Whitepaper · Distribution · Informatica Customer 360
Product, supplier and ship-to, mastered once and sold everywhere.
Part and item harmonization, manufacturer and supplier masters, and B2B customer accounts with their ship-to locations.
01 · Executive summary
The short version
- PDI delivers 18 distribution use cases on Informatica Customer 360 with its accelerators. The use cases are drawn from 6 anonymized account profiles.
- Each use case arrives pre-mapped: the 13 entities it can land on, the 8 source-system families it draws from, and the match and data-quality rules for those entities.
- Design decisions are captured in adaptive-card workshops: 132 cards across 10 data-model workshops, so every answer becomes a configuration input.
- The entry point is a $50,000 fixed-fee MDM implementation for any two source systems. Informatica licensing is procured separately.
02 · The master-data problem
Where the records disagree.
A distributor's margin depends on three records that rarely agree: the item as the manufacturer describes it, the item as the catalog sells it, and the account with the ship-to that receives it. Rebates, contract pricing and e-commerce search each amplify small differences between those records.
The accelerator models the three records together: Item, Product and Category for parts and catalogs, Supplier for the manufacturer of record, and Organization with Location for accounts and ship-tos. The serialized machine install base is modeled as well, so equipment sold through the channel stays tied to the account that owns it.
03 · What is prepackaged for this industry
The accelerator, before day one.
Data model in play
- Organization12 use cases
- Person10 use cases
- Category6 use cases
- Item6 use cases
- Product6 use cases
- Supplier4 use cases
- Location1 use case
- Material1 use case
- Agreement1 use case
- Medicinal Product1 use case
- +3 morePackaged Medicinal Product, Pharmaceutical Product, Asset
Source-to-target mappings
- Salesforce Sales and Service CloudColumn-level mappings with page-level evidence
- SAP ECC / S/4HANAColumn-level mappings with page-level evidence
- NCES school dataElement-level mappings, confirmed per implementation
- 5 enterprise system familiesERP item / customer / vendor master, E-commerce / web accounts, PIM, CRM, Contract / bid / co-op pricing systems. Mapped at attribute-family level; column names confirmed from the data dictionary.
Rules and workshops
- 14 match rulesIn the library for the entity types in play, ranked from exact keys to fuzzy name-and-address matching.
- 35 standardization rulesAcross 23 attribute families: names, addresses, phones, emails, identifiers and more.
- 132 adaptive cards10 data-model workshops, from party sub-types to stewardship.
04 · Use-case accelerator map
18 patterns, each with a landing.
Every pattern below is delivered on Informatica Customer 360 with PDI's accelerators. Patterns are anonymized from account profiles; a count such as 3× means the pattern recurs across profiles. Source systems are shown as system families.
| Use case pattern | Typical source systems | Lands on |
|---|---|---|
| Contract & Co-op Pricing MDM | Contract / bid / co-op pricing systems, ERP item / customer / vendor master | Organization, Agreement |
| Customer & Dealer 360 | CRM, ERP item / customer / vendor master | Person, Organization |
| Customer 360 (B2B accounts & ship-tos) | Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud, CRM, ERP item / customer / vendor master, E-commerce / web accounts | Person, Organization, Location |
| Customer 360 (E&P, midstream, industrial accounts) | Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud, CRM, SAP ECC / S/4HANA, ERP item / customer / vendor master | Person, Organization |
| Customer 360 (service agents, dealers, restaurants) | Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud, CRM, E-commerce / web accounts, ERP item / customer / vendor master | Person, Organization |
| Institution & Educator 360 (district/school/teacher) | ERP item / customer / vendor master, E-commerce / web accounts, Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud, NCES school data | Hierarchy relationships, Organization, Person |
| Manufacturer / Supplier MDM | ERP item / customer / vendor master | Supplier, Organization, Person |
| National Account Customer MDM | Confirmed in discovery | Organization, Person |
| Parts MDM | ERP item / customer / vendor master | Category, Item, Product |
| Product / Item Catalog MDM across member distributors | E-commerce / web accounts | Category, Item, Product, Organization |
| Product / Material MDM (pipe, valves, fittings harmonization) | SAP ECC / S/4HANA, ERP item / customer / vendor master, PIM, E-commerce / web accounts | Category, Item, Product, Material |
| Product / PIM MDM | PIM, ERP item / customer / vendor master | Category, Item, Product |
| Product / Part MDM (OEM part numbers, model fitment) | ERP item / customer / vendor master, PIM, E-commerce / web accounts | Category, Item, Product |
| Product / Part MDM (OEM part numbers, surplus & obsolete) | ERP item / customer / vendor master, PIM, E-commerce / web accounts | Category, Item, Product |
| Serialized Machine Install Base MDM | Confirmed in discovery | Medicinal Product, Packaged Medicinal Product, Pharmaceutical Product, Asset |
| Supplier & Manufacturer MDM | ERP item / customer / vendor master | Supplier, Organization, Person |
| Supplier / Manufacturer & Rebate MDM | Contract / bid / co-op pricing systems | Supplier, Organization, Person |
| Supplier MDM | SAP ECC / S/4HANA, ERP item / customer / vendor master | Supplier, Organization, Person |
05 · How it deploys
Five steps, each already built.
The accelerator replaces blank-page design with decisions, a drawn model and pre-built mappings.
- Decide
Adaptive-card workshops capture the design. 10 data-model workshops, 132 cards. Each card asks one decision with two to four mutually exclusive options, and each answer is logged as a configuration input.
- Model
The distribution model is already drawn: 13 entities, with their relationships and hierarchies, selected for the use cases in this paper.
- Map
The two sources arrive pre-mapped. 364 column-level mappings cover NPPES, MedPro, GLEIF, SAP, Salesforce and GS1, and 60 source-system families are catalogued in all.
- Match
Match, merge and quality rules start from a library: 20 match models with 65 rules, and 35 standardization rules across 23 attribute families.
- Prove
Tenant checks and acceptance. 80 documentation discrepancies are confirmed on the tenant before configuration is generated, and the acceptance measures agreed in discovery are tested.
This Customer 360 industry entry offer is distinct from the separately scoped Informatica MDM MVP.
06 · The two-source entry point
How a $50K MVP lands here.
A fixed-fee MDM implementation for two source systems. The model, the mappings, the match and data-quality rules and the workshop cards exist before the engagement starts.
- Starting pattern
- Product / part harmonization
- Source system 1
- ERP (e.g., SAP)
- Source system 2
- PIM or e-commerce catalog
- Lands on
- Item, Product and Category from the product model; Supplier for the manufacturer of record
- What it proves
- One governed item record with manufacturer part numbers reconciled across the ERP and the selling catalog.
The $50,000 covers PDI professional services only. Informatica licensing is procured separately through Informatica. Additional sources, domains or scope changes after configuration begins are estimated separately. The example sources are illustrative; any two source systems qualify, and the pair is confirmed in discovery.
07 · Confirmed in discovery
What each engagement settles first.
- The two source systems. 5 enterprise system families appear in this industry. Their column names are confirmed from the customer's data dictionary before mappings are finalized.
- The tenant. 80 documentation discrepancies across the model are confirmed on the customer's tenant before configuration is generated, including field-group internal IDs that are read from tenant metadata.
- Package order. Industry packages are imported before any customization, because importing an industry package overwrites existing Customer 360 customization.
- Acceptance. Acceptance measures are agreed in discovery, before the fee is committed.
08 · Method
How this paper was built.
The use-case map, data model, mappings and rules come from PDI's accelerator, built on Informatica's published Customer 360 and Industry 360 documentation (April and July 2026 releases) and extended for each industry. Use cases are anonymized from 124 account profiles; no account is named. Adaptive-card counts come from PDI's Customer 360 data-model workshop set. The paper states no project durations or outcome figures; those are set as acceptance measures in discovery.