1. Purpose
The purpose of this document is to establish a common, consistent, and governed definition of Market Hierarchies across Syensqo, covering both:
Corporate Market Hierarchy
GBU Market Hierarchy
The objective is to enable:
- Alignment between Corporate financial / strategic reporting and GBU commercial execution
Standardized consumption of market dimensions across all SyWay in-scope systems
- Consistent classification of markets across customer–product combination
2. Scope
Definition and positioning of Corporate and GBU Market dimensions
Hierarchical relationship between Corporate and GBU market dimensions
Design principles for determination, derivation, and system usage
Governance model during SyWay and BAU
3. Business Context & Need
Today, market definitions exist across GBUs and Corporate functions with varying interpretations, granularity, and usage. This results in:
Inconsistent reporting across systems
Limited comparability between GBUs
Manual reconciliation for enterprise-level analysis
A unified Market Hierarchy approach is required to:
Support enterprise financial reporting and external disclosures
Enable GBU-specific commercial, sales, and demand planning processes
Ensure one global source of truth for market dimensions
4. Market Hierarchy Overview
The Syensqo Market Hierarchy is composed of two complementary but distinct hierarchies:
4.1 Corporate Market Hierarchy
Corporate Market
Corporate Segment
- End Use / Program
4.2 GBU Market Hierarchy
GBU Market
GBU Segment
GBU Application
End Use / Program
These hierarchies operate in parallel, with defined linkage rules, and are jointly consumed across SyWay applications.
5. Corporate Market Hierarchy – Definition & Role
5.1 Corporate Market
Definition
Corporate Market groups customers based on their industry sector to define enterprise-level end-markets.
Key Characteristics
Corporate-led and enterprise-wide
Applies to customer–product combinations
Designed to support:
Financial reporting
Strategic portfolio management
External disclosures (shareholders / public communication)
5.2 Corporate Segment
Definition
A Corporate Segment is a sub-category within a Corporate Market, typically reflecting:
Key customer functionality needs, or
Logical groupings where functional segmentation is not applicable
Key Characteristics
Always linked to a single Corporate Market
Used consistently across internal and external reporting
Enables structured roll-ups at enterprise level
6. GBU Market Hierarchy – Definition & Role
The GBU Market Hierarchy provides the commercial and operational view of markets, tailored to how products are sold and used by customers.
6.1 GBU Market
Definition
Categorizes customers based on the sector where products are consumed and the way the GBU organizes and manages its sales.
Key Characteristics
Highest level of the GBU hierarchy
Customer-centric
Assigned at the Business Partner (Sold-To / Ship-To) level
Used for commercial reporting and resource alignment
6.2 GBU Segment
Definition
A sub-category within a GBU Market that focuses on:
Functional needs, or
Product categories tied to customer use
Key Characteristics
Linked below GBU Market
Represents the customer–product combination
Assigned at Ship-To + Material level
6.3 GBU Application
Definition
Describes the specific function or action performed by the product.
Key Characteristics
Linked below GBU Segment
Highlights how the product delivers value
Assigned at Ship-To + Material level
6.4 End Use / Program
Definition
Specifies the technical or final use of the product as manufactured by the customer.
Key Characteristics
Lowest level of the hierarchy
Most granular classification
Drives accurate demand planning and analytics
Common anchor point for Corporate and GBU derivations
7. Hierarchical Principles & Design Considerations
7.1 Hierarchical Dependency
Each lower level is fully dependent on its parent
No orphan values permitted
Changes at higher levels trigger downstream impact assessment
7.2 Customer vs Customer-Product Assignment
Corporate Market / Segment: Customer–Product dimension
GBU Market: Customer dimension
GBU Segment / Application / End Use: Customer–Product dimension
7.3 End-Use-Based Derivation
End Use serves as a key derivation anchor, enabling:
Derivation of Corporate Market & Segment
Derivation of GBU Market, Segment, and Application
Consistent reporting across hierarchies
8. System Usage & Integration
Market dimensions are consumed across SyWay systems, including:
Salesforce (Opportunities, Quotes, Contracts, Cases)
SAP S/4HANA (Quotes, Sales Orders, Contracts, Profitability Analysis)
Planning & Forecasting tools (e.g., Kinaxis)
Reporting platforms (e.g., Qlik via Datasphere)
All systems consume centrally governed global hierarchies, ensuring alignment across transactional and analytical use cases.
9. Market Hierarchy Determination Principles
End Use will be the only market dimension explicitly determined at the transaction line-item level. All other Corporate and GBU market hierarchy attributes (Corporate Market, Corporate Segment, GBU Market, GBU Segment, GBU Application) will be system-derived from the End Use for reporting and analytics purposes.
10. Governance Model
10.1 During SyWay
Corporate Hierarchy
Definitions and values governed and validated by Corporate FP&A
GBU Hierarchy
Definitions and values governed and validated by GBU Marketing Directors
Focus
Establish a complete, standardized hierarchy:
Corporate Market → Corporate Segment → GBU Market → GBU Segment → GBU Application → End Use / Program
10.2 BAU (Post-SyWay)
Classified as Tier-1 Master Data
Centrally owned by Corporate MDM / Data Governance
Single global maintenance point
Mandatory governance workflow for all changes
10.3 Ongoing Maintenance & Change Management
GBUs may propose changes to GBU-specific levels
Each proposal must:
Follow naming conventions
Include business justification
Identify upstream and downstream impacts
Reference impacted Corporate Market & Segment
Corporate Market realignments require mandatory impact assessment on all GBU hierarchies
11. Key Assumptions
The scope of this approach is limited to the Corporate and GBU Market Hierarchies; Customer Segmentation and Customer Hierarchy are out of scope.
End Use / Program is assumed to be the only market attribute determined at transaction line-item level. All other Corporate and GBU market dimensions are system-derived from End Use for reporting, planning, and analytics.
The Corporate Market and Corporate Segment represent an enterprise-level, stable classification layer used primarily for financial, strategic, and external reporting.
The GBU Market Hierarchy (Market, Segment, Application, End Use) represents the commercial execution view and reflects how products are sold and used by customers.
The Market Segments.xlsx, together with the aligned Corporate & GBU Market Hierarchy reference document, is assumed to reflect the baseline set of values aligned with Corporate and GBU stakeholders and intended for system configuration, subject to formal governance.
Market hierarchies are modeled as two linked but distinct hierarchies, with strict parent–child dependencies and no orphan values.
Market dimensions will be centrally governed as Tier-1 Master Data, with Corporate MDM as the final owner and GBUs acting as contributors through a controlled change process.
All SyWay in-scope systems are assumed to consume the same centrally governed global hierarchies, ensuring consistent market representation across transactions, planning, and reporting.
12. Conclusion
This approach defines a single, enterprise-wide Market Hierarchy framework for Syensqo, ensuring consistent market representation across SyWay systems through End-Use-based determination and centrally governed derivation, while allowing GBUs to contribute within a controlled and scalable governance model.
The Market Segments.xlsx contains the market hierarchy values and mappings that are planned to be configured, having been aligned with Corporate and GBU stakeholders. These values represent the agreed baseline for implementing the End-Use-based market determination approach, subject to formal governance and change control.
Aligned Corporate & GBU Market Hierarchy reference document (stakeholder-validated baseline for configuration).