Corner OfficeCXO Bytes

Top Five IT Manager Problems a PIM Platform Resolves

In a day and age where data sources and models are getting increasingly complex, the quality of data and its standardization assumes great importance

The undeniable truth about data is that it impacts decisions vital to business performance. Data quality is the spine of accurate and informed decision-making. It reveals the utility value in fulfilling the purpose for which the data was collected or created in the first place. The attributes used to measure and determine data quality are accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and relevance. Data must convey facts and real-world situations accurately and precisely to be reliable, and quality data fulfills this requirement.

 

Conversely, data quality is deemed substandard when it is inconsistent, invalid, outdated, duplicate, and incorrect. Poor data quality is unreliable as it can lead to inaccurate decision-making, resource wastage, and high customer defection, escalating a chain of domino effects that adversely influence business performance. According to Gartner’s research, organizations estimate an average of $15 million per year’s worth of loss due to data quality deficiency.  

 

Modern-day businesses must deal with enormous data from content generated across various products, services, distributed vendors and suppliers, and diverse sales channels. Retrieving relevant and valid information by sorting and filtering through accumulated data is a tedious process, susceptible to mistakes. Moreover, the complexity of handling a large dataset grows exponentially as the number of relationships and structured attributes increases. A database with a moderately complex data model can contain millions of rows for a few hundred products. Herein, maintaining the quality of the data is even more challenging. A viable solution is to use product information management (PIM) software to organize the distributed data and standardize product information regularly. With PIM, businesses have a central location for their product information, facilitating efficient data handling and processing. PIM can be beneficial for IT managers across several industries in the five ways listed below:

 

  1. PIM accelerates digital transformation

 

PIM is a vital tool for digital transformation. It simplifies the complexity of managing product data, rich product content, digital assets, and product syndication problems for modernizing digital commerce platforms and customer experience initiatives. PIM offers a single source of truth that amalgamates and improves all the product information and provides reliable and updated data, assisting everyone involved across the organization to help improve the business value. However, business interactions necessitate complex data processing and content navigation, making it challenging to achieve digital success, which is where a powerful PIM proves invaluable.

 

Businesses must integrate a PIM platform into their entire data ecosystem to accelerate their digital transformation and take advantage of the growing importance of product content. Enterprises improve efficiency, drive change, and increase returns by optimizing digital technologies. The fast-paced digital ecosystem requires flexible, future-proof PIM to keep pace with digital transformation.

 

With digitalization, organizations can adapt to changes and provide better customer and employee experiences. They can convert their products, images, videos, brands, and other marketing assets into a wide range of persuasive and personalized content by implementing a robust PIM foundation. PIM boosts operational efficiency, lowers expenditure, enhances speed-to-market, and refines the customer experience – attributes integral to the true essence of digital transformation. 

 

  1. PIM delivers better conformity to compliance and security requirements

 

Before launching their products on the market, companies must comply with all regulatory requirements, such as directives, regulations, and harmonized standards. Traditionally introduced for consumer safety, compliance and security requirements have broadened to various aspects, including energy consumption, recyclability, environmental impact assessment, and more. In addition, the range of regulatory coverage has widened beyond safety to encompass overall consumer well-being. Businesses save time, minimize costs, and mitigate risks with efficient product compliance management and processes. It is possible to break down complex regulatory guidelines into easy-to-understand procedures using PIM, starting with the type of products that businesses introduce to the market. As a result, enterprises access a comprehensive and monitored requirement list that references directives, regulations, and standards relevant to their products.

 

Organizations can improve operational efficiency, manage compliance, and drive digital transformation forward by applying PIM for data governance. Delivering trustworthy information across the enterprise consistently and quickly improves data stewardship and governance. Unstructured data, including videos, images, product brochures, and more, can be managed efficiently from a single location. With PIM, multiple teams work together to enrich product information and related digital assets to market and sell the product. Most PIM solutions are cloud-based, and SaaS offerings are often multitenant and customizable to meet the business’s technical, operational, and security needs. 

 

  1. PIM generates actionable insights using data

 

The proliferation of apps, siloed systems, business units, and interactive media often results in incomplete, fragmented, or inconsistent data regarding products and services. Companies must provide consistent product information as they engage with customers through diverse channels and use multiple digital touchpoints to reach them. It is crucial that teams such as digital marketing, merchandising, product management, and e-commerce have a comprehensive overview of all product information to generate actionable insights.

 

To gain valuable insights, a business must regularly analyze digital shelf data and channel behavior. Through the integration of a variety of data types, such as transactional data, interactional data, observational data, and analytics into PIM, businesses can gain actionable insights into their products.

 

Managing product experience efficiently requires an effective PIM that generates consistent content for the entire customer journey. Data and insights from the PIM enable businesses to offer tailored, interactive, and personalized product experiences for their customers. PIM, combined with machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI), is crucial for generating meaningful insights. With the help of these insights, businesses can make intelligent decisions to market their products better across all digital platforms. 

 

  1. PIM achieves efficiency in budget management

 

For better financial management and improved profitability, businesses want to stay efficient in saving resources, time, and money. PIM enables organizations to automate workflows for parallel teams, such as marketing, sales, content specialists, and more, thereby reducing the time and effort spent on tasks.  Further, PIM can save time and effort for other functions by automating data entry and reducing IT costs related to manual, inefficient, costly, and scalable strategies. Moreover, an organization’s PIM data can also be relied upon by teams, knowing that it is accurate and organized, consequently saving them time and resources. It is convenient for them to have all the information at their fingertips instead of hunting for it. 

 

As a result of good data stewardship, PIM can optimize budget utilization and decrease operational costs. Businesses are exposed to fewer risks and customer satisfaction issues when their information is accurate and easy to find, and sales and profits grow as a result. With a well-functioning PIM in place, organizations can upgrade their data management by adding and implementing new approaches. Moreover, they can easily incorporate unique features that meet their needs, expand into new markets, drive sales and lead generation with quality product information and ultimately improve their overall financial performance.

 

  1. PIM improves overall business values

 

Organizations can design compelling digital commerce experiences with PIM, and buyers can make better decisions with accurate, consistent, and high-quality product information. By integrating and streamlining product information, enterprises can create novel offerings and provide seamless experiences, allowing them to have a single, trusted version of the latest data that multiple teams can access without duplication. Any digital data can be acquired, managed, and shared through an easy-to-integrate PIM, which provides both agility and adaptability for innovation. 

 

PIM accelerates product launches by reducing delays caused by inaccuracies and gaps in data. In addition, it facilitates the acquisition of valuable customer insights as it eliminates barriers between users and producers. The automation capabilities of PIM deliver powerful competitive advantages, including personalized offers and dynamic pricing. With PIM, businesses can implement a multi-domain infrastructure of their choice to gain an edge over their counterparts, boost customer engagement through omnichannel compatibility, and lower their TCO.

 

Utilizing the full potential of PIM

 

It is imperative for businesses to identify, capture, and store their data correctly to make it truly useful to them. With PIM, enterprises can present product information in a highly systematic manner, unlocking more significant opportunities for their business and boosting conversion rates.

 

Organizations can harness the maximum potential of their PIM by consolidating, organizing, and

enriching the data they possess so that they can distribute it seamlessly across various customer touchpoints and stakeholders. As persuasive content and associated tools become increasingly popular, enterprises should keep an eye out for upgrading PIM with advanced capabilities. Furthermore, organizations are looking to employ PIM to decrease the time-to-market and maintain an edge in the market in the face of constant channel volatility. As a result, contextual information management will garner greater focus in the PIM design process. Besides, orchestration and automation will play an instrumental role in PIM’s evolution in the coming days.

(About the author: Dietmar Rietsch, the CEO of Pimcore, is a serial entrepreneur with a strong sense for innovation, technology and digital transformation. He has been passionate about designing and realizing exciting digital projects for more than 20 years.) 

Leave a Response