SUCCESS STORIES

FleetPride Optimizes MDM for Operational Efficiency and Business Agility

FleetPride overcame performance issues and data governance gaps in its MDM implementation by re-architecting its solution and embracing agile principles.
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FleetPride is the largest independent distributor of parts and services for heavy-duty trucks and trailers in the U.S., with over 300 locations across 46 states. The company embarked on a journey to leverage the power of data to improve its operations and enhance customer experiences.

With a network of over 300 locations and an extensive product catalog, FleetPride realized master data management (MDM) was needed to achieve its business goals. With a focus on innovation and customer-centricity, FleetPride wanted to:

  • Simplify processes, reduce manual efforts and improve product data accuracy across the whole organization
  • Create a single, trusted view of critical product information to support strategic decision making
  • Improve customer experience with consistent, accurate product information and personalized service across all channels
  • Build a more agile business on a scalable and flexible data foundation

To achieve all this, FleetPride turned to Stibo Systems for its MDM platform, with Amplifi as its implementation partner.

Challenges: Overcoming legacy systems and data governance gaps

While FleetPride's initial implementation of STEP, Stibo Systems Platform, was operational, some issues surfaced that kept the company from getting the most value out of its product data.

Legacy system headaches

FleetPride's reliance on an old AS400 mainframe system, with its complicated code, made it tough to integrate data and slowed things down. Hidden connections within the system and a lack of clarity about how it all worked made even small data updates risky and time-consuming.

Communication barriers

FleetPride’s business and IT teams weren't working together effectively, and the teams didn't have a shared understanding of what the data was supposed to do. This made it harder to set up and manage the MDM system. This lack of coordination led to different priorities, conflicting demands, and delays in getting value from the data.

Data governance gaps

No one was clearly in charge of data, and there weren't standard ways of doing things. This led to inconsistent data quality, information silos and projects growing out of control.

Without strong protocols for managing data, it became hard to handle the growing volume and complexity of information, which made it difficult to make good decisions and work efficiently.

Performance bottlenecks

FleetPride's initial setup of the MDM system, while functional, experienced performance issues due to an overly complex data model, a large number of business rules and dependencies on its legacy AS400 system. This led to slowdowns and occasional instability, so things needed some further optimization.

“We ended up with 950 business rules. Anybody that's worked in STEP knows that that is catastrophic. It will slow the system down to a crawl.” - Todd Miller, Sr. Director of MDM, FleetPride

These challenges showed that FleetPride needed to rethink its approach to MDM and focus on improving data governance, making the system work better and getting different teams to work together more effectively.

Solution: Rebuilding the data foundation

Recognizing the need for a dramatic shift, FleetPride partnered with Stibo Systems and Amplifi, a data consultancy, to revamp its MDM implementation. The company wasn’t just patching holes: It was rebuilding the road for smoother, faster product information management.

Rebuilding from the ground up

FleetPride, with guidance from Amplifi, made the tough but necessary decision to re-architect its MDM solution. This meant rethinking the entire data model – how information was organized and connected within the Stibo Systems Platform.

“We changed the overall architecture, and we changed the communication language as well. So not only did we create a new system while keeping the old one running, we changed the language.” - Todd Miller, Sr. Director of MDM, FleetPride

Agile and iterative development

Instead of trying to fix everything at once, FleetPride took an agile approach. The company focused on quick wins. Tangible improvements showed the value of the project and kept everyone motivated.

FleetPride constantly used feedback from Amplifi and Stibo Systems to make sure the implementation stayed on track and was set up to meet ever-changing business needs.

Data governance

FleetPride knew that good data starts with good management. The company:

  • Established clear ownership of data – everybody needs to know what they are responsible for
  • Created standardized processes for keeping data consistent and of high quality

This involved cleaning up existing data, improving workflows and putting checks in place to prevent errors and keep data accurate.

Performance tune-up

To get the MDM system running smoothly, the team optimized its data models, making them leaner and more efficient. The company:

  • Trimmed down the number of business rules, reducing complexity and improving processing speed
  • Upgraded to the latest version of Stibo Systems Platform (SaaS v2), giving FleetPride access to new features and better performance

This resulted in significantly faster processing times, a more stable system and the ability to handle the increasing amount of data the company was generating.

Breaking down silos

FleetPride knew it had to work together as a team, so it strongly encouraged open communication and collaboration between its business and IT teams. The company held workshops to bring everyone together, provided regular project updates and really emphasized how the teams were all responsible for using data to make better decisions.

By breaking down barriers between departments and aligning everyone's goals, FleetPride ensured that the whole organization could benefit from the MDM solution.

Outcome: Dramatic performance gains and system stability

FleetPride's collaborative overhaul of its MDM system has led to some impressive results, proving that a solid data foundation can significantly improve your business.

Dramatic performance gains

By optimizing its data model and streamlining business rules, FleetPride achieved a remarkable increase in efficiency. Where once it could take 8 hours to process just 70 digital assets, the solution can now process 250 images in 3 minutes. This translates to more than a 90% reduction in processing time for FleetPride’s ever-growing library of product images.

A more stable system

The optimized system, coupled with the upgrade to SaaS v2, gave the company the stability and reliability it needed to support critical business operations. This resulted in:

  • Less downtime
  • Fewer disruptions
  • More confidence that the MDM system could handle day-to-day tasks

Ready to grow and adapt

With a re-architected foundation and a more agile approach, FleetPride is now better equipped to handle changes and growth. The company can:

  • Quickly onboard new product categories
  • Integrate data from acquisitions
  • Adapt to evolving market demands

This newfound agility allows it to stay ahead of the competition and seize new opportunities.

A more collaborative and data-driven culture

By truly emphasizing open communication and collaboration, FleetPride created a shared sense of ownership and responsibility among its teams for data quality. With this, data accuracy and consistency improved, which makes for better decision making across the organization.

Quietly transforming the business

Perhaps the most telling outcome was the "silent" go-live. When FleetPride finally switched over to the new and improved MDM system, it went so smoothly that no one in the business even noticed. That is what you can do with careful planning and execution.

Through MDM, FleetPride transformed its system from a source of frustration into a valuable asset. The company now has a data foundation that supports its business goals, improves efficiency and allows it to create exceptional customer experiences.

Company:

FleetPride

Industry:

Distributor of truck and trailer parts and service

HQ:

US

Solution:
Product Experience Data Cloud

Stibo Systems Platform via Microsoft Azure

Business Benefits

  • Faster processing of product information
  • More stable system
  • Ability to handle growing data volumes
  • Improved collaboration between teams