The single view of the customer the legacy ERP & distributor systems never had — the same account, mastered across SAP and every distributor / ERP system, resolved into one.
12 fragmented records across 6 source masters resolve to 5 golden records — a 58% duplicate rate collapsed on merge. Reconcile the 3 customers with conflicting payment terms to stop cash leakage and unlock the 5 cross-division accounts.
5 of 12 records resolved to golden · 7 duplicates collapsed · 3 term conflicts open
The same buyer sits on Net 30 in one brand and Net 60 in another across 3 accounts — direct cash leakage and credit risk a single master removes.
12 raw records reduce to 5 golden — finishing survivorship gives every team one account, one team, one set of terms.
5 golden records are already served across ≥2 segments — the resolved master is the cross-sell base no single ERP / distributor system could see alone.
Golden record is the join key for Customer 360 and Cash 360
Each segment and legacy system kept its own customer list, so the distributor network and Automotive OEMs each exist several times across the systems — with different names, IDs and even payment terms. Until they're resolved, no one can see the true relationship, total exposure, or cross-sell base. This is the golden record AI builds on top of the mesh.
The ★ master survives; the rest merge with a match confidence. Conflicting terms are flagged in red.
| Source system | Name as stored | ID | Terms | AR | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ★SAP S/4 (global master) | SKF Industrial Distribution — global | ACCT-10011 | Net 45 | SEK 3.6 bn | master |
| 0Distributor portal & EDI | Authorized distributor network (EMEA / Americas) | EDI-2201 | Net 45 | SEK 2.4 bn | 96% |
| 0Regional CRM (legacy) | Distributors — regional books | CRM-4411 | Net 60 | SEK 1.1 bn | 90% |
Conflict: payment terms differ across systems (Net 45 vs Net 60). Survivorship keeps the master's Net 45; the others are flagged for credit to reconcile — exactly the kind of leakage a single view removes.
Cross-segment signal: Industrial distributors (17,000 locations) is served across 3 SKF systems / segments. That's a relationship to coordinate (one account team, one set of terms) — and a cross-sell base already inside the house.
Fuzzy + LLM matching on name, address and tax ID links 'SKF Industrial Distribution — global', 'Authorized distributor network' and 'Distributors — regional books' to one entity — with a confidence score, not a blind merge.
Records above the confidence threshold collapse into one; borderline matches are queued for a human steward.
Survivorship rules pick the winning value field-by-field (most-recent, most-complete, or the governed source) to form the golden record.
Conflicts — different terms, duplicate AR — are surfaced to credit and sales, and total exposure is netted across the brands.
The golden record is the join key for everything else: it lets Customer 360 show one account, Cash 360 net one exposure, and the cross-sell engine see that a customer already buys from two segments — the same entity-resolution layer that powers the aftermarket and order/tender views.