Direct Supply, a company with a 40-year history of serving the senior living industry, has undergone a remarkable data transformation. What began as a small, virtual distributor has evolved into a leading provider of senior care products, building management solutions, design and construction services – and innovative technology.
The company set out on a journey to improve its data quality, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. It knew that accurate and accessible product information plays a critical role in achieving that.
Challenges: Data headaches and missed opportunities
Direct Supply's growth and expansion brought exciting new opportunities. It expanded its offerings beyond just products to include services like building management, design and technology solutions. This broadened its customer base and led to a rapid increase in the number of products offered.
But this growth also increased the company’s data challenges. Its homegrown product information management (PIM) system, while functional, began to show its limitations.
Slow and manual product onboarding
Adding new products to the homegrown system was a laborious process, taking an average of 18 days per product. This was a major bottleneck – it is difficult to keep up with a rapidly expanding catalog when it takes over two weeks to get one product into the system.
Direct Supply couldn’t quickly respond to market demands and frustrated its suppliers and internal sales resources who were eager to get its products in front of customers.
Incomplete and inconsistent data
With a product catalog that grew 30X in a short period of time, keeping up with the influx of product information was a challenge.
On average, only 31% of the required product attributes were filled in. This meant that crucial information – like dimensions, materials and technical specifications – was often missing. This led to inconsistencies, errors and ultimately poorer internal and external customer experiences.
Steva Curtis, Direct Supply’s Senior Manager, Data Governance and Merchandise, recalls: "I thought: ‘Wow, we are sending giant beds out to our customers with dimensions of 54 inches, but getting returns because their doors are 39. Why didn't somebody tell them? Why is that not part of the process?’"
Communication breakdowns
The company’s expansion meant more teams, more departments and more potential for things to fall through the cracks. Information silos emerged, and it wasn't always clear who was responsible for what data.
This led to communication breakdowns and prevented the smooth flow of information between those who had the product knowledge and those who needed it to serve customers effectively.
Missed opportunities
Incomplete and inaccurate product data had a direct impact on sales. Sellers couldn’t find the information they needed to answer customer questions and give accurate product details, which in turn led to delays, lost sales and frustrated customers.
Solution: Taking control of product data
Direct Supply recognized that its homegrown PIM system was holding it back. To cope with fast growth and give customers the best possible experience, the company needed a more complete and scalable solution. It chose Stibo Systems for its powerful and flexible product master data management (MDM) solution.
Implementing the MDM platform
Direct Supply replaced its outdated PIM system with Stibo Systems Platform to manage its product data.
This wasn't just a simple switch – it involved a careful analysis of the company’s needs, a thorough implementation process and a commitment to ongoing optimization. But the transition enabled Direct Supply to improve both data management, workflows and collaboration in one fell swoop.
Empowering data stewards
Acknowledging that data quality is everyone's responsibility, the company empowered its employees to become data stewards. It gave them the training and tools they needed, so they could update product details, add missing attributes and make sure the data was consistent.
This hands-on approach raised concerns initially. "Everybody was so scared,” said Curtis. “They said: ‘You just gave them access, like keys to the kingdom, to put the data right into the platform.’ Yes, I did. But it is going to fix their jobs long term, make their life better and easier, and they will have fewer [support] tickets."
Outcome: The impact of better data
Direct Supply's data transformation journey showed some impressive results that perfectly illustrate the power of effective data management to drive business value and improve customer experiences.
Faster product onboarding
With Stibo Systems Platform, Direct Supply became remarkably more efficient in its product onboarding. It slashed the time it took to add new products to the system by 94%.
This way, the company could quickly expand its product catalog, keeping pace with the growing business and ensuring it could offer its customers the latest products and solutions.
More complete data
With its focus on data stewards and strong data governance processes, Direct Supply made real improvements to the completeness of its product data. It increased attribute fill rates from 31% to an impressive 73%.
Now that customers had access to more detailed and accurate product information, they could make more informed purchasing decisions, which also made returns and errors far less likely.
"We went from a 31% attribute fill to 73%. I love that number. I really want it to be 85% and my team knows that – they're still trying..."Steva Curtis, Senior Manager, Data Governance and Merchandise, Direct Supply
Better customer experiences
Accurate, complete and always available product information translated into a better experience for Direct Supply's customers.
Sellers could quickly find the information they needed to answer customer questions, compare products and give personalized recommendations. Improving the customer experience, in turn, contributes to more satisfied, loyal customers and more sales.
Better collaboration and communication
The data transformation brought together different teams and made them responsible for data governance. This broke down silos and placed everybody on the same page in terms of data quality and why it is important. Communication and collaboration were given a real boost, workflows became more efficient and better decisions were made across the organization.
Innovation with AI
With a strong foundation of accurate and complete product data, Direct Supply was able to develop innovative AI tools to become even more efficient, cut down on manual work and give its operations a real boost.
"We are creating a web-scraping AI that will grab information from various websites for a product and compare them and validate them to at least four websites to say, ‘yep, those are all accurate.’ And then they will feed that back."Steva Curtis, Senior Manager, Data Governance and Merchandise, Direct Supply
Other innovative AI tools the company developed include:
- The "Concierge" bot, which gives sellers instant access to product information
- The "Subs AI" tool, which suggests substitute products during stockouts
Fewer support tickets
By providing better access to product information and AI-powered sales tools, Direct Supply saw a sharp reduction in support tickets. It achieved a 14% decrease in tickets related to product inquiries, freeing up its support team to focus on better service and solving more complex issues.
"At one point we were at a 15.8% reduction in tickets. That's a whole person I was able to reallocate to another team."Steva Curtis, Senior Manager, Data Governance and Merchandise, Direct Supply
As Direct Supply's data transformation journey illustrates perfectly: With a solid master data foundation for your product data, there is plenty of room to empower your employees and innovate.
