Standardizing Master Data Across a Global ERP Landscape for leading water technology company

A repeatable master data standardization and sustainability framework embedded within a global ERP rollout helped Xylem move from site-by-site data inconsistency toward a single, enterprise-aligned standard, built to outlast any one ERP rollout.

Xylem is a leading water technology company operating in more than 150 countries, delivering solutions across public utility, residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial water, wastewater, and energy systems. At that scale, master data consistency is not a housekeeping detail. It is the difference between a report leadership can trust and one that has to be reconciled by hand.

At a glance

• Client: Xylem, a global water technology company
• Industry: Manufacturing
• Challenge: Nineteen core enterprise data fields defined and maintained inconsistently across sites in Xylem's Emerging Markets ERP environment
• Tarento's role: Design and document a repeatable data standardization framework, from definition through post go-live sustainability
• Outcome: A comprehensive, reusable 19SS documentation set adopted across multiple Emerging Markets sites, supporting consistent enterprise reporting and faster rollout of future standardization work

The challenge: nineteen data fields, no shared definition

Xylem had identified nineteen core data fields, attributes tied to part and product, vendor, customer, and salesman master data, as critical to reliable enterprise-level reporting.

Across Xylem's diverse ERP environment, these same fields carried different definitions and different value lists from one site to the next, and were not consistently aligned to Xylem's own prescribed enterprise standards. That inconsistency sat upstream of everything else: inconsistent fields produce inconsistent reports, and these reports make it harder to build a shared, organization-wide understanding of the business.

Rather than running as an isolated data governance initiative, 19SS was being implemented across sites as part of Xylem's standard ERP rollout programme. The framework therefore needed to be repeatable enough to support multiple site implementations while remaining aligned with enterprise standards.

The approach: workshops first, documentation built to last

Tarento's engagement began with the data itself. The team analyzed Xylem's existing data and standardization processes and participated directly in the Data Standardization Process workshops run across multiple sites, rather than producing documentation from the outside looking in.

That workshop-first approach shaped four deliverables, each addressing a distinct part of the standardization lifecycle rather than a single one-off document:

• A comprehensive, reusable framework supporting Xylem's 19SS initiative to standardize 19 core master data fields across its ERP landscape.
• 19SS site implementation process documentation, including pre-workshop site requirements templates, so each new site rollout starts from a known, repeatable process rather than being reinvented locally.
• 19SS UAT test scenarios and data quality measures, giving sites a concrete way to verify the standard has actually been met, not just documented.
• Post go-live 19SS sustainability process documentation, addressing the part of any standardization effort that's easiest to neglect: what happens after go-live, when the discipline of maintaining a standard has to survive without a project team actively watching it.

This work was built specifically to align with Xylem's Enterprise Information Management strategy, and structured so it could serve as a starting point for other data standardization initiatives beyond the original nineteen fields, not a one-time deliverable scoped narrowly to a single rollout.

Tarento's broader data and analytics practice is built around this same principle: documentation and governance that outlast the specific project that produced them, rather than becoming stale the moment a rollout is declared complete.

The outcome: a standard that scales past the first site

A repeatable master data standardization and sustainability framework embedded within a global ERP rollout and aligned to Xylem's Enterprise Information Management strategy.

The impact was consistent with what the initiative set out to achieve:

• A common framework to support more consistent and standardized reporting across Xylem by aligning definitions and maintenance processes for the 19 core fields.
• Better decision making built on common understanding, since a shared semantic baseline means different teams reading the same report are actually reading the same thing.
• Time saved through scalable, reusable documentation, rather than each new site rebuilding its own interpretation of the standard from scratch.
• A shared foundation across the organization, giving Xylem a common reference point rather than a patchwork of local conventions.

The goal was not only cleaner master data. It was shared semantics. When teams across sites use the same definitions and value standards, enterprise reporting becomes easier to interpret because the same field represents the same business concept regardless of where the data originated.

Building a data standard that has to survive contact with reality?

Standardizing master data across a global ERP landscape takes more than a definitions document. It takes a process that holds up at the next site, the next rollout, and the year after go-live, when nobody's actively watching anymore. If your organization is facing the same site-by-site inconsistency Xylem was, Tarento can help design a framework built to last.

Start a conversation with Tarento.