Furthermore, the client faced consequential defiances with managing product life cycles with e-commerce partners such as Amazon and Wayfair.
The organization approached Birlasoft to initiate a digital transformation drive to facilitate agility and operational resilience through adroit and sturdy IT solutions. As a part of the initiative, Birlasoft assisted the client in achieving a robust master data management architecture by helping them implement Oracle’s cloud-based Product Data Hub solution. Oracle’s product data hub brings significant agility in product data management to empower product operations across various platforms. The cloud-based application is powered by a cutting-edge technology stack that requires minimal configuration and low adaption time. Additionally, to address the syndication challenge for the e-commerce partners, Birlasoft introduced Birlasoft’s proprietary PIXL solution that enables manufacturers to publish product information across various e-commerce platforms simultaneously.
The Challenge
1. Poor data quality dimensions and data governance
Due to separate data management practices, the client lacked a single source of standardized information across the enterprise. Oracle's EBS scattered data across multiple platforms that required manual intervention, resulting in inaccuracy and consistency in data quality. The existing data necessitated a massive overhaul due to a lack of data governance, which further stalled the onboarding of new data into the systems. The client faced a significant challenge in handling critical data elements and value, which caused an inability to track product quality and consistency across the business operations. The key challenge was creating a robust data governance foundation with data quality tools to enable the enterprise's trustworthy, secure, and reliable data standards.
2. Inefficient product content syndication
One of the continuing challenges faced by the client was multiple teams maintaining product data in silos. Due to a vast product inventory and new products in the pipeline, it was difficult to manage essential data points around the product information. The rising challenge was to manage the product content syndication for the EBS, website, and the e-commerce customers simultaneously, while maintaining parameters for each platform with consistent, clear, and accurate product information. Traditionally, the client assigned multiple teams to manage syndication across various channels. However, the changing requirements through multiple domains created potential challenges for scalability.
The Solution
1. Modernizing Master Data Management for centralized product information with well-defined taxonomy
We aligned all product classifications with a centralized taxonomy to enhance the client’s business process efficiency. The information was then relayed into Oracle’s Product Data Hub, ensuring that the product data hub remained the single source of product information across the enterprise. We modified the operational attributes using item templates and status as critical drivers for product information infused in the PDH. We also created a three-plus level centralized taxonomy for all the products with 500+ attributes, lookups, and rules-compliant product information.
Finally, we migrated an inventory of more than 4,50,000 master items from EBS to the new Oracle’s product data hub with 30+ business rules set to boost product data governance.
2. Building customized OIC integrations for PDH and seamless integration of PLM and ERP solutions.
To ensure streamlined data updates and transfer, we seamlessly integrated the client's PLM and BPM with ERP solutions. This integration helped the client to gain higher visibility over the business operations and enable efficient process management to reduce costs by minimizing manual interventions. In addition, we developed customized OIC integrations for PDH to augment the swift transfer of product information from various third-party applications. To ease the item creation and maintenance process for listings, we leveraged Smartsheets (import maps) and assigned publishing capabilities to launch/update new products on their websites in the US and Canada.
3. Leveraging PIXL for E-commerce Syndication
To solve the e-commerce syndication challenge, we configured and integrated Birlasoft’s proprietary PIXL solution. This solution was aimed at creating a common platform for the client to publish and update product information across various e-commerce platforms. We leveraged PIXL capabilities to assist the client manage product syndication to its online sales partners such as Amazon, Wayfair, and Home Depot. This solution also reduced the significant effort that the client utilized to consolidate product data into data pools for the sales channels. The data could now be synced effortlessly according to the rich data product models and fit into different input formats with each e-commerce platform.
The Impact
We empowered our client to create a well-defined and standardized product management process by implementing Oracle's cloud-based Product Data hub. This transformation introduced an effortless item introduction and maintenance that resulted in seamless syndication with internal applications and external e-commerce platforms.
Additionally, the client derived the following vital benefits through modernized master data management:
- PDH enhances interoperability through a single standalone Master Data Management architecture.
- It features a rich and simplistic UI that enables flexibility in cloud operations.
- PDH enables Effortless and reliable product data sharing across multiple channels and platforms.
- Seamless integration has significantly improved product data tracking to enhance the quality and consistency of the available data.
- PDH has created a solid data governance framework through role-based security access controls.
- Modernized MDM ensures the availability of enriched product information for e-commerce syndication and transactional processes.
- Reduce costs and resources by minimizing manual efforts to maintain sales channel data through PIXL integration.
- 95% improvement in Product launches timeline for Ecommerce
Following our engagement, the client successfully migrated from the legacy Oracle EBS towards a robust and customizable Oracle Product Data Hub solution. Through its introduction, the client efficiently drove multi-channel e-commerce objectives and ensured standard data compliance across the organization. Furthermore, the client has improved product data quality standards and developed a robust data governance framework to ensure data security, reliability, and accuracy.
