Ingram Micro drives transformation with master data foundation

Ingram Micro helps businesses fully realize the promise of technology – helping maximize the value of the offerings they make, sell, or use. Its vast global infrastructure and focus on cloud, mobility, technology lifecycle, supply chain, and technology solutions enable business partners to operate more efficiently and successfully in the markets they serve.

The company has the ability to reach nearly 90 percent of the world’s population. Present in close to 200 countries, its extensive sales and distribution network has approximately 27,000 associates, more than 161,000 customers, and 1,500 vendor partners worldwide.

Ingram Micro is building on that global success by transforming to adapt to changing vendor business models. It is going through a digital transformation to become a platform company to better serve those needs. Vendors want to move beyond one-time hardware sales towards offering subscriptions and other recurring-revenue opportunities.

The challenge with data

Ingram Micro needed to organize its data for three primary reasons:

1. The shared services group wanted to standardize all processes.
2. The digital-transformation project needed global data and data governance to succeed.
3. Improved reporting and analytics would provide better insights into the business.

“For our digital-transformation program to be successful, we needed to have our master data consistent and accurate across all the different systems,” says Todd Arant, Executive Director, Global Business Processes, Ingram Micro. “Having a strong governance program provides the foundation for all of our transformation plans.”

Establishing master data governance

Ingram Micro chose to work with long-time associate Capgemini on the project, and selected SAP’s Master Data Governance (MDG) application to create a central hub to house business-critical information. Establishing this type of governance will give Ingram Micro control of its data and harmonize processes across the company.

With its extensive SAP experience, Capgemini helped Ingram Micro establish a global template on SAP MDG that includes data cleansing, training, data loading, and testing that will be used for each country rollout.

“Ingram Micro has massive volumes of SKUs so we needed to make sure we chose a software that could handle the load,” Arant says. “We chose SAP primarily for its ability to support enterprise customers and the master data object volumes we have in our systems.”

Ingram Micro is using a true global center-of-excellence approach. MDG will be the company’s worldwide book of record with established processes to ensure quality and timeliness of the data available in different downstream applications. The structure will accommodate local nuances like tax requirements but will keep consistent worldwide standards.

“We are using MDG as part of the rollout for our global data strategy,” Arant says. “So we are going to enable all master data processes to go through shared services regardless of vendor, customer, or product. And we have also created a regional data steward network wrapped around it to ensure our standards are consistent.”

It has also been an opportunity for data cleansing, an important piece of the project since some countries had not purged data for many years.

The value of data governance

Ingram Micro is continuing to implement MDG across its global network, with a focus on cost efficiencies, better business insights in the countries with MDG in place, and financial disclosures that provide more accurate summaries and statements around each line of business. The company also expects its channel partners will benefit from better reporting and additional offerings.

With an established global template, country launches are taking approximately three to four months each, with projected MDG completion targeted for September 2023. Capgemini continues to help Ingram Micro prepare for the future with support for reporting, dashboards, and ongoing data efforts. “Growth opportunities for the next few years are going to be around digital, and this program  should enable our digital program to fly,” Arant says. “That is where we are going to see most of the value in the future. We are very excited to be working with Capgemini.”

“The story with Capgemini and Ingram Micro is pretty simple. Everybody working towards the same goal, everyone supporting each other, and everyone putting issues on the table – that is how you have a successful partnership. These kinds of projects are difficult, but I think the key to our success is communicating and doing what’s right to keep moving forward. That’s how you have a successful relationship.”

Todd Arant
Executive Director, Global Business Processes, Ingram Micro