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L’Oréal: Driving business value with IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Data Science Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
L’Oréal, a global leader in beauty products, faced a major internal challenge around managing product information due to its vast portfolio and the varying standards and approaches across its divisions and geographic zones. The company lacked a single source of truth for product information, which hindered internal reporting and planning, made it harder to prepare statutory reports, and had a direct impact on L’Oréal’s effectiveness. L’Oréal needed to improve data quality and align product information across all parties, from suppliers through to manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Doing so would assist the Group to get the right product to the right place at the right time, driving revenues and profitability.
About The Customer
The L’Oréal Group is a global leader in beauty products. The company is present in 130 countries across 28 international brands, including L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Lancôme, Maybelline, and Giorgio Armani. In 2013, the Group achieved EUR 23 billion of sales. L’Oréal Group employs 77,500 people and registered 624 patents in 2013. The company offers tailored products for each market to meet local consumer expectations. This approach creates a major internal challenge around managing product information. L’Oréal’s portfolio contains several thousand international products, each described using more than 400 attributes, from general features and dimensions to packaging, ingredients, and environmental data, adhering to regulatory and legal requirements.
The Solution
L’Oréal worked with IBM® Global Business Services® to deploy IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management and IBM Watson Explorer. The goal was to design, build, roll out, and support a federated repository of master data on product information. IBM brought in very senior MDM experts to deliver the expected value. The strategic goal of this program was to drive value from product information. As an enabler, it aimed to provide a single source of truth and a consistent point of reference for product information—both upstream to suppliers, and downstream to customers and consumers. The solution is continuing to be refined and beginning its rollout across L’Oréal’s consumer and luxury divisions in selected European and Asia Pacific countries, with the full global rollout on the horizon.
Operational Impact
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