Abena
About Abena
The work made for Abena runs to 1 verified project — mostly ERP, Impact and PIM.
Inside the Abena network
The people, teams, and projects that make up the Abena network
Featured project
Global PIM Implementation in 88 Countries
TWO ERP SYSTEMS TOGETHER Abena has got a scalable solution that synchronizes with data from AX and SAP, so the two ERP systems communicate together. With the PIM system, it has become easy to launch products in new markets/tenders because the products are fully enriched. PIM DID NOT CREATE VALUE AND WAS NOT SCALABLE Abena's Danish department had an inRiver PIM for several years, but due to an inappropriate implementation, the PIM system did not create the desired value and made it difficult to roll out the system globally for Abena. As one of Europe's largest manufacturers of healthcare consumables with a myriad of products across markets, Abena needed a well-functioning PIM set up to make it easier to create new products and sell them in new markets. DATA FROM SAP AND AX INTO THE SAME PIM For Abena, the first part of the project consisted of solving the performance problems that the existing implementation suffered. The main part of the project was to create one coherent data/process flow across borders. It should facilitate the enrichment process for internal users and give customers a more consistent experience across channels. WHERE DOES PRODUCT CREATION START? The task was complicated by the fact that Abena's various branches were based on different ERP systems and mastering flows. In the Danish department, product creation started in PIM, which pushed on to ERP (AX), while the foreign offices started in ERP (SAP), and from there the data entered PIM. It is not a setup that you encounter every day, and therefore we had to create a workable solution where both flows could coexist in inRiver PIM. The solution was to tie the two data flows together in the same PIM system, so that Danish products can be created in PIM, while others are created in ERP. FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE AND AGILITY The existing data model was looked at in the seams to find optimization options, and as soon as the solution proposals were ready, inRiver did a code review based on best-practice, so that we could jointly optimize Abena's set up as soon as possible. After just two days, performance problems were reduced to one fifth. From the start, it has been important to keep your tongue straight in the mouth to tie the two different ERP systems together with a unified PIM system. The focus has been on process, flows, and user rights. Who fills in data, what do individual users have rights to, and how do we synchronize data across systems? These were some of the issues that the solution should take into account. To give Abena a scalable solution, we created a setup that can handle data from AX being synchronized with PIM and not data in SAP, since the data is already in the system. This means that users must pay close attention to the system in how they enrich data. Therefore, different target groups of users in the system have different rights to view and change in PIM. The mantra has always been to make it as simple for users as possible. With the solution, Abena's two ERP systems interact and send data to the PIM system so that users in different branches can easily enrich products and launch products in new markets. As a small side project, we implemented a simpler PIM model from scratch for Abena's subsidiary OX-ON. Unlike the parent company, OX-ON's solution is built on the inRiver Product Marketing Cloud, which is inRiver's latest venture. It allows Abena to evaluate whether or when they want to switch to the inRiver cloud. https://www.impact.dk/