The sales divisions of the METRO Group map each product of their approx. 6,000 active suppliers with the help of product master data – from food to detergent and cleaning supplies to television sets and prefabricated garages. For each article there are basic data for identification and additional short product descriptions. The data arrives at the trading group in two ways: via product IDs and data pools.

Many small and medium-sized enterprises still mail or fax product IDs to the METRO Group Buying (MGB), the central procurement group of the trading company. However, in the eleven years since the introduction of SA2 worldsync, more and more international brand manufacturers are using the data pool. The METRO Group has used SA2 Worldsync since 1999. The trading group is connected to the data pool with MMS-CAT, a data catalogue of the METRO Merchandising system for strategic assortment design. Buyers retrieve all needed product master data from the SA2 Worldsync pool and can process this data in MMS-CAT. MMS-CAT also has a web-interface for the data input of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME-Interface). Product master data is fundamental to daily business processes throughout trading group.

Product master data which has arrived through different channels is collected in the purchasing group MGB using MMS-CAT. From there the merchandising systems of the individual sales divisions, such as Metro Cash & Carry and Real, are provided with the data. Employees add additional information, like current sales prices. That way data records become more and more detailed in every step. Ultimately each store within the METRO Group receives the master data.

Today synchronizing product master data is undertaken in various internal systems in the divisions of the METRO Group e.g. in various sales divisions or in the Data Warehouse. The synchronization of product master data is also done between suppliers and the logistics groups METRO Group Logistics and METRO Group Distribution Logistics.

METRO Group’s objective is to pool the incoming master data and to organize it more efficiently. Manually created and maintained product IDs are to be eliminated completely and to be replaced with data pools like SA2 worldsync. In the future, MMS-CAT will serve as the single point of entry: All product master data arrives here and there is only one data source for all sales divisions. The bilateral exchange of master data will generally become unnecessary and alignment processes and transmission errors are going to be things of the past.

Harmonizing master data is especially important when dealing with the optimized presentation of products at the point-of-sale. Cigarette packs, can be positioned on shelves displaying either the front or the top of the pack. Business partners have to agree on the exact height/width/depth necessary in order for supermarkets to properly plan the presentation of goods. Then sales divisions only have to agree on a standard language for product texts, as there is still some harmonization needed in this field. Until now there are still several variations of displaying master data, such as the order of the data: "company Müller, yogurt, strawberry, 75 grams", while somewhere else "yogurt, 75 grams, strawberry, company Müller" is preferred.

Standardizing master data is a joint project that requires the cooperation of all involved - within the METRO Group as well as outside the group. Retailers and manufacturers equally benefit from the standardized solutions like GTIN numbers, EANCOM messages and the SA2 Worldsync data pool. The centrally controlled flow of information contributes to the efficient structuring of all business processes. The amount of work for the entry and standardization of master data records is significantly reduced, which leads to clear cost savings for all involved. METRO Group supports the work of organizations such as the GS1 Germany (www.gs1-germany.de) and is a member of the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) (www.gci-net.org), which aims to increase the efficiency of international master data exchange.