WKS 1 - Catalogue and Product Hierarchy

Workshop on 06 May 2025 to cover Product Catalogue Structure and Product Attributes

Participants

Goal

The aim of this workshop is to understand the structure and organization of Valio's products in order to integrate them into the CPQ system. The goal is to identify product types, their hierarchy, their attributes, while discussing how users will select them in the quotation process. The aim is also to understand where this product information is maintained, whether it comes from the Price Manager or another system such as ERP.

Workshop materials

Main results

Product Hierarchy and Categorization

• The Product catalog to include product ID, product description, units of measure, and product level. 

• Product hierarchy breakdown:

  • 6000 fresh products,

  • 7500 industrial products,

  • 4000 frozen products,

  • 2000 alcohol products 

• Product categorization includes three hierarchy levels:

  • broad categories,

  • product groups,

  • and specific product types

• Product catalog to include a flag identifying whether product is owned or trading.

• The Users typically search for products by name or code rather than drilling down through product hierarchy, the system should provide the way to search for product in the quoting process.

• One product cannot be stored in multiple groups.

• A product can be supplied by only one supplier, and each supplier has a unique ID.

• Product Deleted Flag – planned to stop selling these products, but we might need them to be visible; for example a) if sales person manages to sells this product it might be brought back; b) a question of clearing the stock; c) other examples could be xmas products that are now deleted. We should make the products still visible/available but with alerts or highlighted in different colour. Specific actions depend on combination of fields Product Deleted_Flag, SALES_MAX_DATE and NEW_PRODUCT_TRACKING_START_DATE

  • If Deleted_Flag = YES and SALES_MAX_DATE is in the future (and close to Quote Date, an alert message should be displayed (or colour highlight) >> product is planned to be deleted but can still be sold

  • If Deleted_Flag = YES and SALES_MAX_DATE is in the past or before to Quote Date, the product shouldn’t be available or marked red >. product will not be available

  • If Deleted_Flag = NO flag and NEW_PRODUCT_TRACKING_START_DATE is in the future and close to Quote Date, the product has not yet been introduced but should be available for selection.·    

Product Information and Positioning

• Want to add product positioning information to product level in quote based on deal start date

• Product positioning is informative for sales team and useful for price management

• The team discussed product positioning labeling and whether sales reps can understand numeric codes

• Team explores adding product description table to improve positioning understanding

• proposion of exploring where additional product information should be maintained: master data, price manager, or CPQ

• The Team discussed labeling and description for product and supplier positioning.

• Templates will be maintained by system or business administrator in CPQ, not dynamically created

Product data source

• Product master data is already pulled from the ERP to be used in Zilliant Price Manager

• Other Product related data are locally managed in the Zilliant PM

• CPQ should sync and store relevant product master data from Zilliant PM

• Team decides first option for extra product information is to be implemented in price manager, then integrated with CPQ

Usage of Product Data in the Quotation process

• CPQ should be able to display product information in quote columns that can be hidden/shown by users.

• Implement visual indicators (red flag/color) for deleted or soon-to-be-deleted products.

• Need VAT percentage for product price calculation

• Local minimum sales price (MSP) data available for CPQ calculations

• Potential product selection methods in the quotation process include

  • using existing customer product lists and copying from previous agreements

  • templates for easily selecting relevant products for specific customer types like cafeteria or lunch

  • Excel file upload 

Product Selection and Templates

• Use current set of agreement-specific products, not last quotation's product list

• Two proposed ways to select products in quoting process: template selection and

• Back office to maintain product lists, sales team to select correct lists for different customer types

System Future Considerations

• No need to associate rich media or visual images with products initially

• Currently not planning to bring enriched product data into CPQ

• Plan to investigate using existing web store product pictures in CPQ

• Expecting unit of measure table to be added to inbound data

• Currently managing some product information manually (like labeling )due to SAP cutover limitations

Action list

• Provide BCS Team with access to Price Manager for reference 11 May 2025 OR send BCS Team the Price Manager worksheet downloads
• Valio Team to provide product list with product IDs for CPQ import
• Omar to preparing relevant inputs before meetings to estimate session coverage and complexity
• SKU UoM to be provided by Valio Team

Decisions

• As data related product is already stored in SAP or PM, No locally managed data should be managed in the CPQ System
• Use Price Manager as a source of product list to create product catalog in CPQ system

List of requirements

• Structure of product catalogue as detailed in the product master data

• Use product attributes as mentioned in Product Master Data

• Product information is pulled from PM Product Master Data Table

• Additional information should be pulled from PM such as Product Positionning and supplier product positionning into lookups in the CPQ

• SKU Unit of Measure should be pulled form PM to CPQ

• Highlight product row based on Deleted_Flag / Sales_Max_Date / New_Product_Tracking_Start_Date logic

Session recording

Related pages