Customer Success

A $2B plumbing & electrical distributor

Over a decade, WinWholesale had almost 400 different employees entering product data into their universal part databases. Because their database did not have strict data entry requirements, product information and descriptions were often inaccurate, inconsistent, duplicated and plagued by obsolescence. BMI normalized WinWholesale's existing data, improved their merchandising copy, and streamlined their product organization. We also built rigorous data requirements for WinWholesale's database so that no matter how many people were responsible for reporting product information in the future, the rules we established ensure consistency of their product data.

Challenges

• Product information was historically entered directly into a unified ERP system by more than 400 constituents over 10 years, leading to inconsistencies in data:
• • Duplicate part numbers representing the same item
  • Outdated stock items no longer supported by manufacturers
  • Inaccurate and unusable descriptions of products
• Inability to leverage data that existed in their ERP systems for use in the sales and marketing of products to customers. As a result it was extremely difficult to:
• • Distribute product information on the web
  • Create customer-specific product information files
  • Develop brochures, catalogs and fliers