MASTER DATA INTEGRATION : Managing product data exchange in an electronic commerce environment

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyse how data is exchanged between two specialized business branches: product information management and electronic commerce, putting emphasis on the former's point of view. As the topic explicitly concerns data storage, data flow and data processing, it touches the very heart of the definition of information technology. Gaining valuable knowledge and experience is expected in the process of writing and concluding research into this topic. The basis for the thesis stems from an internship at a company specializing in e- commerce, where the product information management team encounters issues described in this thesis. The company project that constitutes for the basis of such elaboration requires two different software suites to cooperate by means of data exchange integration. Particular topics of interest include what measures are taken to provide the webstore side with data prepared and transferred from the information management side, what are the possibilities for creating generic and reusable models and export format templates, lastly, how extensive the automation of otherwise human effort is possible in the data onboarding part. Conclusions reached are contained in a summary of integration architecture for one-way data transfer and an overview of at least partial reuse in similar projects.