Your company has been sold on the idea of implementing a product information management system. It is a step in the right direction for your organization, and everyone’s gearing up for it. The million-dollar question that remains is; what’s the next step?
On the journey of implementing your product information management system, you must ensure that this system is capable of providing for your business during the process. Apart from this, the benefits of a PIM system still abound. Your business will now have a central location to collect, manage, and optimize your product information. It will help in the creation of a single platform for the creation of catalogs for products, and the distribution of product data to sales, marketing, and eCommerce channels.
By utilizing PIM, you will be able to create a structure for the management of data relating to the products in your catalog. Features like product description, color, weight, size, etc. will be organized into a central spot. The PIM system helps marketers live their dream. It can now help in the simplification of the whole process of creating, maintaining, and the utilization of the product specifications, and the description available in the product catalogs.
What are the differences in Companies that implement PIM
These types of companies stand out uniquely from companies that do not implement this PIM system.
Some of the benefits they enjoy include improved productivity and efficiency in the workforce of the company, accuracy and precision of content and product data, overall user experience on the website, and boosted sales in the company leading to even higher returns on investments
Organizations no longer use several spreadsheets with team members dedicated to making updates daily. The PIM system has come to replace the manual maintenance of product data, the management of thousands of SKUs, repeated data, outdated information, or the presence of input errors, in your company.
Information to know before you begin the implementation of PIM
Before you can begin implementing PIM in your organization, there are a few things you must know. They include;
Make sure your entire organization is ready
Internal alignment is very necessary before the implementation of the PIM system can even begin. This is such a common approach in other business platforms. You need to first make sure that your company is willing to prioritize this project above all else before you even begin implementation. This same would be done for any ERP and CMS implementation also. In most cases, PIM implementations become a lot more complex than they need to be. This will slow down the whole optimization process, and it only exists because the organization does not make the system a priority.
After you have agreed as an organization that your business is to proceed with the implementation of PIM, ensure the undertaking involved is thoroughly understood by the management that is involved. The process of implementation of the PIM possesses enough benefits to be a business game changer when it is done right. It however takes a lot of time and the dedication of a focused team.
Ensure you outline realistic goals for the PIM implementation to meet
By understanding the main timeline for implementation, you are poised to have a successful project. Even before you can get a feasible estimate on how much your implementation will take, you must be honest with yourself about the state of your data.
- What are the main goals you hope the project achieves?
- What are the primary challenges that this project might generate?
- How or where will the process of data creation even begin?
- What is the location of the data today?
- How accurate is the product data?
- How much data enrichment or cleansing will be enough to bring it to a standard state?
- What percentage of product data must be accepted before launch can happen?
- Are there any technical concerns or regularly concurring IT projects that must be addressed?
- What manual processes are you certain will be affected? And will they be documented?
While some organizations launch their PIM system with a few main products or even select a percentage of products that they want to enrich by including them into PIM, and pushing them live, there is an important balance that all businesses must maintain that will determine the number of products needed to continue the normal business process or the amount of time you are willing to wait in anticipation of going live, and the number of errors and risks your company can take that remains acceptable.
Locate the data needed
Determine the location in the organization where your content and data currently live, whether it’s in PML, ERP, DAM, or alternatively in a homegrown solution. You also need to identify the state the data is in and how much of the data can be relied on.
Find out specifically the member of the organization that is in charge of every single piece of data, and the recruitment of members of the team. The knowledge that these people have been able to gather would be important to succeeding. Ensuring they are on the team will reduce the likelihood of wrong information being circulated or the wrong model being designed.
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Identify where you desire the data to be shown
This may seem like a trivial subject, but it is absolutely important for it to be decided on by the organization. Before you begin the implementation, there are a few questions that you must answer and take seriously;
- Can the data be viewed on your website or not?
- Do you need to share the data with other distribution channels or partners that also sell the products like Home Depot, Amazon, or Lowes?
A properly designed PIM system can quicken the time to market, the efficiency of employees, and product data accuracy. It can also increase the overall company’s ROI. PIM is an amazing tool that will ensure that your product data is given the proper representation through all your marketing and selling channels.