The amount of pollution and waste generated by the production of consumer goods and fast fashion has drawn scrutiny from governments, non-governmental organizations and consumers alike in recent years. As environmental concerns increase globally, the call for companies to act responsibly and adopt more sustainable practices in sourcing, manufacturing, packaging and distribution processes will intensify. The good news is that not only are companies rising to the challenge, but many global brands are leading the way by taking a more sustainable approach to product development.

In the digital age of commerce, retailers in almost every segment realize that reaching consumers has become more complex and more fragmented than ever before. Even as touchpoints multiply, consumers demand a consistent, integrated mobile, ecommerce and in-store experience. They expect brands to provide exceptional experiences that make it easy for them to research and purchase the items they need, regardless of channel. And because of this new market landscape, retailers must provide their customers accurate and complete product information as the catalyst to achieving category leadership and business success.

In the internet’s infancy, before search engines and browsers, you had to know exactly where to look to find the information you wanted.

With the emergence of search engines, the entire wealth of information became available at our fingertips just by inserting a keyword. Google’s most significant achievement involved making sense of big data served up from over a billion websites globally according to user preferences, location and history. Google simply and elegantly integrated the world wide web to deliver information with speed and relevance for the user.

Manufacturers are no strangers to the ramifications of the new data economy and how it has changed consumer expectations. Now, more than ever, consumers expect an exceptional experience, whether shopping online or in-store. Online research has become commonplace, making it critical for product information to be displayed accurately across both the physical and digital shelves alike. This has resulted in retailers pressuring manufacturers to meet specific data requirements to get products to market faster. And unfortunately, each retailer, data pool and marketplace has different conditions.

For CDOs, a centralized data strategy is to enable an enterprise to fully exploit data and analytics. To get to that point some essential capabilities are required.

• First, the enterprise must be able to identify, combine and manage multiple sources of data.
• Second, it must build the right analysis models for predicting and optimizing outcomes.
• Third, management must possess the will to transform the organization to understand how to leverage and convert the data and analytics models into decisions that improve business outcome.

In addition, certain prerequisites help clearly define the strategy for how to use data and analytics. The following offers 5 tips on how to do that.

Across industries and trades, master data management (MDM) solutions result in positive business outcomes through improving efficiency and enabling new business. In addition to that, master data management is necessary to ignite digital acceleration and facilitate data governance.

Master data is the backbone of any company’s data infrastructure. But the nature of their master data can differ a lot depending on the type of industry, enterprise size and business area.

Day two has come and gone at our Connect conference in Copenhagen, and while innovation - the overarching theme for yesterday - continued to be a key topic, day two was all about sharing digital transformation success stories.

Our annual Connect conference kicked off today in the heart of Copenhagen, at the Tivoli Hotel & Congress Center. A conference where customers and partners meet to imagine, inspire and ignite their shared passion for all things data.

There are many benefits to reap from master data management (MDM). Providing higher efficiency or enabling new business – a positive ROI is almost unavoidable regardless which industry you serve or organization you operate.

Taking retail as an example, mastering your various data domains addresses some of the most business-critical issues such as growing the product catalog, increasing customer loyalty, reducing product returns and accelerating sales.