GLOBAL DISTRIBUTOR

ByteManagers' Content Services Help a Global Distributor Consolidate Product Information, Control Purchasing, and Enhance Marketing and Sales of Products

Customer Profile: Global Distributor with 450 locations, serving over 100,000 customers; Focus on electrical materials, safety and other MRO (Maintenance Repair and Operations) products in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

The Goal: Drive increased sales through e-commerce and print catalogs; establish a complete end-to-end information lifecycle for all product information, through purchasing, marketing, and sales divisions.

Project Objective: Create a central product information database with enriched, attributed content across all product categories; deploy this database asset across enterprise software systems to drive sales and efficiencies

The Business Challenge

Increasing sales through better and more powerful e-commerce: As part of a major online web initiative to drive increased sales and better enable international distribution channels, the client needed to analyze and enrich their product information. The client maintained over 2 million items of product information in multiple legacy databases. These items needed to be cleansed, normalized and enriched for inclusion in a centralized Product Information Management (PIM) database and for online distribution.

Improving sales efficiencies and reducing inventory costs: The client needed to reduce sales inefficiencies that were inflating inventory costs and more effectively market products via web. Inadequate product descriptions often left sales people unable to locate the correct item within existing databases, often driving the decision to simply add another item to an increasingly inaccurate set of databases. Specific goals included the establishment of a complete end-to-end information lifecycle for all product information, through purchasing, marketing, and sales divisions.

To drive these objectives to completion, the client decided to implement I-Accel by Full Tilt Systems as their PIM database, and also implemented an international web storefront. Most PIM databases require a very specific data structure, and the client felt that they could not allocate the right mix of internal resources to:

Analyze and understand the technical nature of their product data needs
Design and execute the processes required to collaborate with key suppliers to collect considerable volumes of MRO product data.
Effectively structure and build large volumes of product information in a bound timeframe

The Solution

To meet its objectives, the client sought a partner that had deep experience in MRO item level data services, experience across a wide range of Content Management platforms, a specific competence with FullTilt Systems PIM solution, and an ability to work directly with key indirect material suppliers. ByteManagers, Inc. met these qualifications and delivered the following requested services.

Product Categorization Services
ByteManagers categorized the client's product information into FullTilt Systems' templates, which governed the product-specific attributes that would later be extracted for that item.
Content Sourcing Services
In order to effectively cleanse and enhance existing product information, ByteManagers sourced product information directly from over 1200 of the client's vendors. This information included, but was not limited to:
- Electronic files, print catalogs, and technical datasheets containing rich product information.
- Product images to be distributed in a print or on-line environment.
- Information regarding country of origin to assist client with government sales and international regulations.
Content Normalization/Standardization Services
ByteManagers processed all product information so that it complied with FullTilt Systems and MRO4ALL requirements.
Content Cleansing and Enhancement Services
ByteManagers enhanced over 700,000 items of client data by implementation of the following steps.
- ByteManagers, working together with the client, created and implemented a "content standard" to guide content development initiatives between the two firms.
- FullTilt Systems' product templates were used as a base, to which the following additions and modifications were made:
  - Additional attributes were added to further enhance the ability to make a buying decision.
- Units of measure (feet, pounds, inches, etc.) were standardized.
- Obtain and link digital assets at the item level.
Spend Categorization Services
ByteManagers categorized over 700,000 items of the client's product information to the UNSPSC, a major commercial taxonomy. This categorization is an integral part of helping the client assess its spend management practices. In addition, ByteManagers categorized all items to all previous versions of the UNSPSC taxonomy, so that the client could distribute those items to clients with older versions of the code.

Summary

Execution of this project achieved the following objectives:

An increase in products sold on the web were immediately realized
Overall process efficiencies were generated by the creation of a centralized product information database that synchronized sales, marketing and procurement
The purchasing process was centralized, allowing control of maverick spending
Processes to govern the introduction of new products into the product information architecture were implemented

ByteManagers Background

Headquartered in Chicago, IL, ByteManagers is one of the largest established providers of content integration, definition, collection, build and enhancement, and normalization services. Our customers include Fortune 500 companies within MRO, CPG, Electronics, Industrial, Electrical, Chemical, and Plumbing products as well as software providers who offer turnkey solutions to a similar client base. With the assistance of ByteManagers, these companies have been able to produce and deliver their product information to multiple software platforms more quickly, cost-effectively, and to a higher degree of quality.