Leveraging Product Information Management Strategies to Improve...

Leveraging Product Information Management Strategies to Improve Business Efficiency

Retail Tech Insights | Monday, October 05, 2020

The rising demand for a seamless shopping experience has caused manufacturers to face the challenge of seamlessly managing the data deluge and maintaining omnichannel data consistency

Fremont CA: Over the years, customer satisfaction has grown to become a non-negligible aspect of the retail industries. Retailers and product managers need to continuously work towards improving customer satisfaction, especially with the onset of e-commerce. The increased importance for customer satisfaction has also given rise to a series of fundamental questions that customer support teams need to answer. Such as; what is the significant component of customer satisfaction? What makes the buying experience seamless, informative, and engaging? Is it none other than product data?

Customers are far more advanced than before. They conduct a significant amount of product research before deciding to purchase a product, be it online or offline. The rising demand for a seamless shopping experience has caused manufacturers to face the challenge of seamlessly managing the data deluge and maintaining omnichannel data consistency. If the e-commerce strategies deployed do not address the product data competency, then the customer experience delivery, sales, and returns are sure to suffer.

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Product information management strategies have become more and more crucial with the increase in customer-facing touchpoints. Product information management strategies enable retailers to communicate a consistent brand message and accurate product information across various channels.

Here are four principles to keep in mind while creating product information management strategies.

Assess your Product Data

Quantifying data quality dimensions is an essential function that product managers need to be aware of. Poor quality data often has a negative, long-lasting, and deteriorating effect on business performance. It often brings down sales charts and weakens competitiveness. Quantifying data quality by profiling datasets and identifying the underlying issues can be helpful in formally measuring both objective dimensions and subjective factors across product datasets like product master data, rich product content, and digital assets.

It is essential that retailers identify gaps for effective data syndication. The quality of data should be mapped with channels and prioritized accordingly. Understanding which data has the most significant impact on the highest value syndication channels is essential for this process. This needs to be followed up by identifying gaps between the profiled product dataset and the mandatory data requirements. The overall quality of data can be improved by working on these gaps and focusing on tactical activities that impact business outcomes.

Design a Holistic PIM Initiative

Vision, strategy, and metrics form the foundation of your product information management strategy. The essence is to focus on the desired business outcomes and keep the strategy practical and straightforward. For instance, a clear vision always leads to high quality, integrity, and availability of product data for cross channels. Strategies can be based on factors like optimizing cost, time, and quality of product data. By defining the right metrics such as operational efficiency, time to market, and noncompliance cost empowers product managers to keep track of whether the PIM investment is headed in the right direction.

Get a 360-degree View of Products

A 360-degree view of the products brings together all the trusted data about a product to fulfill specific business or mission requirements. These enable product managers to view products holistically through many business or mission contexts, whether they are operational or analytical. Such holistic views lead to better business or mission outcomes. This view can be obtained with a foundation of master data, on which rich product content and digital assets can be added. For example, a B2B view enables information exchanges, and product data supports operational excellence, much like a supply chain or purchasing process. Also, a B2B2C view supports direct syndication and data aggregation services and where product data is not only used for operational excellence but also enables improved customer experience through commerce and service channels.

Balance PIM Software Selection

Product managers need to be careful while selecting the PIM platform as it can significantly impact the PIM strategy. The chosen PIM platform should align with the organization's data handling vision and support appropriate use cases. Although it may seem simple, choosing a PIM platform from a plethora of vendors in the market can be a tedious task. Vendors that offer a single style of data management are rare today. Almost all service providers deliver a more comprehensive range of capabilities, either through a portfolio of products or by extending the functionality of individual products to address a broader set of buyers and requirements. As a result, aligning it to the organization's strategy and business requirements requires focus on the provider's primary Identify the provider's main base of strength and map vendors against the required range of common product data management capabilities. This can help identify how a provider's functionality should be applied in the context of a given use case. In some cases, new infrastructure may be required to support improved people and process elements and enable an end to end product data management strategy.

See also: Top E-commerce Consulting/Service Companies

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