What business problem are we solving?
For an FMCG manufacturer, the moment of truth is onboarding a product into a retail chain. The item record must reach the retailer's system complete, valid, and in the required format. If the data arrives with errors, the retailer rejects the record, the listing is delayed, the shelf stays empty, and the supply team spends weeks on back-and-forth communication. According to industry estimates, manual data entry errors cost the CPG and retail industries $25-50 billion a year (Commport).
Riversand (a multi-domain MDM/PIM platform now part of Syndigo) solves exactly this task: collect master product data once, align it with the GS1 standard, and automatically synchronize it with retail chains through GDSN. Below is an open breakdown of what is technically possible with this tool in FMCG, based on public sources. This is an overview, not a KT.Team project.
What GDSN is and why FMCG needs it
GDSN (Global Data Synchronization Network) is a network of interconnected, GS1-certified data pools through which suppliers and retailers exchange product master data with continuous updates (GS1 US). The manufacturer publishes the item once to its data pool, and it reaches all retailers subscribed to that item. If the weight, composition, or packaging changes, the update is distributed automatically, with no spreadsheet email chain.
The key to the model is GS1 identifiers: GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) and GLN (Global Location Number). They act as the synchronization key between the supplier's system and the retailer's system, eliminating manual SKU matching.
The role of PIM/MDM in this setup
A data pool by itself is just transport. Data quality is created before publishing, in PIM/MDM. According to Riversand's own description, modern PIMs include connectors to data pools and keep several attribute models in one place at once: core attributes, target-market attributes for a specific market, and industry attributes (Riversand, Medium). This lets the company maintain its internal data structure while meeting the requirements of a specific pool.
The platform orchestrates the full publishing lifecycle: product submission, registration checks, retailer subscription checks, and compliance with industry regulatory requirements such as GUDID in healthcare and EU-1169 for food products in the EU. For FMCG, the latter is critical: nutrient, allergen, and ingredient data must be machine-readable and valid.
Certification confirms the maturity of the standard: Riversand's MDMCenter became the first multi-domain MDM/PIM solution certified for GDSN Major Release 3, with support for 300+ new attributes and 250+ new validation rules (PRWeb).
What is technically possible on the platform
As part of Syndigo, the Riversand data pool is the only GS1-certified GDSN data pool, combining publishing with full synchronization of data and prices (Syndigo). Publicly stated capabilities:
- Coverage network: connect with 7,500+ trading partners in 25 countries through a single subscription.
- Real-time validation: validation against 10,000+ data quality rules, based on GS1 standards and the specific requirements of each recipient.
- Unified platform: GDSN publishing and other syndication channels are managed from one place; configurable data views and spec sheets are created for each partner.
- Reporting: tools for monitoring record accuracy and compliance.
The KT.Team principle applies directly here: master data is maintained in the core PIM/MDM, while the business logic for each retailer lives in validation rules and target market profiles, not in forks or manual spreadsheets. International GS1/GDSN standards are used instead of homegrown exchange formats: read before you write.
What business result does this deliver?
The effect is measurable specifically in product onboarding for retail chains. According to industry data, GDSN:
- a subscription to the network gives 25% fewer data errors and 30% growth in operational efficiency (Commport);
- one company cut its "from record to shelf" time from 4-8 weeks down to 2 weeks and increased the number of new product launches by 50% without increasing headcount;
- Clean, standardized data reduces the share of rejected cards, which is typical in manual onboarding, where data entry error rates are 5-10%.
For FMCG, this translates into direct revenue: the new product reaches the shelf sooner, and the share of item records rejected by the retailer drops because errors are caught by validation on the supplier side instead of being sent back by the retailer days later.
Business process conclusion
Rebuild onboarding like this: the master product record is created once in PIM/MDM with the full set of GS1 attributes, undergoes automatic validation against GS1 rules and the specific retailer's requirements before sending, is published through GDSN using GTIN/GLN, and is then updated incrementally. Manual spreadsheet exchange for each retailer disappears as a category. Metrics worth putting on the dashboard: the share of records accepted by the retailer on the first attempt, and the median time from data readiness to listing. These two indicators show whether syndication has paid off.