Posts about Product Information Management (PIM)

The digital economy has forever changed consumer expectations. Increased demand for personalized products and experiences, diminishing brand loyalty and fast-changing markets are forcing companies to accelerate consumer-centric product development and commercialization processes. How can your organization launch new products quickly that meet customer demands and increase brand loyalty and awareness, without compromising on quality or price? Streamlining and integrating two key processes – product lifecycle management (PLM) and product master data management (product MDM) – can help brands navigate through the complexities of consumer-centric product development and offer products that customers want.

Product Information Management (PIM) is the technology-enabled discipline of centralizing, organizing, categorizing, localizing, synchronizing and enriching product data. But did you know PIM can enhance the customer experience significantly? What does data about your products have to do with customer experience, you might ask? A lot actually.

This blog post is a summary of our recent webinar “Digital disruption for Product Information Management” presented by Darren Cooper, Director of Industry Solutions, Stibo Systems. To get even more insight on this topic, hear the full webinar (30 minutes) on-demand, and for free, here. 

It’s no surprise that product information managers’ jobs are getting a little more complicated these days. Products, offerings and services are becoming more complex to design, sell and monitor.  For companies who want to support digital disruptive products and services, Product Information Management (PIM) processes will need to evolve quite significantly.

The other day I wanted to buy a certain lamp online. I used PriceRunner, an excellent online price comparison service. By typing in the desired lamp I received a list of dealers starting with the cheapest one on top. Now you might think I just chose the first one offering the cheapest price? Wrong!

The amount of product data that companies create and store has increased exponentially in the last decade. What’s more, customers today demand and expect personalized and quickly accessible product information. To solve these issues, many companies adopt Product Information Management (PIM) solutions. PIM acts as a central hub for all product data to provide consistent and accurate views of product information. The benefits of using PIM are many, but how do you know you should undertake that kind of investment?

The horrifying and cowardly actions of a single gunman in Charleston, South Carolina last week has begun a national conversation about the Confederate Battle flag, sometimes referred to as “Stars and Bars.” President Obama has said that the flag belongs in a museum. Many other politicians, including SC Governor Nikki Haley, throughout the southern United States have called for its removal from places of prominence in their state.

This marketoon may give you a chuckle if you’ve seen or read about mothers obsessing over what to bring for their child’s classroom birthday treats.

We have discussed PIM’s role as a customer-facing system and how PIM can assist with the creation of effective product content but we haven’t addressed how a company knows when an investment in Product Information Management (PIM) technology makes sense.

Author: Kayla Cole

How often do you hear someone complain about or return a product? How often have you been the complainant or seen your bottom line suffer due to returns? The fact is, complaints and product returns occur due to bad product information. 

Last time we discussed why PIM is a customer-facing system. In this post, we’re going to discuss what effective product information looks like and why so many companies don’t have it.

The path to a productive relationship with your customers runs straight through customer service, the customer’s cross-channel experience with your brand and your product content. This is particularly true online where the customer experience of your brand is a function of implementation decisions you and your team have made. For example, what product information do you expose on your Product Detail Page (PDP)? Most retailers understand that the PDP represents the physical product for the online shopper and that compelling product content is needed to ‘romance’ the product. So, while a great product description and a single image repurposed from a catalog were ‘compelling’ in 2000, today’s consumers and B2B end-users expect more, including: