MSC Industrial Direct Co  has selected the SAP NetWeaver(R) Master Data Management component (SAP NetWeaver MDM) to transform how product information is managed throughout its enterprise. More accurate, consistent product information will help and support its growth and cost savings goals. Wholesale distributors globally are using business solutions from SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) to automate and optimize business processes, reduce supply chain costs, increase cash-flow and facilitate collaboration with suppliers, customers and partners.

A midsize wholesale distribution company, MSC is a distributor of metalworking, maintenance, repair and operations supplies to industrial customers throughout the United States. With approximately 590,000 industrial products from 3,000 suppliers in its portfolio, MSC reaches over 357,000 customers through direct-mail catalogs, the Internet, direct sales and third-party e-commerce Web sites. MSC will rely on SAP software to provide a central data repository for product information, which will support its plans to increase productivity throughout the organization.

"SAP will help MSC address several key business challenges, including managing more than three million different stock-keeping units, or SKUs," said Charles Bonomo, vice president and CIO, MSC. "Multi-channel businesses such as ours need to store increasingly more information about each product SKU in order to manage the ever-growing complexities and needs of our diverse customer base."

As more of the company's suppliers provide product information electronically, MSC needs a more flexible way to load the data and better synchronize product information. In addition, it wants a new solution that provides simpler, more scalable user interfaces for data maintenance and searching. Finally, MSC needs to enhance data accuracy to meet the needs of the growing enterprise.

SAP NetWeaver MDM gives businesses like MSC an "out-of-the-box" solution that enables them to monitor, maintain, enhance and share product information across an enterprise. With SAP software, MSC will be able to consolidate its master data - this single, consistent view of all product data will help improve internal and external business processes. This will help enable MSC to focus on efficient new product introductions, cataloging and publishing with an eye toward increased efficiencies, lower costs and improved customer satisfaction.

"We are seeing strong demand from wholesale distributors for better control and visibility into the myriad of business challenges they must manage," said EJ Kenney, vice president Consumer and Distribution Sector, SAP Americas. "SAP for Wholesale Distribution offers companies a solution that provides business-level context and industry specific functionality to give customer insight, efficiency and cost control for today's market."