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We know your product doesn’t just spring into being, neatly packed with a bow on top (although, wouldn’t it be great if it did?).
A lot of things go into a product – manufacturing, distribution, storage, pricing, to name a few – and all of them generate data. Apply that to the hundreds or even thousands of products you have in the supply chain, and your data pool is starting to look more like a data ocean.
But what if you could have one centralised platform for your product data, allowing you to track and modify data where everyone can see it? That’s what product information management (or PIM) is all about.
Cleaning up your product data isn’t just a case of implementing a PIM solution. You need the right strategy to get you the results you want, whether that’s boosting efficiency, marketing your product more effectively, giving customers accurate information, complying with regulations – or any of the other extraordinary benefits PIM provides.
Now we’ve been Amplifi-ed, we have even more resources and partnerships with more PIM vendors than ever before. That means we can give you the best possible support and guidance throughout your data journey.
First of all, we’ll start with a simple question…
Every piece of data related to a product – where it comes from, who made it, what it does, its specification, SKUs and so on – has some impact on your business.
Sales teams need it to convey the right benefits to clients. Marketers need it to pitch their campaigns correctly. Finance teams need it so they can tot up how much all the components are costing.
The list goes on, but the gist is this: employees need accurate product data to do their jobs effectively. Problem is, if you are a retailer or an e-commerce business selling hundreds or thousands of products, it can be difficult to keep track.
PIM provides a single source of truth for your data. What does that mean exactly?
It means being able to access reliable, accurate information about your products, whenever you need it. It means being able to change and update product information from one location, and see this change relayed across all your marketing and sales channels in real time.
It means giving sales managers and marketing teams the product data they need to do their jobs effectively. And it means that if regulations change (e.g. around rules of origin, taxation), you can easily track every part of the supply chain and make the changes necessary to remain in compliance.
We understand that changing the way you collect and store data can be a daunting prospect. That’s why we work with you to create a PIM strategy based on your needs, and implement the technology you need to achieve it.
Without a single, centralised source of data, you end up having to do things the hard way.
Your data is scattered all over the place in different silos, making it hard for employees to find the correct information. Even worse, when you update product data in one place it won’t change across the rest of your sales channels.
That means plenty of manual updates and a higher risk of mistakes happening, some of which could have serious consequences for retailers. For example, if you have to recall a product because the label fails to mention allergens or includes incorrect safety information, that could create a logistical nightmare for your warehouse, rack up huge costs for your business and damage your reputation.
But when your product information is centralised in one location, where everyone who needs to can find the data and see it being updated in real time – that’s when you start to see extraordinary results.
That’s when all stakeholders can have the right information to hand when a new product launches. That’s when you can give customers more accurate information about where products have come from. And that’s when you can make supply chain decisions that will save you money.
By implementing a successful PIM strategy, you can:
Just having the right PIM solution isn’t enough. To really get the most out of the technology, you need a PIM data strategy that will achieve your business objectives.
Amplifi takes the time to sit down with you, discuss your business goals and find PIM vendors that will suit your business. We’ve done it for some of the biggest retailers in the UK – and we can do it for you too.
We’ll help you implement your new solution, transfer your data and help you assess how your PIM strategy is performing. We’re nice like that.
Want to get started on your PIM journey? Get in touch with us today, or download our guide 5 benefits of a PIM solution below.
The tips in this guide from Chris Collings, our VP Professional Services, aim to show you the benefits of a PIM solution and how a business case can be built across departments, covering:
