Typical (or Intended) New Product Creation -> Receiving - > Merchandising Process

I'm curious to hear feedback from other users about what they have found to be the most effective workflow to actual go from a vendor catalog, to a product that is available for sale on their channels.

Specifically, where do you separate roles and do you have an established order for how product is built, ordered, merchandised or received, or do you let it all happen completely organically based on other factors?

Our previous platform had a very clearly delineated process that HAD to be followed (you couldn't order a product until it was built and merchandised for example), and while we appreciate the flexibility that RetailOps offers, in some capacity that has forced us to beef up our internal processes and SOPs, since the flow is not explicitly defined for us by the software.