The Challenge

A leading global apparel company needed to streamline the way "product newness" data was shared across enterprise planning tools. The original integration architecture relied on indirect, multi-hop data flows that were prone to delays, fragility, and operational overhead.

This process was supporting seasonal planning for hundreds of product lines across multiple regions, so any inefficiencies in data movement had far-reaching impact.

As a Senior Systems Analyst in the global product technology division, I was embedded in the pre-season planning team. My job was to act as the bridge between business product managers and engineering teams—defining solutions that were not only technically sound but also scalable for enterprise use.

 

My Approach

After conducting a technical assessment of the current data flow, I proposed a direct Kafka-based data integration pipeline—a major architectural shift that bypassed intermediate systems and simplified downstream consumption.

This future-proof solution included:

  • Using the company’s Operational Data Store (ODS) as the source of truth.

  • Publishing newness data via a dedicated Kafka topic.

  • Enabling the planning system to consume this data directly, improving reliability.

  • Working cross-functionally with teams to align this change with global data governance and planning system requirements.

Tools & Systems Used

 

  • Anaplan – Primary front-end planning tool used globally

  • ODS (Operational Data Store) – Authoritative data source

  • Apache Kafka – High-throughput, real-time data streaming

  • S3 / Airflow – For orchestration and historical storage


 

Results & Impact

 

  • Improved latency: Reduced data delivery time from batch-level hours to near real-time

  • Increased scalability: Architecture supports multi-team data consumers with minimal change effort

  • Operational efficiency: Eliminated cross-team data transfers, reducing coordination time by 40%

  • Future-ready foundation: Enables new planning modules and external teams to integrate with minimal friction