Stibo Systems
A master data platform with a long standing strength in product information, covering several data domains.
Stibo Systems provides a master data management platform covering several domains including product, customer, supplier and location. It is long established in product information management, where the requirement is to hold rich product descriptions, assets and classifications and publish them consistently to sales channels.
Why product data is its own problem
Master data management usually gets discussed in terms of customers: the same person exists several times, match them, consolidate them.
Product data has a different shape, and it is worth understanding why it needs its own treatment.
A customer record is a modest set of attributes. A product record is not. It carries dimensions, materials, compliance information, images, documents, translations, classifications against several taxonomies, and attributes that differ entirely between categories.
There are also a great many of them. A retailer may hold hundreds of thousands of products, each needing that richness.
And the information goes out. Product data is published to websites, marketplaces, print catalogues and partner systems, each wanting it in a different form.
Publishing consistently
That last point is where the value concentrates.
Without a mastered source, each channel is maintained separately. The website description is edited, the marketplace listing is not, the partner feed still carries last season's specification. Customers see different information depending on where they look, and nobody can say which is right.
Publishing from one mastered record means the product is described consistently everywhere, with each channel receiving the form it requires.
Workflow before publication
Product information is customer facing, which makes review necessary rather than optional.
An incorrect specification published to a marketplace is a commercial and sometimes regulatory problem, not an internal inconvenience.
Workflow routes changes through defined approval steps, so a description is checked before it reaches customers rather than corrected afterwards.
More than one domain
The platform covers other master data domains alongside product, including customer, supplier and location.
That matters where the domains relate. A product has suppliers; a supplier has locations. Mastering them in one platform keeps those relationships intact rather than splitting them across systems.
Who uses it
Stibo Systems is used by retailers, manufacturers, distributors and consumer goods companies with large product catalogues published across multiple channels.
Points to consider
This is enterprise software adopted as a platform decision, with the implementation effort that implies.
The substantive work is defining the model: which attributes a product needs, which taxonomies apply, and what each channel requires. That is business work rather than configuration, and it is where implementations succeed or stall.
Workflow also needs people. Approval steps only function if somebody is accountable for approving, and a queue nobody attends to blocks publication rather than protecting it.
Getting started
The official site links to documentation covering the platform's domains, modelling product data, configuring workflow and publishing to channels. Modelling one product category, with its attributes and one channel, demonstrates the whole path before the full catalogue is attempted.
Key features of Stibo Systems
Capabilities described in the official documentation.
Several master data domains
Product, customer, supplier and location data can be mastered within one platform rather than separate tools.
Rich product information
Product records hold descriptions, attributes, classifications and associated assets rather than identifiers alone.
Publishing to channels
Mastered product information is published to the channels that sell it, each in the form it requires.
Workflow for approval
Changes pass through defined steps so records are reviewed before they reach the channels.
Advantages of Stibo Systems
Factual advantages that follow from the features above.
Channels show consistent information
Publishing from one mastered source means the same product is described the same way everywhere it appears.
Product detail is held properly
Because records carry attributes, classifications and assets, product data is not reduced to a code and a name.
Changes are reviewed before publication
Workflow means a product description reaches customers after approval rather than as soon as somebody edits it.
Domains share one platform
Mastering more than one kind of data in one place avoids operating a separate system for each.
Common use cases for Stibo Systems
Situations the official documentation describes this tool as being used for.
Publishing product data to sales channels
One mastered product record is published to each channel in the format that channel requires.
Managing a large product catalogue
Attributes, classifications and assets are held per product across a catalogue too large to manage in spreadsheets.
Approving changes before they reach customers
Workflow routes an edited description for review so errors are caught before publication.
Mastering supplier alongside product data
More than one domain is mastered in the same platform so related records are managed together.
Official website
Everything on this page is based on the official documentation for Stibo Systems. You can read the source here.
Stibo Systems official documentation