Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Rubbermaid division chooses A2i, ends up with SAP
Executives in one of Newell Rubbermaid Inc.'s commercial products divisions took months to convince corporate headquarters that Los Angeles-based A2i Inc.'s xCat product management tool would help synchronize thousands of products and in turn save the company money.
SAP has many customers of SAP MDM now but most of the established customer references are still from the legacy A2i acquisition.
Andrew White,
research director, Gartner Inc.
Executives at headquarters weren't ready to steer away from its own proprietary software. But after much wrangling, the division was given the nod for its project, which went live in 2003. No one at the division knew that SAP would eventually buy the product, said Joe DeZarn, who inherited the project in his role as director of marketing and communications at Rubbermaid Commercial Products.
'SAP was not at all in the picture,' said DeZarn, who serves as master data coordinator in the division. 'This xCat database looked far more robust and flexible and had a far better long term future than the product corporate was promoting.'"
SAP has many customers of SAP MDM now but most of the established customer references are still from the legacy A2i acquisition.
Andrew White,
research director, Gartner Inc.
Executives at headquarters weren't ready to steer away from its own proprietary software. But after much wrangling, the division was given the nod for its project, which went live in 2003. No one at the division knew that SAP would eventually buy the product, said Joe DeZarn, who inherited the project in his role as director of marketing and communications at Rubbermaid Commercial Products.
'SAP was not at all in the picture,' said DeZarn, who serves as master data coordinator in the division. 'This xCat database looked far more robust and flexible and had a far better long term future than the product corporate was promoting.'"
