Siemens is one of the world’s largest industrial technology companies, operating across automation, software, electrification and infrastructure. It serves a wide range of global industries through advanced technologies and extensive product portfolios.
Within the group, Siemens Digital Industries focuses on industrial automation and software that help manufacturers design, produce and optimize complex systems. Here, product data plays a critical role in helping partners, distributors and customers worldwide discover, evaluate and implement complex industrial solutions.
To meet growing expectations for speed, accuracy and standardization, Siemens transformed how it manages and delivers product information at a global scale.
Challenges
Scaling product data for a global, multi-division organization
Siemens operates across multiple business units, serving partners and customers with broad product portfolios. Within Digital Industries alone, it supports software, automation and motion technologies for regulated sectors. Other divisions add further products, markets and delivery demands. As a result, product data must serve multiple audiences, regions and use cases simultaneously.
As the business grew, product data became harder to manage and slower to deliver. Millions of SKUs were supported by large volumes of related assets, including images, certificates and technical documentation. These were spread across platforms built for internal use, not external distribution. The result was fragmented data that was difficult to keep consistent and complete for the market.
Partner expectations were rising at the same time. Distributors increasingly required standardized, machine-readable product data they could integrate directly into their own platforms. They also expected real-time, API-based access rather than periodic file deliveries. File-based processes could not keep pace, particularly across regions and languages.
Together, these pressures highlighted the need to evolve Siemens’ existing approach to meet new scale and market expectations. Catalog size constraints led to partial or outdated data, while slow updates increased inconsistency between channels. This put partner satisfaction, data reliability and time to market at risk, just as product data became a critical driver of sales performance and customer experience.
“As our business expanded, we needed a platform that could scale and translate our internal data into industry standards the market understood.” – Johannes Pusch, IT & Project Services Lead, Siemens AG
In summary, Siemens faced the following challenges:
- Growing volume and complexity of product and asset data
- Fragmented source systems impacting technical, commercial and relational data
- Limited ability to deliver standardized data externally
- File-based processes constrained speed and scalability
- Increasing demand for real-time, API-based access
Solution
Delivering industry-standardized product data to distributors at global scale
In 2018, Siemens selected the Stibo Systems Platform to modernize how it classifies and delivers product data to distributors worldwide. The objective was to establish a central governance hub that could harmonize product data and align it with external industry classification standards at scale.
Siemens has established a centralized product data hub that enables consistent validation, enrichment, and external delivery of product information, while continuing to work across multiple internal source systems. Siemens now delivers standardized, machine-readable product data for up to 1 million products. Product models are aligned with industry reference standards such as ECLASS, ECLASS Advanced, ETIM, ETIM xChange, and BMEcat, ensuring distributors and customers receive consistent, market-ready information across regions and languages. Real-time, API-driven access has replaced file-based exchanges, enabling faster updates and a more reliable, responsive distributor experience.
Enabling continuous, scalable product data delivery across regions and channels
The transformation was iterative. Siemens initially delivered product data through weekly or biweekly file transfers before shifting to real-time, API-driven updates for true scalability.
The platform now supports continuous data streaming, enabling faster, more reliable delivery. For example, during a fiscal-year change and organizational restructuring, Siemens updated 5 million SKUs, including active, service and phased-out products. It processed up to 100,000 messages per hour and completed the resupply within just two days.
Catalogs have grown from 400,000 to 1 million SKUs (8–10GB) per export, allowing complete, timely information to reach partners and customers in roughly eight hours. This scalable approach ensures Siemens can deliver accurate, up-to-date product data across regions and languages, supporting daily product introductions.
Making product data accessible wherever partners need it
Siemens uses the Stibo Systems Platform to deliver product data across multiple channels, ensuring partners and customers have easy access to accurate, up-to-date information. From downloadable catalogs and self-service portals to direct API connections with distributors, the platform makes product data accessible wherever and whenever it’s needed.
These channels support around 70 regions in 12 languages, handling roughly 42 million product data instances per year across different delivery models. By centralizing delivery and streamlining updates, Siemens ensures customers and partners receive consistent, complete, and timely product information, helping distributors list, quote and sell with greater confidence and efficiency.
Ensuring rich, reliable product content for every user
Managing digital assets at a global scale requires Siemens to ensure that images, certificates, schematics, and videos remain accurate, accessible, and up to date across channels and partner systems. Siemens remains accountable for their accuracy and accessibility, because broken or outdated links can directly undermine customer trust and disrupt partner workflows.
To ensure reliability, Siemens now validates hundreds of millions of asset links, confirming accessibility and accuracy at scale. More advanced routines verify that content, such as hosted videos or documents, is still current and correct. This rigorous approach guarantees partners and customers receive complete, trustworthy product data, improving their ability to evaluate, market and sell Siemens products efficiently.
“We can now provide all demanded asset references per product, enhancing the richness and reliability of our catalogs.” – Johannes Pusch, IT & Project Services Lead, Siemens AG
Giving customers transparent access to sustainability information
Sustainability data is becoming increasingly important for Siemens’ partners and customers, who need clear, reliable information on environmental impact and compliance. As part of its ongoing work to enhance product data, Siemens is integrating Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) into its product information, linking certificates and making the data machine-readable where possible.
This approach is designed to give distributors and customers access to standardized, accurate sustainability information directly. In turn, this will help them make informed decisions and meet regulatory or corporate requirements. By progressively structuring sustainability data for automated exchange, Siemens is laying the groundwork for consistent availability across regions, channels and product lines, turning complex environmental data into a practical, actionable resource for the market.
“This is not just about compliance; it’s about giving our customers transparent digital access to sustainability data they can actually use.” – Johannes Pusch, IT & Project Services Lead, Siemens AG
Migrating to a cloud platform built for scale and performance
In December 2024, Siemens migrated its product data operations to the Stibo Systems Platform on Microsoft Azure as part of its ongoing infrastructure modernization strategy. It moved more than 6.7 terabytes of data while optimizing infrastructure for performance and scalability. The migration enabled Siemens to support larger catalogs of up to 1 million SKUs and to achieve faster delivery cycles, ensuring that partners and customers receive complete, up-to-date product information.
Performance improvements were measurable. Catalog generation times dropped from 90 minutes to just 50 minutes, even with increased data volumes, while the platform’s resilience and reliability improved. This enables Siemens to maintain high-quality product data delivery at scale, supporting faster time to market worldwide.
Turning better product data into real business results
Siemens’ product data transformation has significantly strengthened commercial performance and partner engagement.
Key business impacts include:
- Faster, more reliable delivery of industry-standard product data worldwide
- Scalable product data operations that enable richer digital catalogs across products and regions
- Trusted, high-quality product and sustainability data aligned to global standards
- Improved distributor and customer experience through accurate, multilingual data
- Increased sales potential and global reach through standardized, high-quality product information
“By investing in a stable and reliable master data management platform, we have increased our sales potential and built a solid foundation for scalable product operations.” – Johannes Pusch, IT & Project Services Lead, Siemens AG
Learn more about:
Summary
Delivering faster, richer and more reliable product data
With the Stibo Systems Platform, Siemens delivers product data faster, more reliably and at a scale that meets global demand. Standardized, real-time updates and rich, consistent content strengthen distributor-led sales, improve customer trust and accelerate time to market. At the same time, machine-readable sustainability data and global consistency ensure Siemens stays ahead of evolving market expectations.
“We are faster than we have ever been, and we now have a level of flexibility we simply didn’t have before.” – Johannes Pusch, IT & Project Services Lead, Siemens AG
