Introduction
The GDSN Challenge Supply Chain Teams Must Solve Today
Supply Chain teams play a critical role in ensuring accurate product and packaging data is shared efficiently with distributors, GPOs, healthcare providers, and other trading partners. As organizations expand their participation in the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), the need for timely, accurate, and synchronized product information becomes increasingly important.
However, GDSN participation introduces additional challenges beyond managing product data internally. Product information must be aggregated from multiple systems, validated against GS1 and data pool specifications, synchronized across trading partner networks, and maintained as standards and business requirements evolve.
The right GDSN solution should simplify these activities without creating additional operational burden for Supply Chain teams. It should leverage existing product data, streamline publication and synchronization processes, provide visibility into data quality and synchronization status, and support growth across products, trading partners, and markets.
This eBook outlines the key capabilities Supply Chain professionals should evaluate when selecting a GDSN data syndication solution and how Innovit helps organizations simplify product data synchronization while improving operational efficiency and scalability.
Table of Contents
This eBook is structured to help you quickly navigate the key areas Supply Chain should evaluate in a GDSN data syndication solution. Each section focuses on a specific capability, 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
As organizations expand product portfolios and trading partner networks, Supply Chain teams must ensure product information is synchronized accurately and efficiently via GDSN. Innovit helps organizations leverage existing product data, streamline GDSN operations, and reduce the manual effort required to prepare, validate, upload, and publish product information.
Leverage Existing Product Data
Innovit integrates with ERP, PIM, MDM, PLM, quality, and other enterprise systems, allowing organizations to reuse trusted product information without creating duplicate data management processes.
Streamline Data Management and Approvals
Supply Chain teams can efficiently maintain, review, and approve product information through purpose-built workflows that provide clear ownership, accountability, and visibility into GDSN processes.
Simplify User Adoption
Intuitive interfaces, guided workflows, and embedded knowledgebase resources enable teams to manage product information quickly and consistently with minimal training requirements.
Improve GDSN Data Quality and Reliability
Product information is validated early and continuously against data pool requirements, helping teams identify and resolve issues before they impact synchronization activities.
Gain Full Visibility and Traceability
Comprehensive audit trails and synchronization history provide visibility into data changes, approvals, publications, and acknowledgements to support accountability and faster issue resolution.
Accelerate Data Publication and Synchronization
Native connectivity to leading GDSN-certified data pools including atrify and NPC, simplifies synchronization activities and helps ensure product information flows efficiently to trading partners.
Scale with Business Growth
Innovit supports expanding product portfolios, trading partner networks, and multiple data pool integrations in a single platform as your business grows.
Stay Current with Confidence
Timely product updates, responsive support, and ongoing alignment with GS1 standards and data pool requirements help organizations maintain reliable GDSN operations.
System Integration & Data Aggregation
System Integration & Data Aggregation
Can You Aggregate Product Data Without Recreating It?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain teams already manage product information across multiple enterprise systems. Product attributes required for GDSN synchronization often exist within ERP, PIM, MDM, PLM, quality, and other operational systems. Organizations should not be required to recreate, duplicate, or manually maintain this information solely to support product data synchronization through GDSN.
The priority is to efficiently leverage existing product data sources while simplifying the preparation, validation, and synchronization of product data via GDSN.
Key Concerns:
- Duplicate product data maintenance across multiple systems
- Inconsistent product information across source systems
- Manual effort to consolidate product data for GDSN publication
- Limited visibility into product information required for synchronization
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Integrates with existing product data systems
- Leverages product information from systems of record
- Automates data aggregation, mapping, and transformation
- Minimizes disruption to existing operational processes
The goal is not to manage more product data. It is to make better use of the product data you already have.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit enables organizations to leverage existing product data sources while simplifying the preparation, validation and synchronization of product data via GDSN. This includes:
- Integration with ERP, PIM, MDM, PLM, quality, and other enterprise systems
- Automated aggregation of product data from multiple sources
- Native mapping and transformation into GS1-compliant GDSN data structures
- Consolidated view of product information required for GDSN publication
- Automated ingestion of product data updates from source systems
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Reduced manual effort
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Improved data consistency
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Faster product synchronization
Product information can be aggregated, transformed, and prepared for GDSN synchronization without creating additional data management responsibilities for Supply Chain teams.
Why This Matters
Leveraging existing product data sources reduces duplicate maintenance, improves operational efficiency, and enables Supply Chain teams to focus on their core business responsibilities.
Data Management and Approval Workflows
Data Management and Approval Workflows
Can Supply Chain Teams Efficiently Prepare and Approve Product Data for GDSN Synchronization?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain teams are often responsible for contributing, reviewing, and approving product and packaging information that will be synchronized with trading partners via GDSN. To support efficient synchronization, product information must pass through data validation, review, and approval processes. These processes should be streamlined and intuitive. Supply Chain teams need clear visibility into their responsibilities, outstanding tasks, and product data readiness without navigating complex workflows or unnecessary approval steps.
Key Concerns:
- Unclear ownership of product and packaging information
- Manual and inefficient review processes
- Delays in product data approvals
- Limited visibility into GDSN publication readiness
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Defines clear ownership and accountability
- Simplifies review and approval activities
- Provides visibility into product data readiness
- Reduces delays in data upload and synchronization processes
Product information should move efficiently from review to synchronization, and not get stuck in workflow bottlenecks.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit simplifies GDSN data management and approval workflows so Supply Chain can focus on the tasks they own. This includes:
- Role-based ownership for product and packaging information
- Configurable review and approval stage gates
- Real-time GDSN data validation to support approvals
- Centralized management of workflow tasks and notifications
- Data quality and stewardship dashboards
By streamlining review and approval processes for supply chain teams, Innovit helps ensure product information is validated, approved, and ready for synchronization without creating unnecessary administrative burden.
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Clear data ownership
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Streamlined approvals
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Reduced friction
Innovit provides best-practice GDSN data management and approval workflows to minimize user burden while ensuring product and packaging information is ready for synchronization.
Why This Matters
Streamlined review and approval processes help accelerate product synchronization, improve accountability, and ensure product information reaches trading partners without unnecessary delays.
Ease of Use
Ease of Use
Can Teams Contribute to GDSN Data Without Friction?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain teams must contribute to product and packaging hierarchy data but cannot spend time learning complex systems. The system must be intuitive, efficient, and easy to adopt to ensure consistent usage across teams.
Key Concerns:
- Complex user interfaces
- High training requirements
- Time-consuming data management activities
- Inconsistent system adoption
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Provides intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces
- Requires minimal training and onboarding
- Enables efficient completion of day-to-day GDSN activities
- Supports consistent adoption across functional teams
Ease of use is not just about convenience. It is essential to ensuring that Supply Chain can contribute accurately, efficiently, and consistently without disrupting operations.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit provides optimized user experiences designed specifically for the day-to-day activities required to prepare, validate, approve, and synchronize product information via GDSN. This includes:
- Modern UI/UX optimized for GDSN data management
- Configurable web forms for simplified data entry
- Native data validation and bulk edit capabilities
- On-screen tooltips and contextual explanations
- Embedded knowledge center for user support
With these capabilities, users can complete tasks quickly and reliably without reliance on extensive training.
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Easier adoption
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Increased productivity
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Fewer errors
Innovit’s system is intuitive and easy to use. Tasks are completed quickly and consistently without extensive training.
Why This Matters
Intuitive user experiences help accelerate adoption, improve productivity, and reduce delays in product data preparation, approval, and synchronization activities.
Data Integrity & Reliability
Data Integrity & Reliability
Can You Trust Your Product Data for Synchronization with Trading Partners?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain must ensure the product data they own complies with data pool and trading partner requirements to ensure seamless data synchronization via GDSN. Data issues discovered late create delays and rework. Product data must be validated early and consistently to avoid last-minute disruptions.
Key Concerns:
- Late discovery of data issues
- Manual and inefficient data corrections
- Operational risk
- Delayed product launches
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Validates GDSN data early and consistently
- Prevents invalid product data from synchronization
- Provides clear error identification
- Enables fast and efficient error remediation
Supply Chain needs GDSN data to be correct early before it becomes a product launch and operational risk.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit enforces GDSN data quality early to prevent downstream issues and last-minute corrections. This includes:
- Built-in data validation rules aligned with GDSN data pool and trading partner requirements
- Prevention of invalid or incomplete product data from synchronization
- Summary of data validation results at an attribute, record and catalog level
- Easy navigation to erroneous data for single or bulk remediation
- Automated data validation reports sent upstream to source systems
GDSN data is validated early and consistently, ensuring clean product data is synchronized with trading partners.
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Early validation insights
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Less manual rework
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Confident submissions
Product data is validated early against relevant GDSN data pool specifications for seamless product data synchronization.
Why This Matters
Validating GDSN data early and consistently prevents errors from surfacing during data upload and publication to trading partners. This ensures Supply Chain avoids last-minute scramble for corrections and introduce operational disruptions.
Audit Trail & Traceability
Audit Trail & Traceability
Do You Have Full Visibility into GDSN Data Changes?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain teams are often responsible for managing, reviewing, and approving product and packaging data for synchronization via GDSN. To support these activities, teams need clear visibility into how product information changes over time and how those changes impact data upload and publication activities. When issues arise, teams must be able to quickly determine what changed, who made the change, when it occurred, and whether it affected product information shared with trading partners.
Key Concerns:
- Limited visibility into product data changes
- Unclear accountability for updates and approvals
- Difficulty tracing data upload and publication history
- Slow root cause analysis of data quality and synchronization issues
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Tracks product data changes automatically
- Provides visibility into who changed what and when
- Maintains data upload, publication and acknowledgement history
- Enables rapid investigation of data and synchronization issues
Supply Chain needs clear visibility into GDSN data changes to establish transparency and accountability for product data syndication to trading partners.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit provides complete auditability and traceability across GDSN data management, approval, publication, and synchronization activities. This includes:
- Comprehensive audit trails for GDSN data
- Visibility into who changed what and when
- Searchable and filterable version history
- Exportable audit logs for reporting and review
- Visibility into data validation, approval, publication, and synchronization activities and data pool requirements
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Improved transparency
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Greater accountability
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Faster issue resolution
GDSN data changes and synchronization activities remain visible and traceable, helping teams quickly investigate and resolve issues.
Why This Matters
Complete auditability and traceability help Supply Chain teams improve accountability, accelerate root cause analysis, and maintain confidence in the product information synchronized with trading partners.
Streamlined GDSN Data Upload & Publication
Streamlined GDSN Data Upload & Publication
Can Product Information Flow Efficiently Through GDSN Data Pools?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain teams may not manage the technical details of GDSN synchronization, but they are directly impacted when data upload and publication processes fail. When these activities rely on manual processes or disconnected systems, supply chain teams are often tasked with time-consuming error corrections.
Supply Chain teams need a streamlined approach that simplifies the data synchronization of product information via GDSN-certified data pools while providing visibility into publication status and trading partner acknowledgements.
Key Concerns:
- Late discovery of GDSN data issues
- Manual data upload and publication processes
- Last-minute data corrections
- Managing synchronization across data pools and trading partner networks
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Provides native connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools
- Simplifies data upload, publication and synchronization activities
- Provides visibility into synchronization status and acknowledgements
- Reduces operational effort associated with synchronizing product data
Product information should move seamlessly through GDSN data pools and trading partner networks, not through manual processes.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit provides native connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools including atrify and NPC, enabling organizations to efficiently publish and synchronize product information with trading partners. This includes:
- Out-of-the-box integration with leading GDSN-certified data pools
- Generation of required XML format for each data pool
- Automated re-validation of records during upload and publication
- Monitoring of data upload status, publication status, and acknowledgements
- Complete visibility into outbound messages and inbound responses
By simplifying data pool connectivity and synchronization processes, Innovit helps organizations reduce operational effort while improving visibility into the flow of product information across the GDSN network.
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Simplified data pool connectivity
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Faster synchronization with trading partners
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Reduced operational effort
Product information can be synchronized via GDSN-certified data pools without relying on manual processes or custom integrations.
Why This Matters
Efficient synchronization processes help Supply Chain teams maintain predictable operations, reduce manual intervention, and ensure trading partners receive accurate product information on time.
Scalability & Global Readiness
Scalability & Global Readiness
Can Your GDSN Operations Scale as Your Business Grows?
What Supply Chain Needs
As product portfolios grow, new trading partners are onboarded, and organizations expand into new markets, Supply Chain teams must support increasing volumes of product information and synchronization activities. Scaling GDSN operations should not require extensive manual effort, new processes, or increasing operational complexity.
Supply Chain teams need a solution that can support growing product catalogs, additional GDSN data pools, and synchronization volumes while maintaining efficient and consistent operations.
Key Concerns:
- Increasing product data volumes
- Growing regional GDSN data pools
- Expanding trading partner and market requirements
- Inconsistent synchronization processes across regions
- Rising operational effort as GDSN activities grow
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Supports global GDSN operations in a single platform
- Scales with product, trading partner, and market growth
- Standardizes data validation and synchronization processes
- Minimizes manual effort as volume increases
Supply Chain needs scalable GDSN processes without added complexity or resource workload.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit enables organizations to scale GDSN operations through standardized processes, native data pool connectivity, and continuous alignment with evolving GS1 and data pool requirements. This includes:
- A single solution for multiple data pool connections globally
- Pre-packaged attributes, code lists, and data validation rules
- Standardized workflows and synchronization processes across data pools
- Continuous updates aligned with evolving GS1 and data pool specifications
- Platform scalability to support growing product catalogs and synchronization volumes
As product portfolios and trading partner networks expand, organizations can scale GDSN operations without introducing additional process complexity or manual effort.
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Global scalability
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Process consistency
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Reduced complexity
GDSN operations scale efficiently across products, trading partners, and data pools through standardized processes and a single, purpose-built GDSN data syndication platform.
Why This Matters
Scalable and standardized GDSN processes help Supply Chain teams support growing product portfolios and trading partner requirements without increasing operational complexity.
Support and Ongoing Maintenance
Support and Ongoing Maintenance
Can Your GDSN Operations Remain Current Without Additional Effort?
What Supply Chain Needs
Supply Chain operations depend on GDSN solutions that are reliable, up to date, and supported. As GS1 standards evolve, data pool requirements change, and trading partner expectations grow, organizations need confidence that their GDSN solution will remain aligned without creating additional operational burden.
Lack of timely updates, limited support, and outdated system capabilities can disrupt synchronization activities and create unnecessary work for Supply Chain teams.
Key Concerns:
- Evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
- System capabilities not keeping pace with industry changes
- Slow issue resolution
- Lack of support and user guidance
Supply Chain teams need a system that:
- Maintains alignment with evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
- Delivers timely product updates
- Provides responsive issue resolution
- Offers proactive guidance and support
Supply Chain needs a GDSN solution that remains current, supported, and reliable for reliable product data synchronization with trading partners.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit removes the burden of ongoing GDSN data syndication by continuously managing product updates, timely support, and performance in the background. This includes:
- Timely product updates aligned with evolving GS1 standards and data pool requirements
- Ongoing maintenance ensuring system performance, stability, and security
- Responsive support for GDSN-related operational and synchronization issues
- Embedded guidance and knowledge resources for users
- Access to experts with deep GDSN and product data synchronization expertise
Innovit’s solution remains current and supported as industry requirements evolve, helping organizations avoid disruption to their GDSN operations.
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Continuous standards alignment
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Dependable support
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Reliable performance
Innovit’s GDSN solution is continuously updated and maintained. Users are supported with timely guidance and responsive expertise.
Why This Matters
Timely updates and responsive support help Supply Chain teams maintain efficient GDSN operations without disruption or additional manual effort.
Trusted Partner with Deep Healthcare Expertise
Trusted Partner with Deep Healthcare Expertise
Do You Have a Partner That Understands Product Data Synchronization via GDSN in Healthcare?
What Supply Chain Needs
Product data synchronization via GDSN requires more than technology. It requires expertise in healthcare product data, GS1 standards, GDSN processes, and data pool nuances globally. While organizations can develop this expertise internally, doing so often requires significant investment and creates ongoing dependence on specialized resources and institutional knowledge.
Supply Chain teams need a partner that understands both healthcare product data and the complexities of GDSN-based product synchronization.
Key Concerns:
- Limited GDSN and data pool expertise
- Dependence on specialized internal resources
- Challenges scaling product synchronization initiatives
- Lack of operational guidance and industry experience
Supply Chain teams need a solution partner that:
- Understands healthcare product data and supply chain operations
- Brings deep expertise in GDSN, GS1 standards, and data pool nuances
- Supports enterprise-scale product data synchronization initiatives
- Provides ongoing guidance as business and industry requirements evolve
Successful GDSN initiatives require expertise in both healthcare product data and GDSN based data synchronization.
How Innovit Delivers
Innovit combines deep healthcare expertise with proven experience in GDSN to help organizations successfully 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
Innovit combines technology, industry expertise, and operational experience to help organizations simplify GDSN adoption and support long-term success.
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Proven expertise
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Trusted partner
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Long-term support
Organizations benefit from deep healthcare, product data, and GDSN expertise that supports successful product data synchronization initiatives and long-term operational scalability.
Why This Matters
Deep expertise in healthcare product data and GDSN synchronization helps Supply Chain teams reduce operational complexity, accelerate adoption, and streamline product data exchange with trading partners.
Conclusion
Final Takeaways for Supply Chain Teams
Successful GDSN initiatives depend on more than sharing product information through a GDSN data pool. Supply Chain teams need efficient processes for aggregating product data, managing GDSN-specific data and approvals, validating against data pool specifications, and synchronizing with trading partners as business requirements evolve.
Innovit helps organizations achieve this through optimized GDSN data management capabilities, native data pool integrations, purpose-built GDSN data stewardship, and ongoing alignment with GS1 and data pool requirements.
Supply Chain Teams must be able to:
- Reuse existing product data and systems of record
- Streamline data maintenance, review and approval workflows
- Improve GDSN data quality and synchronization readiness
- Leverage native connectivity to GDSN-certified data pools
- Scale across products, trading partners, and markets
Innovit helps Supply Chain teams synchronize trusted product information across trading partner networks without increasing operational complexity, manual effort, or long-term maintenance burden.
