Changing a product hierarchy is like performing open-heart surgery on the business. Any changes made drive how data flows across sales, finance, and supply chain systems; even minor changes can trigger significant downstream impacts. Product hierarchies shape reporting, revenue visibility, incentives, and strategic decisions. Without strong governance, changes create confusion; with proper control, they deliver clarity and business value.

The Backstory

I sat next to the Senior Manager in a room full of stakeholders gathered for the monthly ritual of product hierarchy change management. All changes were logged and validated in a spreadsheet, then presented, almost like in a courtroom, for anyone to question or challenge. If no one spoke up, the change was considered approved. In practice, silence sealed the approval. Last-minute objections often sent teams scrambling to adjust. Though this approach had been used for years, it was clearly unsustainable and called for a better solution.

This critical product hierarchy change relied on manual, error-prone processes. Tracking requests and securing approvals from multiple stakeholders was difficult; submission formats were inconsistent, and implementing last-minute changes created additional challenges. The legacy process was managed via email across a broad stakeholder base and required extensive manual effort.

A modern approach was needed to deliver measurable business value, provide full transparency to stakeholders, and resolve a persistent operational pain point in a way that leadership would recognize and value.

Key Challenges for Data Leaders

• Data Integrity

When the product node is changed, or how products are grouped, it requires mapping every historical SKU to the new product structure without losing the ability to perform year-over-year (YoY) analysis. Moving one node to another will potentially break financial reporting if the change is not effectively communicated to the Finance department. Manual process introduces a gap.

• Cross-Functional Misalignment

Different departments rely on product hierarchies for different purposes. Marketing’s preferred structure may create issues for Logistics. Finance needs alignment with P&L centers. Communicating and securing formal approvals is challenging. Hierarchy changes can shift revenue across business units, regions, or product lines.

• Performance Measurement & Incentives:

Sales commissions, KPIs, and bonuses are often tied to product categories. Misalignment here directly affects morale and compensation.

• Process Inefficiency

Employee burnout and frustration are driven by last-minute changes. Fragmented, manual processes requiring significant disjointed effort significantly increase operating costs. Without clearly defined SLAs for process completion, there is no consistent benchmark to measure task performance effectively.

• Regulatory & Compliance Risk

In telecom, product categories often map to regulatory reporting. Improper hierarchy changes can impact compliance submissions and audit trails.

• System and ERP Integration

Changing product hierarchy requires updating every system that touches product data that including Billing systems, CRM, Data Lake, ERP Systems, and E-Commerce. SAP or PeopleSoft setups are notoriously rigid to update. If the change in hierarchy is not handled properly, it can break website navigation. Third-party vendors or retailers who pull your data may find their integrations failing overnight.

Strategy Delivered

For me, building the process comes before automation. The goal is to make it simple and lightweight for stakeholders. Data governance begins with structuring data, defining roles, clarifying decision rights, and enforcing accountability. It is a principle-driven discipline, once principles are clear, operating procedures naturally fall into place. I practice Effortless Action as guiding principle.

I partnered with the Master Data Hierarchy team to design a change management process for this complex business area. The goal was to create a robust, end-to-end solution that centralized request intake, improved cross department stakeholder visibility, and reduced heavy manual effort to boost operational efficiency.

Collaboration across multiple teams, guided by user feedback, fostered a creative, solution-oriented environment. The focus was on driving innovation while keeping processes simple, actively engaging stakeholders to deliver practical, meaningful outcomes that benefited all teams.

1.     Governance Committee

Before orchestrating the process, it was crucial to align the people who use and are impacted by the data. This involved representatives from over 15+ departments, including Finance, Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, Billing, Accounting, Network Operations, Service Fulfillment, IT, and more. I recognized that People Come First before process design.

Stakeholders, whose silence once implied consent were fully integrated into the process. Changes were clearly communicated, and formal approvals were required within defined SLA timeframes. The workflow automatically reminded stakeholders, collected responses, and managed requests for additional information, ensuring accountability and transparency.

One of the most effective solutions came from emphasizing simplicity. The workflow tracked who approved the change and who hadn’t responded, creating an auditable record for insights on stakeholder impact. Instead of attending a large “courtroom” session, change information now arrived effortlessly in stakeholders’ inboxes. This illustrates how “people matter most” thinking driving the effective process design.

2.     Spreadsheets vs. Centralized Platform

Now everyone would subscribe to the same product hierarchy dataset. The centralized platform now  automatically pushes all requested change updates to the CRM, the website, and the billing system via APIs. The platform enforces rules preventing human error during the change management process and the platform keeps historical versioning. Change management often stalls because changes are not communicated to departments. The platform can trigger a workflow: Marketing proposes a change. Finance approves the tax impact and IT confirms system compatibility. You have a transparent record of who changed what and why, which is critical for regulatory compliance in the telecom industry. Manual spreadsheet effort is now streamlined and simplified on the centralized platform for managing product hierarchy changes.

3.     Feedback – Self Correction

The automated workflow system will collect data on who approved the changes and who didn’t respond to them. Stakeholders could also submit feedback in case the changes were not relevant to their department. After collecting data for a few months, the change management team now has insights into the nature of the change and who would be impacted. This user feedback in the loop will gradually self-correct the process.

Deliverables & Outcomes

Voice of the Customer

Ravi Sutar was my business partner in creating a change management process for a highly complex area of the business. The legacy process was managed via email across a broad stakeholder base and required extensive manual effort. Ravi helped create a robust end-to-end solution that centralized the request intake process, improved visibility to our stakeholders and eliminated a large volume of manual effort required on a monthly basis. The solution was well received by multiple teams and feedback from users was very positive.

Ravi created a collaborative and creative environment and was a great sounding board for new ideas. Ideas flowed freely across all team members and together, groundbreaking solutions were implemented that can be leveraged by other teams. Ravi is a great innovator with strong leadership skills. He was a pleasure to work with and gets my highest recommendation as a valued business partner.

Sr. Manager – FP&A Data Stewardship