Simplifying the Complex Process of Data Integration, Part 4

• reduce time to market from weeks to days by orchestrating and making the on-boarding process transparent;
• increase on-boarding capacity by a factor of 10 by providing instant feedback to suppliers upon data submission;
• reduce supplier touchpoints from 10-plus to two (initiate item data collection and capture category-specific customer-facing information); and
• collect for multiple channels to increase consistency and avoid duplicate item on-boarding.

To make a tool that's easy to evaluate the data, change the data and manage the data, reduce supplier touchpoints as much as possible, Rodrigue said. When done right, suppliers are more willing to make that investment with your brand. And it doesn't matter whether the tool is web-based, Excel-based, email-based, feed-based, etc., as long it's as easy as possible to import data.