Introduction
The GDSN Challenge PIM & MDM Teams Must Solve Today
PIM and MDM teams are responsible for managing trusted product information and ensuring it can be leveraged effectively across the enterprise. As organizations increasingly participate in the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), product data must be prepared, validated, governed, and synchronized across data pools, trading partners, and target markets.
While PIM and MDM platforms provide the foundation for managing enterprise product data, GDSN introduces additional requirements including GS1-compliant data structures, validation rules, data pool connectivity, and ongoing GS1 standards alignment. Organizations often attempt to extend their PIM and MDM platforms to support these requirements, but doing so can require significant implementation effort, specialized GDSN expertise, and ongoing maintenance.
The right GDSN solution should complement existing PIM and MDM investments rather than duplicate them. It should leverage trusted product data from systems of record, simplify mapping and transformation into GDSN-compliant data structures, provide native data validation and stewardship capabilities, and enable efficient synchronization through GDSN-certified data pools.
This eBook outlines the key capabilities PIM and MDM professionals should evaluate when selecting a GDSN data syndication solution and how Innovit helps organizations streamline product data synchronization while maximizing the value of existing product data investments.
Table of Contents
This eBook is structured to help you quickly navigate the key areas PIM & MDM professionals should evaluate in a GDSN data syndication solution. Each section focuses on a specific requirement, outlining what to look for, how Innovit delivers, and why it matters.
Use the table of contents to jump directly to the sections most relevant to your priorities or current challenges.
Executive Summary
System Integration & Data Aggregation
System Integration & Data Aggregation
Data Management and Approval Workflows
Ease of Use
Audit Trail & Traceability
Submission Control & Visibility
M2M Data Submission
Compliance Standards and System Validation
Implementation Speed & Cost Efficiency
Support and Ongoing Maintenance
Reliable Partner with Deep Healthcare Expertise
Conclusion
Executive Summary
For organizations that participate in the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), product data must be validated, governed, and synchronized efficiently across trading partners, data pools, and target markets. PIM and MDM teams play a critical role in providing the product data foundation, but extending enterprise systems to support GDSN-specific requirements often introduces additional complexity, specialized expertise, and ongoing maintenance burden.
Innovit helps organizations leverage existing product data and systems of record while simplifying GDSN data management, validation, governance, and synchronization via GDSN-certified data pools including atrify and NPC.
Leverage Existing Product Data
Innovit enables organizations to source product information from PIM, MDM, ERP, PLM, and other systems of record, eliminating duplicate data maintenance and reducing the effort required to support GDSN synchronization.
Extend Governance to GDSN Data
Product data should remain governed throughout its journey towards syndication via GDSN. Innovit provides data ownership, stewardship, approval workflows, and auditability to support trusted GDSN data synchronization with trading partners.
Improve GDSN Data Quality
Product information should be validated before publication via GDSN. Innovit provides data pool-specific data validation, monitoring, and stewardship capabilities to identify and resolve issues before synchronization with trading partners.
Gain Complete Data Lineage
Innovit’s Visual Rules Framework (VRF) provides transparency into source-to-GDSN data mappings and transformations, while audit trails, approval history, and publication tracking ensure complete traceability from source data through synchronization with trading partners.
Eliminate Custom Data Pool Connectivity
Native connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools eliminates the need for custom integrations while simplifying data upload, publication and synchronization processes.
Scale GDSN Data Syndication Globally
Innovit continuously maintains alignment with evolving GS1 standards and regional data pool requirements, enabling organizations to scale product data synchronization across products, trading partners, and markets.
Integration with PIM, MDM and Other Systems
Integration with PIM, MDM and Other Systems
Can You Synchronize Product Data Via GDSN Without Extending Your PIM or MDM Platform?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
PIM and MDM platforms play a critical role in managing trusted product information across the enterprise. However, publishing and synchronizing product data through GDSN introduces additional requirements, including GS1-compliant data structures, data pool connectivity, trading partner synchronization processes, and ongoing standards management.
While organizations can choose to extend their PIM or MDM platforms to support these requirements, doing so often requires significant implementation effort, specialized GDSN expertise, and ongoing maintenance as GS1 standards, data pool requirements, and trading partner expectations continue to evolve.
PIM and MDM teams need a GDSN solution that leverages existing product data and systems of record while simplifying the validation, publication, and synchronization of product data through a GDSN-certified data pool.
Key Concerns:
- Duplicating product data across multiple systems
- Building and maintaining GDSN-specific capabilities within PIM and MDM platforms
- Complex mapping and transformation of product data into GDSN requirements
- Custom integration effort across enterprise systems and data pools
PIM & MDM teams need a system that:
- Connects easily to existing PIM, MDM, ERP, PLM and other systems
- Simplifies mapping and transformation into GS1-compliant GDSN data structures
- Maintains alignment with evolving GS1 standards
- Reduces the need for custom GDSN development and maintenance
GDSN synchronization should build on existing product data foundations in PIM and MDM, not replace them.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit enables organizations to leverage trusted product data from existing systems of record while simplifying the validation, publication, and synchronization of product information through the GDSN network. This includes:
- Integration with PIM, MDM, ERP, PLM, and other source systems
- Native mapping and transformation of enterprise product data into the GDSN data dictionary
- Built-in validation against GS1 standards and data pool requirements
- Out-of-the-box connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools including atrify and NPC
- Automated publication and synchronization with trading partners
Data pool-specific data models, validation rules, and M2M connectivity for atrify, NPC, and other GDSN-certified data pools are provided out-of-the-box rather than custom built and maintained within PIM and MDM platforms.
1
Single source of truth
2
Reduced implementation effort
3
Lower maintenance burden
Product information can be prepared, validated and published via GDSN without creating additional data management responsibilities for PIM and MDM teams.
Why This Matters
Leveraging existing product data while minimizing custom GDSN development reduces implementation effort, accelerates product data synchronization, and allows PIM and MDM teams to remain focused on managing core enterprise product data.
Data Governance & Stewardship
Data Governance & Stewardship
Can You Maintain Governance as Product Data Extends to GDSN Data Syndication?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
PIM and MDM teams establish governance processes to ensure product information remains accurate, complete, and trusted throughout its lifecycle. However, product data often requires additional transformation, enrichment, and validation before it can be published through GDSN.
As enterprise product data is converted into GDSN-compliant data structures, organizations need governance processes that provide clear ownership, controlled review and approval workflows, and visibility into data quality before information is synchronized with trading partners.
Key Concerns:
- Limited visibility into GDSN-specific product data
- Unclear ownership of GDSN data prior to publication
- Manual review and approval of product data
- Inconsistent data validation and stewardship processes
PIM & MDM teams need a system that:
- Provides governance over GDSN-specific product data and publication activities
- Supports role-based ownership and accountability
- Enables controlled review, approval, and stewardship workflows
- Provides visibility into data quality and publication readiness
Product data should be governed not only at the source, but throughout its journey towards synchronization via GDSN.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit extends enterprise data governance processes to the preparation, validation, stewardship, and publication of GDSN product data. This includes:
- Role-based access controls for GDSN data management activities
- Defined ownership of GDSN-specific product attributes
- Configurable review and approval workflows
- Built-in data quality monitoring and stewardship dashboard
- Complete audit trails for data changes, approvals, and synchronization activity
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Consistent data governance
2
Improved data quality
3
Clear accountability
GDSN product data remains visible, controlled, and accountable throughout the data validation, stewardship, and publication process.
Why This Matters
Extending governance processes to GDSN-specific product data improves accountability, strengthens publication readiness, and helps ensure product information is synchronized accurately and consistently across trading partners.
GDSN Data Quality & Validation
GDSN Data Quality & Validation
Can You Ensure GDSN Data Quality Without Building Custom Business Rules and Stewardship Capabilities?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
PIM and MDM applications play a critical role in maintaining high-quality product information across the enterprise. However, ensuring product data is ready for GDSN synchronization requires additional data validation, stewardship, and monitoring capabilities that are specific to data pools, regions and trading partner requirements.
While organizations can build these capabilities directly within their PIM or MDM platforms, doing so often requires specialized GDSN expertise and ongoing maintenance as GS1 standards and business requirements evolve.
PIM and MDM teams need a GDSN solution that provides data pool-specific data validation, stewardship, and monitoring capabilities out-of-the-box while leveraging product data from existing systems of record.
Key Concerns:
- Building and maintaining data pool-specific data validation rules
- Managing evolving GS1 standards and trading partner requirements
- Limited visibility into product data quality and publication readiness
- Manual stewardship and remediation of data quality issues
PIM & MDM teams need a system that:
- Provides native data validations aligned with data pool and trading partner requirements
- Identifies publication readiness issues before synchronization
- Supports GDSN data stewardship, monitoring, and remediation workflows
- Maintains alignment with evolving GS1 standards and data pool updates
PIM and MDM systems manage enterprise product data quality. GDSN solutions should ensure that product data is validated, publication-ready, and aligned with the requirements of target GDSN data pools and trading partners.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit provides native data validation, stewardship, and monitoring capabilities for GDSN data pools including atrify and NPC. This includes:
- Data pool-specific data validation rules
- Automatic validation check prior to data upload and publication
- Data quality dashboard for each GDSN data pool
- Efficient issue identification and remediation
- Automated feedback of data validation reports to source systems
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Trusted product data quality
2
Reduced data
validation effort
3
Faster issue resolution
Data quality issues are identified and addressed before publication, helping reduce synchronization failures and improve trading partner trust.
Why This Matters
Purpose-built data validation, stewardship, and monitoring capabilities help ensure product data meets the requirements of target GDSN data pools and trading partners without requiring organizations to build and maintain custom controls within their PIM and MDM platforms.
Data Lineage with Full Traceability
Data Lineage with Full Traceability
Can You Trace Product Data from Source System to Trading Partner Synchronization?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
PIM and MDM teams are responsible for maintaining trusted product data and providing transparency into how that data is used throughout the enterprise. When product data is prepared for GDSN synchronization, organizations need visibility into how source attributes are mapped, transformed, validated, and published to trading partners.
Beyond understanding how GDSN records are created, teams also need visibility into ongoing data changes, approvals, publication activity, and synchronization history to support data stewardship and governance processes.
Key Concerns:
- Limited transparency into GDSN data mappings and transformations
- Difficulty tracing product data lineage from source to publication
- Lack of visibility into data changes, approvals, and synchronization activity
- Difficult root cause analysis for data quality and synchronization issues
PIM & MDM teams need a system that:
- Provides transparency into GDSN data mappings and transformations
- Maintains traceability from source data through synchronization
- Tracks GDSN data changes, approvals, and synchronization history
- Enables data quality monitoring and stewardship
Trusted product data requires complete visibility from source system to trading partner synchronization.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit provides end-to-end visibility into how enterprise product data is transformed, governed, and synchronized via GDSN. This includes:
- A Visual Rules Framework (VRF) for transparent mapping and transformation of source data into GDSN data model
- Traceability between source system records and published GDSN records
- Complete audit trails for data changes, approvals, and stewardship activities
- Data upload, publication and synchronization history across data pools and trading partners
- Data quality monitoring and stewardship dashboards
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Complete data lineage
2
Greater transparency
3
Faster issue resolution
Attribute mappings, transformations, approvals, and synchronization activities remain visible and traceable throughout the GDSN publication process.
Why This Matters
End-to-end visibility into product data lineage helps PIM and MDM teams identify issues faster, resolve synchronization problems more efficiently, and reduce the effort required to support ongoing GDSN operations.
Native GDSN Data Pool Connectivity
Native GDSN Data Pool Connectivity
Can You Synchronize Product Data Via GDSN Without Building Custom Connectivity?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
Organizations often consider building custom integrations between their PIM or MDM platforms and GDSN-certified data pools. While these integrations may appear straightforward initially, they often become increasingly difficult to maintain as data pool requirements evolve, new trading partners are onboarded, and product data synchronization processes become more complex.
Managing data pool connectivity, publication workflows, acknowledgement messages, and other data synchronization requirements can create an ongoing dependency on specialized GDSN expertise and custom-developed integrations.
PIM and MDM teams need a GDSN solution that provides native connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools while simplifying the synchronization of trusted product data across trading partner networks.
Key Concerns:
- Building and maintaining custom connectivity to GDSN data pools
- Supporting onboarding of new trading partners and target markets
- Managing evolving data pool requirements and GS1 standards
- Dependence on specialized GDSN expertise and institutional knowledge
PIM & MDM teams need a system that:
- Provides out-of-the-box connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools
- Simplifies data upload and publication to trading partners
- Supports expansion into new markets and trading partner networks
- Reduces dependency on specialized GDSN expertise
GDSN connectivity should accelerate product data synchronization, not create a long-term integration burden.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit provides native connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools, enabling organizations to upload and synchronize trusted product data without building and maintaining custom integrations. This includes:
- Out-of-the-box connectivity to leading GDSN-certified data pools including atrify and NPC
- Streamlined product data upload and publication workflows
- Monitoring of publication activity, synchronization status, and acknowledgement messages
- Support for onboarding new trading partners and target markets
- Continuous alignment with evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
Product data can be efficiently synchronized across trading partner networks while reducing the effort required to manage connectivity, publication processes, and ongoing GS1 standards changes.
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Simplified connectivity
2
Faster product synchronization
3
Reduced
maintenance effort
Data pool connectivity, standardized synchronization processes, and timely GDSN compliance updates are managed within the solution rather than through custom-built integrations.
Why This Matters
Native data pool connectivity reduces the effort required to support trading partner synchronization, helping organizations expand across markets and trading partner networks without creating ongoing integration and maintenance challenges.
Ongoing Standards Alignment, Scalability & Support
Ongoing Standards Alignment, Scalability & Support
Can Your GDSN Strategy Scale as Product Portfolios, Trading Partners, and GS1 Standards Evolve?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
GDSN synchronization is not a one-time implementation. Product portfolios expand, new trading partners are onboarded, data pools introduce new requirements, and GS1 standards continue to evolve. Organizations need a solution that can support these changes while maintaining efficient data validation, synchronization, and stewardship processes.
PIM and MDM teams should not be responsible for continuously updating GDSN data models, data validation rules, and data pool requirements as business and GS1 standards evolve.
Key Concerns:
- Maintaining GDSN data models and validation rules as standards evolve
- Supporting new data pools, trading partners, and target markets
- Scaling synchronization processes across growing product portfolios
- Increasing operational effort to support ongoing GDSN activities
PIM & MDM teams need a system that:
- Maintains alignment with evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
- Supports expansion across new trading partners and markets
- Scales with growing product portfolios and synchronization volumes
- Enables repeatable and efficient GDSN data maintenance and publication processes
GDSN data syndication should scale seamlessly with your product portfolio and market footprint, not increase your maintenance burden.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit helps organizations maintain alignment with evolving GS1 standards while scaling GDSN operations across growing product portfolios, trading partners, and markets. This includes:
- Ongoing GDSN maintenance updates to data pool connectors
- Continuous alignment with evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
- Support for onboarding new data pools, trading partners, and target markets
- Scalable data validation, publication and stewardship workflows
- Platform scalability to support growing product catalogs and synchronization volumes
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Continuous GS1standards alignment
2
Trusted product
synchronization
3
Reduced maintenance effort
GDSN data syndication processes remain current, scalable, and efficient as GS1 standards, trading partner requirements, and product portfolios continue to evolve.
Why This Matters
Organizations can support evolving GS1 standards, expanding trading partner networks, and growing product portfolios without burdening their core PIM and MDM initiatives.
Trusted Partner with Deep Healthcare Expertise
Trusted Partner with Deep Healthcare Expertise
Do You Have a Partner That Understands Both Product Data and GDSN Compliance?
What PIM & MDM Teams Need
Managing and governing enterprise product data requires specialized expertise, tools, and processes. GDSN introduces an additional layer of complexity, including GS1 standards, GDSN data models, data pool requirements, trading partner onboarding, and ongoing product data synchronization activities.
While organizations can develop this expertise internally, doing so often requires significant investment and creates an ongoing dependency on specialized resources and institutional knowledge.
PIM and MDM teams need a partner that understands both enterprise product data management and the unique requirements of GDSN-based product data synchronization.
Key Concerns:
- Limited GDSN and GS1 standards expertise
- Evolving data pool and trading partner requirements
- Dependence on specialized internal resources
- Long-term scalability and support
PIM & MDM teams need a solution partner that:
- Understands healthcare product data
- Brings deep expertise in GDSN, GS1 standards, PIM, and MDM
- Supports enterprise-scale product data synchronization initiatives
- Provides ongoing guidance and timely solutions as requirements evolve
Keeping pace with global GDSN requirements requires expertise as much as technology.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit combines deep healthcare product data expertise with extensive experience in GDSN, GS1 standards, PIM, and MDM to help organizations successfully manage and scale product data synchronization initiatives. This includes:
- 25+ years of healthcare and life sciences experience
- Proven expertise in GDSN, GS1 standards, PIM, and MDM
- Strategic partnerships with GS1, atrify, NPC, and other industry organizations
- Support for enterprise-scale product data synchronization initiatives
- Ongoing product updates, guidance, and customer support
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Reduced implementation risk
2
Trusted expertise
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Long-term partnership
Organizations benefit from proven healthcare, product data, and GDSN expertise that supports successful product synchronization initiatives and long-term scalability.
Why This Matters
Specialized expertise helps organizations navigate evolving GDSN requirements while reducing reliance on internal regulatory and technical resources.
Conclusion
Final Takeaways for PIM & MDM Professionals
Product data synchronization through GDSN requires more than connectivity to a certified data pool. Organizations must ensure product information is accurately mapped, validated, governed, and synchronized in a manner that supports evolving GS1 standards, trading partner requirements, and business growth.
PIM and MDM teams should be able to leverage existing systems of product record while avoiding the cost and complexity of building and maintaining GDSN-specific capabilities. Innovit helps organizations achieve this through native data pool connectors that provide out-of-the-box GDSN data models, data validation rules and certified connectivity as data pool and trading partner requirements evolve.
PIM and MDM Teams must be able to:
- Leverage existing PIM and MDM investments
- Simplify data mapping and transformation to GDSN data model
- Validate GDSN data natively against the latest data pool rules
- Scale product synchronization across trading partners, and target markets
- Maintain alignment with evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
Innovit helps organizations synchronize trusted product data via GDSN without increasing implementation complexity, operational effort, or long-term maintenance burden for PIM and MDM teams.
