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What makes Data Governance a key element in Product Data Management?

The period 2020-2021 has been the point of inflexion for product data management. Unforeseen disruptions and limited interactions amongst supply chain partners have forced businesses to adopt data-driven models to facilitate the push and pull of information. Organisations quickly realised that data processing and reorganisation consumed a considerable amount of time of the analytics team.

It has never been more important to access, formulate and present accurate and consistent data from one central source. The ability to then pull and push this data through other business systems is key in building data modules, and reporting dashboards has saved considerable time and effort throughout the organisation.

Respondents to a McKinsey Survey stated that an average of 30% of their total enterprise time was consumed by non-value added activities due to sub-standard data and availability.


The large volume of structured and unstructured data in the supply chain network mandates quality-assuring governance. Data governance in product data management is an intrinsic approach to overseeing data throughout the entire life cycle – from procurement to distribution. Effective data governance adds value to conventional supply chain systems through increased comprehension and collaborative capabilities.

The following sections will delve deeper into how data governance can help attain operational excellence in supply chain management.

5 reasons why Data Governance is essential for Product Data Management

With organisations no longer limited by functional boundaries, it gives rise to potential complications such as data quality, data security and data auditing.

Did you know?

  • Only 3% of enterprise data meets quality standards
  • 60-73% of data is never used for any critical activities
  • Only 20% of enterprises that invest in data governance will prosper in 2022


Based on the above, it is clear that only companies who invest in data governance will harness its benefits.

Let’s look at five reasons companies will focus on designing more intrinsic data governance strategies.

Cost Savings

Typically, a supply chain flow involves designing, planning, sourcing, production, logistics, and distribution. Each stage involves significant amounts of data transfer between internal and external stakeholders. Inefficient data management may lead to potential loss of data assets, skewed demand forecasts, increased labour, etc., which may result in long-term cost burdens on revenue.

Interestingly, during the data design phase, a well-structured data plan could reduce 15-20% in developmental costs.


A unified data management platform makes sure all relevant data is stored in a central location for other systems and users to consume this data – in the knowledge, it is both accurate and secure.

Streamlining of Data

Product data management coupled with business integration helps publish a single source of the truth for all stakeholders across the entire supply chain.

Data governance makes sure that the centralised data software stores information appropriately to eliminate multiple or incorrect dataset referencing. Establishing data-centric views and enterprise-wide data quality helps transition an information-heavy industry into a digitally powered one.

Here is how you can benefit from better data management and governance:

Early Defining of Metrics and Milestones

Data governance is putting in place processes and tools along with defining the metrics and milestones to ensure the reliability of your data. Evaluating data quality through performance analysis is crucial to data governance as it makes data objectively measurable.

“It’s not enough to manage data and create insights. These activities must deliver measurable business outcomes.”– Debra Logan (Research Vice President, Gartner)


It is crucial that before you devise any business strategy or commence a project, the final publishable data is fit for the purpose.

Without well thought out and defined business ‘rules’, good practice principles and data governance, businesses will work on skewed or flawed data sets. Each department may use different data fields, codifications or attributes throughout the organisation. Sometimes the data across departments may not even be synced appropriately in the absence of a centralised enterprise service hub.

You can define metrics and processes to ensure data quality, accuracy, and reliability through a data governance strategy. This would initially involve collaboration across the supply chain to understand the most common data issues and develop data validation, cleansing, and monitoring control.

Transparency


Data governance promotes an environment of trust and transparency. A work-flow driven Product data management system centralises all the key elements of an asset, configuration and change control. In other words, the technical specifications of product parts, the supplementary documentation and all key technical attributes are all managed centrally in one database. While providing accurate data to employees, the platform is also equipped with role-specific visibility and additional permissions for better governance of data management.

The benefits are:


In addition to the above, the risk linked to data dramatically reduces while the opportunities multiply. Based on this, it would only be wise to consider data governance as a necessary process.

Risk Identification

Data is an important asset for any company, but a lack of data governance can result in incorrect or sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. The expansion of the supply chain and the inclusion of multiple stakeholders results in an exponential increase in information through authorised and unauthorised networks.

Data management allows organisations to provide internal and external participants access to information relevant to their tasks. However, organisations need to put in place robust security infrastructure to ensure that data remains protected from cyber incidents.

A comprehensive data strategy defines data points, puts in place controls and checks to monitor deviances in data locations and helps mitigate costly errors. With data governance tools in place, you will have access to data audit trails that help monitor and track what data was retrieved, by whom, when, and for what reasons.

Conclusion

Data governance is far from static. In the coming years, every data-driven enterprise has to transform itself to make business sense of its constantly growing data assets.

The innovative and technology powered data systems to collect, analyse and streamline data may seem daunting and complicated. However, today, data management systems have become more accessible, intuitive and easier to use.

Organisations and employees gain access to data insights without prior coding knowledge through business analytics, all fed by technical data from a PDM database. By deploying a strict data governance policy, it offers a range of benefits across the organisation, including regulatory compliance, high data quality, lineage and auditing, consistency and accuracy, increased efficiency, and more.

If implemented comprehensively, data governance can enhance the data-driven aspect of a company right from insights, compliance, analysis, scalability, and more.

Opt for TVS SCS’s product data management to ensure governance, quality, and integrity of your product technical data. Our ‘workflow-driven’ product data management application (Msys.PDM) provides a single source of truth for all product technical data. This application obtains ultimate control over parts, their replacements and release sequence data.

Contact us for better governance of your data!

Why is Product Data Management the future of supply chain management?

Most companies underestimate the value of structured data. While a company’s forte may be data collection, it may be ineffective at storing, organising, protecting, and verifying product data in a meaningful way. As data management has become inextricably linked to customer experience, the data fragmentation along the supply chain can lead to business inefficiencies. These inefficiencies plaguing companies’ supply chains have necessitated deeper analysis beyond the use of data-heavy spreadsheets, outdated ERP systems, and other applications.

This calls for a clear data management strategy closely integrated with a software platform to store information in one secure environment and manage it in real-time. In the supply chain world, this hints at product data management.

What is Product Data Management?

Considering the importance of data management and the facilitation of interactions between suppliers, partners, brokers and shippers, there is a need for timely access to data that is organised, consistent and accurate. Data driven product management involves ensuring that your company’s supply chain data is consistent, harmonised, standardised and also accessible by multiple teams across an organisation. 

As per Gartner, by 2023, 50% of global product-centric corporations would have adopted platforms that provide real-time transportation visibility. Furthermore, Gartner also predicts that by 2024, 50% of supply chain organisations will continue to invest in applications that support AI and data analytics capabilities.

Product Data Management (PDM) is the use of software to host and maintain product data and technical process information in a unified and secure platform. Further, the ideal PDM software structures information in a dataset that can be further analysed, managed and summarised in the form of enterprise-level data reports with the option of any time data retrieval.

Let us now look at some key reasons why PDM is indispensable in today’s supply chain management environment.

Why is data driven product management essential for supply chain management?

With the increase in data volume and its availability through multiple touchpoints, the question about data authenticity arises. The presence of diverse sources, processes and systems have also added to its complexity. For instance, a company having multiple vendors and customers may be unable to provide accurate product lifecycle information without adequate data management. Hence, the need of the hour is a single point of reference to derive insights and make informed decisions. 

Here are five key benefits associated with PDM:

  1. Centralised Data Architecture

    2. Typically in production, goods would move from the manufacturer’s factory to the wholesaler’s warehouse, to the retailer’s storage, and finally to the store shelves for customers to buy. At each stage, information such as barcode, raw materials, end-use, products specifications (size, colour, weight), price, etc., are available but end up being scattered throughout the process. However, appropriate data management not only makes it available across the supply chain but also allows for accessibility in a faster, accurate and efficient manner.

    Product data management helps in cleansing, validating, cross-referencing and consolidating multiple data attributes to provide a holistic view of customers, products, suppliers and partners. This is done through a centralised and synchronised platform that helps track and route products through procurement, manufacturing, and distribution stages. It provides 24/7 global access to technical and commercial product master data. Thus, in the ever-evolving data landscape, it presents itself as a single-source repository of data that is secure and is considered as a “golden record”.

  2. Transparency and Reliability

    3. Often organisations with siloed departments lack visibility of their entire supply chain. Without data perceptibility, the decisions made or functions performed may bring about skewed and inconsistent results. Integration of data and systems across the enterprises is the first step to transparency and reliability.

    For instance, a grocery store that often stocks meat gains visibility into attributes like cold chain requirements, the shelf life of the products, replenishment methods, etc. These vital pieces of information may typically also be captured through an automated method. However, ensuring that the data is visible accurately to all departments will only be possible if the data is in sync. 

    Data driven product management would entail cumulative collection and screening of all this information to ensure end-to-end consistency and accuracy. What assists in this process is a PDM software that merges data sets and integrates various systems  (supplier, ERP, CRM, etc.) to provide organisation-wide transparency.

    Another instance that would benefit from product data management software would be a merger or acquisition. Here, both existing and new products, suppliers, vendors and systems can be on-boarded and tied together seamlessly. Thereafter, to ensure an efficient process, the parent company would easily be able to view variations or revenue generation and cost-cutting opportunities. 

  3. Efficient Inventory Management

    4. According to a survey by Ipsos Global, 61% of customers first scan online channels to undertake research prior to product purchase in brick-and-mortar stores. If your product data management is up to speed, you wouldn’t have to worry about online or offline sales. By pooling data together and ensuring it is organised and updated, you will benefit from enhanced visibility online and increased buyer conversions at all customer touchpoints.

    In fact, efficient inventory management translates to better demand forecasting, which can strategically differentiate you from other market players. When implemented together through the channel of a product data management software, you are assured of timely access to information. It allows companies to monitor supplier stock availability, enable faster movement of goods, increase distribution efficiency and meet customers’ requirements round the clock.  

    A successful PDM software implementation can help you in more than just inventory upkeep. It provides the ability to avoid excess or inadequate inventories, helps forecast seasonal variations, increase order-fulfilment and fill rates, and more. The single source of truth helps improve efficiency and monitoring and plays a significant role in predictive and prescriptive analysis. The timely access to information decreases the overall burden on inventory management and provides added benefits of cost reduction and customer satisfaction.

  4. Data Integration

    5. Big data is here and now, and data-driven insights will help in realising customer behaviours and sales patterns. When we talk about data product management, it refers to how representative our project data is and how it is presented to various internal stakeholders. Firstly, it involves designing a system that manages product-related information in one central location. At this single source, engineering teams then integrate PDM software to upload, store, and organise data in a secure repository.

    The product data management software is workflow-driven and continuously drives data capture and cleansing. It also seamlessly integrates with other applications, thereby providing the ability to track revisions, collaborate with teams, ensure that information is in sync across multiple sites, all in real-time. For instance, if your company were engaged in distributing auto-ancillary products, this application would provide ultimate control over data such as part number, part descriptions and attributes, cross-references, supersessions, replacement part release sequence, and more. 

    Further, the technical data from the PDM software combined with methodologies like data analytics, blockchain, AI or ML  acts as a catalyst for other software and systems within the supply chain. Overall, the benefits derived from the product data management software are end-to-end traceability, version control, obsolescence management and detailed workflow management for methodical data management.

  5. Data Governance

    6. While product data management has various benefits, it cannot be successful without proper governance. For instance, data management and governance would mean defining the product master data, such as an outline of a customer or a product, detailing data retention policies, and defining roles and responsibilities for data creation, collation, and classification. 

    The supply chain process comprises various data exchange points, be it design, sourcing, planning, production, finance, and so forth. During this process, goods and services are exchanged or enhanced along with the added element of data generated along the way. Further, depending on the size of the supply chain, information sharing may rise exponentially. Inadequate governance may lead to data leaks, risk of data exchange via unauthorised networks, insufficient business forecasts, etc. Thus, rises the need for data management through a robust infrastructure to ensure security and protection of informational assets. 

    Considering data is shared across the organisation, it needs to create a strategy that enables internal and external participants to view data risk-free. A PDM software helps reconcile fragmented views into a single view integrated with the discipline of data governance.

    Conclusion

    In the coming years, the amount of data to be managed will only increase. Hence, it is imperative to have in place systems and processes to effectively streamline it daily. As is evident from the above discussions, product data management is more successful when backed by a technological solution. Hence, choosing the right PDM software can help carve out a secure and robust data management plan that is essential for the success of your business. 

    TVS SCS offers a single portal to handle product data by eliminating silos and integrating information seamlessly across processes and domains. If you are looking for a consolidated, scalable, unified platform that binds product master data while improving your company’s overall management, connect with us today!

Total Supply Chain Summit

TVS SCS is excited to announce we will be exhibiting at the Total Supply Chain Summit on 1st and 2nd November 2021.

We will be meeting new potential customers who are facing difficulties with their supply chain or looking to reap the benefits of end to end supply chain transformation. Whatever your needs, TVS SCS are happy to offer our services and provide a host of benefits to your company.

The premise of the Total Supply Chain Summit event is to form and develop business relationships, and there is no pressure to sign on the dotted line. This allows you to discuss the full range of services we offer and the ask any questions you may have in a relaxed, pressure free environment.

If you wish to find out more about the event or register, then you can do so by following this link.