October 25, 1999

Culture Change:
The Big Picture: P&G's SourceOne Global Data Warehouse

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee

Culture Change:

An Alternative Culture: Reflect.com's Unique Approach Come Together: The Idea Behind Collaboration Rooms Supply-Side Economics: P&G's Ultimate Supply System The Big Picture: P&G's SourceOne Global Data Warehouse

ey to helping Procter & Gamble achieve its Organization 2005 goal of making better business decisions faster is SourceOne, a global data warehouse that will let P&G's business units analyze information from many sources more easily. SourceOne users will see the effects that supply-chain issues have on profits and losses from their desktops, whether it's analyzing the performance of a single brand in a particular region or worldwide. "This will take us from an old method of building businesses globally" to building up products and brands globally, says Richard Buten, Procter & Gamble's director of data and information delivery for global business services.

SourceOne is based on database technology from Oracle and employs a network data mover, called E-Transport, based on technology from Tibco Software Inc. Users will have three options to access and analyze global data, depending on their job levels: SourceOne standard reports, SourceOne Analyzer, and Wise (worldwide information system for executives). SourceOne will help integrate data across data types (financial, market, supply chain, and shipments), functions, and geographic regions. In the past, company data were stored in functional and geographic silos that made sharing difficult.

Integral to this effort is Procter & Gamble's ongoing work developing consistent data standards across regions. That work already includes setting standards and specifications used to describe its raw materials. For example, in the past, the company had 68 specifications for water; it now has one. The company is developing data standards used to describe volumes of products, so a case of Tide sold in the United States means the same thing as a case of the detergent sold in Europe. The data standard effort is helping drive down the costs of materials, plant levels, shipping, and other manufacturing expenses by allowing better management of these supplies and ingredients. The savings are in the "multiple million dollars," Buten says.

That's because, for example, Procter & Gamble can get better volume discounts for ingredients from suppliers. P&G product groups globally would purchase an ingredient such as citric acid from many different suppliers without knowing it. Consolidating the number of citric acid suppliers lets the company get better volume discounts. The SourceOne database and its improved identification of products, suppliers, and ingredients is helping Procter & Gamble "create a culture of accuracy," Buten says.

The company has begun using this software for relationships with Latin American banks and for its data center in Europe, Buten says. SourceOne is scheduled to go into widespread use on Nov. 1.

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