BIC isn't just a pen company. It's a 75-year-old industrial success story that has grown from a single product vision into a €2.2 billion global enterprise.
The company dominates all three major product categories it operates in: Human Expression (writing instruments), Flame for Life (lighters) and Blade Excellence (razors), holding dominant market positions in each.
The BIC pen is one of the ultimate symbols of simplicity for most people. But managing product data across BIC's global beneath operations: not so simple.
Each product must navigate varying regulatory requirements across countries, multiple manufacturing sites, different market-specific packaging needs and complex supply chain relationships.
Add to that recent acquisitions, multiple ERP systems across regions, and ambitious sustainability goals. Layer after layer of data complexity is being added, and it all needs to be tracked and managed consistently.
For a company producing millions of products daily for global distribution, fragmented or inconsistent product data is a real threat to the brand promise and a barrier to continued growth in an increasingly competitive market.
By 2022, BIC's data management had reached a breaking point.
What started as manageable complexity had evolved into a web of disconnected systems, inconsistent definitions and fragmented processes that threatened operational efficiency across the organization.
At Stibo Systems, we have seen this story play out in many organizations.
Before we go into how the BIC team skillfully turned this around, let’s break down the key challenges.
The technical architecture alone was an illustration of accumulated complexity. BIC operated three distinct ERP platforms, depending on the continent. Data flew through a maze of specialized systems:
Each system had evolved independently, creating significant "flow complexity" with manual data exchanges, partial coverage of critical fields and technical obsolescence in key areas.
The consequences were tangible and costly. Product lifecycle definitions varied dramatically between regions.
For instance, a product marked as "confirmed" in Europe might be classified as "mature" in the U.S., while the same item could be labeled "decline" elsewhere.
Units of measurement also created daily confusion.
One display could equal 100 blisters of 2 units (totaling 200 units) in one system, whereas the same display equaled just 1 unit in another system.
Even more problematic were the fundamental definitional misalignments.
BIC discovered that the very concept of a SKU meant different things across regions. Europe defined it as a consumer item (like a blister pack); the U.S. considered it a customer item (a carton of multiple blisters).
"We had a number of problems with attributes that were either incomplete or contained incorrect units of measurement. So, there is a great variety within the group." Pierre Daurces, Project Director – GSC Data Governance, BIC Group
Bill of materials structures lacked standardization. There was no clear definition of bulk levels, and identification varied across systems.
Manufacturing and sourcing data suffered from gaps between manufacturing sites and co-packing sites. That meant there was a disconnect between JDE (one of the ERP systems) and WID (its distribution system).
Perhaps most critically, the company had no automated visibility into sales and operations planning families. Teams were forced to manage these key planning categories in spreadsheets.
All these technical challenges meant real operational pain points for BIC's teams:
That meant the organization wasn’t quite able to identify issues, prioritize effectively or make ad-hoc decisions at the right level of granularity.
Ultimately, that meant BIC didn’t have the strategic agility it would need to keep its market leadership position.
Time to roll up the sleeves (even further).
With all these complex challenges, BIC knew it needed more than a quick technical fix. It needed a complete transformation that would address people, processes and technology, all at the same time.
The team decided to tackle the problem methodically, starting with the most critical pain points and building outward.
BIC structured the solution around its "Item Data Governance" project, breaking it into manageable waves:
Working in phases, the team could prove value early while it built up organizational capability for larger-scale changes.
Rather than just implementing new technology, BIC built its solution around four fundamental pillars:
After careful analysis, BIC selected Stibo Systems Product Experience Data Cloud, hosted on Microsoft Azure, as its MDM platform.
The solution could handle BIC's complex multidomain requirements in a single system rather than needing separate tools for different data types. It was flexible enough to handle BIC's different business needs but also enforced consistency where needed.
Most importantly, it provided the governance capabilities BIC needed to prevent data quality issues in the first place, rather than just fixing them after the fact.
Technology alone wouldn't solve BIC's challenges. The project needed significant organizational changes. New roles were created, including:
"We restructured a number of existing positions, but we also created some, including one that is key in the deployment of governance, which is the Global Process Owner." Pierre Daurces, Project Director - GSC Data Governance, BIC Group
The new architecture positioned Product Experience Data Cloud as the single source of truth for product data, feeding all downstream systems including:
Rather than trying to replace existing systems, the solution created clean interfaces and automated data flows that eliminated manual processes and reduced errors.
BIC's phased approach to master data governance has given the company plenty of tangible improvements across multiple dimensions of its operations.
The first wave, which went live in August 2024, has already shown measurable benefits that extend beyond just cleaner data.
The scale of the implementation shows the project's reach:
One of the most immediate improvements has been in timing. The item creation and maintenance interface now runs every 30 minutes instead of twice a day.
Users have particularly appreciated the duplication features, which significantly speed up the process of creating similar products. Instead of starting from scratch each time, teams can now build on existing product definitions.
BIC achieved something many organizations struggle with: detailed documentation that people actually use.
All item creation and maintenance processes are now 100% documented from both business and IT perspectives.
Teams now have clearer roles and responsibilities supported by detailed RACI matrices, which outline who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed for every data management activity. That means no more confusion about who should do what when data issues arise.
“We now have more autonomy, fewer intermediaries, and greater efficiency in the data entry process.”Pierre Daurces, Project Director - GSC Data Governance, BIC Group
Stibo Systems Product Experience Data Cloud comes with business rules that automatically validate data as it's entered, catching errors before they propagate through downstream systems. It is a proactive way to reduce the manual cleanup work that otherwise takes up a lot of time.
Even though the company is still in the early phases, BIC is tracking several key performance indicators. And they look promising:
The success of Wave 1 has generated interest in expanding the approach to other data domains. Teams are asking about applying the same principles to customer data and certain financial data types.
The team is already scoping Wave 2, which will tackle components and raw materials, followed by geographic expansion to North America and Latin America.
Supported by its implementation partner Arhris, BIC is building a strong foundation for long-term data excellence. For an organization that measures success in decades rather than quarters, these early results suggest that BIC's investment in data governance will continue paying dividends as it scales the approach across its global operations.
BIC's journey shows us that even complex global organizations can transform its data foundations with the right approach.
What sets the company apart from many others is that it recognized that sustainable data governance isn't just about new systems. It’s about building lasting organizational capabilities.
By tackling people, processes and technology together, it has laid the perfect foundation for continued growth.
Thank you, Pierre, for sharing your valuable insights and for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at your data management journey.