By Dave Wargo, Associate Partner Columbus Consulting
Master data serves as the backbone of efficient operations in the grocery industry. Accurate and comprehensive master data is essential for operational excellence, reliable analytics, enhanced customer satisfaction, and maintaining competitiveness. Key elements include detailed product attributes, a structured hierarchy, status flags, and strong data governance.
Product Attributes
Grocery products have unique attributes that require tailored attention. Center store, fresh, and prepared foods demand distinct data designs. Attributes like flavor profiles, lot numbers, allergens, nutritional details, and storage requirements need standardized rules. Inventory management depends on attributes such as pack size, unit of measure, and variable weight. Standardized lists of values (LOVs) ensure data consistency, replacing free-form entries.
Product Hierarchy
An organized product hierarchy is vital for efficient categorization. This taxonomy groups products by categories such as department (e.g., produce, dairy) and configuration (e.g., bulk, packaged). Parent-child relationships allow grouping of similar items from multiple suppliers. A well-structured hierarchy improves inventory management, product assortment planning, and searchability. For instance, it can help analyze trends for seasonal categories like baked pies, enabling timely promotions and stock adjustments.
Status Flags
Status flags track a product’s lifecycle, indicating if it is active, discontinued, or scheduled for discontinuation. These flags are crucial for managing inventory, streamlining product orders, and planning merchandising assortments. Properly managed flags prevent issues like ordering discontinued products, supporting maturity to automated replenishment.
Data Governance
Strong data governance underpins reliable master data. It includes policies, roles, and processes to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and security. Governance teams, supported by master data management tools (e.g., PIMs or MDMs), help implement and maintain reliable data.
In today’s competitive grocery market, robust master data management is not optional—it is essential for success.
ABOUT DAVE WARGO
DAVE WARGO is an associate partner at Columbus Consulting. He is a data-led functional architect, bridging the gap between business and technology to empower data as an asset. He applies tactical retail use-case driven approaches to create processes, standards, and disciplines to enable AL/ML and harden analytics, insights, operations, and optimal customer experiences. Dave is experienced in luxury, quick service restaurants, core retail, convenience, and curated museum merchandising. He has held both retail leadership and consulting delivery roles in data standardization, process overhaul and improvement, retail change implementation, product development, product assortment planning, brand planning, demand planning, and buying.
ABOUT COLUMBUS CONSULTING
Columbus Consulting delivers solutions that drive true value and have been transforming the retail, grocery and CPG industries for over two decades. We are a retail consulting company of industry experts. Our approach is simple, if you do it, we do it. We are more than consultants; we are experienced practitioners who actually sat in our clients’ seats. We understand the challenges, know what questions to ask and deliver the right solutions. Columbus offers a unique, consumer-centric approach with an end-to-end perspective that bridges functional & organisation silos from strategy to execution. Our specialties include: unified commerce, merchandising & category management, planning & inventory management, sourcing & supply chain, data & analytics, accounting, finance & operations, people & organisation and information technology. Let us know how we can help you. To learn more, visit COLUMBUSCONSULTING.COM.
