Apogee Drives Strategic Procurement with Profisee
Implementing MDM to optimize procurement costs
Apogee Enterprises, Inc.
Headquarters: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Industry: Building Materials
Customer: Since 2022
Data Types Mastered with Profisee
- Procurement Data
Apogee offers architectural products and services and is best known for its architectural glass and aluminum products for a wide range of non-residential buildings. With over 70 years in business — and a collection of industry-leading brands — Apogee is a leader in providing building solutions like aluminum framing systems, architectural glass, building façade services and value-added glass and acrylic products across the US and Canada.
Apogee consisted of eight different brands — each a business unit unto itself with its own processes and data systems — until the Apogee board determined it would be more cost-effective to take a strategic approach to procurement through a centralized process.
Apogee started by establishing a central procurement organization to purchase supplies and materials across the enterprise and began taking stock of the different ERP systems in use across its business units. At the same time, it consolidated three business units into one for better data accessibility.
Both the central procurement organization and the newly consolidated business unit needed to see the big picture of past and future demand and vendor performance before they could be effective, but dealing with distinct and separate systems made this a challenge. This issue would need to be addressed before Apogee could really take a strategic approach to procurement.
Before consolidating each individual data silo from the separate business units, Apogee determined they would have to consolidate their data first — identifying similarities and differences between records in different ERP systems and then harmonizing and standardizing those records in a master data management (MDM) system.
Taking this approach is helping Apogee speed up the timeline towards enabling strategic procurement, allowing the company to start saving money on supplies while the central procurement organization works toward its eventual goal of data consolidation.
“What we’re finding is as we are using Profisee, our business is starting to understand the amount of work that we have due to data inconsistencies. And the only way that we could get the business to really understand that is by showing it to them. And Profisee is enabling us to show them the amount of information we have where, lo and behold, we have suppliers that have been used across many of our different businesses, but they have different information”
Director of Data Strategy & Governance at Apogee
THE SOLUTION
To break down these data silos and create a single source of truth for downstream and analytical systems, Apogee uses the Profisee MDM platform.
While Apogee decided to start its centralization project with procurement data from its ERP systems, the company’s data leaders knew they would eventually want to do the same with other data domains from other business systems. Beyond needing a multi-domain MDM solution, Apogee also wanted a platform they could adapt to their business processes and systems, that integrated seamlessly with Microsoft tools and that had strong analytical MDM capabilities.
Matching these criteria and coming highly recommended from the consulting firm Apogee engaged to assist with this project, Profisee emerged as the clear choice for Apogee to break down its data silos and start implementing MDM across the enterprise.
THE WINS
By using Profisee MDM, Apogee can begin the process of standardizing and harmonizing its data across multiple ERP systems and identify matching vendors among business units. This helps business users better understand the value of the company’s data and sets Apogee on the path of optimizing its procurement relationships to benefit the enterprise.
“As I reflect back on the journey that we’ve had with MDM, and I see how far we’ve come in the engagement of the business and how much better the business can relate to data now, I am so incredibly excited about continuing this journey with them. And seeing how the changes we’re bringing drive true business value as [Apogee] continues to transform the businesses and the journey that we’re on. And being able to connect our MDM story to those business wins is one of the most rewarding career experiences for a data professional.”
Director of Data Strategy & Governance at Apogee
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