With the rising number of products and bourgeoning number of SKUs, manufacturers are constantly overwhelmed by digital product data. No matter which industry a manufacturer belongs to, the route to digital growth is through navigating product information management (PIM) effectively. PIM helps manufacturers manage product data and minimize their dependence on retailers or distributors to market their products. And while automation has already become a driving force, it is AI that is going to be the real game changer in manufacturing.
Understanding PIM
A PIM system enables organizations to collect, centralize, streamline, enrich, and automate product data obtained from multitudes of internal and external sources, aggregators, and 3rd party product suppliers so that error-free, consistent product data can be shared across various systems, customer-facing channels, and touchpoints. With PIM , manufacturers can improve the quality and efficiency of product data to ensure better compliance, competitive focus, and supply chain efficacy while offering exceptional customer experience.
Why Manufacturers Need PIM?
There can be a host of reasons for manufacturers to implement PIM. From keeping product data consistent across multiple countries and regions to handling complex challenges of different price specifications, languages, and product customizations as per markets and regions, to cutting down time-to-market, and quickly reaching new markets to introduce the latest products and synchronizing all the information in real-time, to several other complicated challenges, PIM is a necessity for manufacturers to thrive.
Challenges of Manufacturers
1. Data Silos and Inconsistency
Disparate data can not only disrupt and impair the movement of product information within the manufacturing ecosystem via duplication of processes and workflows, it can also hurt the brand image immensely if it makes it through the value chain and reaches the customer. Silos are mainly a result of the traditional data maintenance and exchanges involving various departments. Besides, many teams selectively include or exclude individuals and other team members as they share data over emails or project-specific applications. As a result, collaborative workflows take a backseat, with a high probability of task duplication. At the same time, approvals take longer than usual.
2. Meeting Multi-Channel Needs
Manufacturers are forever looking to expand their global reach. They need to be constantly in touch with retailers and follow their timelines and specific data formats. However, in a rush to meet the market demands and beat the competition, they sometimes submit mediocre quality data to retailers (compared to the original product information they have available). More complications occur when retailers don’t refresh the data, which creates discrepancies and inconsistencies.
3. Poor Speed-to-Market
The traditional ways of using product data sheets to fill and edit information give rise to redundant tasks and manual workflows, which are time-consuming and error-prone and can slow down product launches significantly, making competitors outperform great-quality products. Besides, the time-to-market of products is directly linked with marketing and promotion of products. With legacy applications to manage product information, not only do products reach the market late, but little scope is left for making real-time changes to product data.
Benefits of PIM
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Improved Data Quality and Efficiency: PIM enhances data quality and consistency for manufacturers by centralizing product data and minimizing errors from disparate sources; it also ensures uniformity in data formats and attributes through standardized templates and validation rules. Automated processes streamline data enrichment, leveraging automation and AI for efficiency and several advanced functions. Controlled workflows facilitate systematic updates and approvals, maintaining consistency across the organization. With robust governance features, PIM secures compliance and monitors data changes through precise, reliable data management, which is essential for informed decision-making and efficient operations.
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Streamlined Multi-Channel Management: PIM plays a crucial role in streamlining multi-channel management for manufacturers by first consolidating and then distributing consistent product data across various channels. Manufacturers can easily maintain product information across diverse touchpoints such as eCommerce websites, marketplaces, social media platforms, and physical stores. PIM’s centralized platform eliminates the need to manage multiple channels separately, ensuring customers receive coherent and up-to-date product information regardless of the channel they engage with, ultimately enhancing the overall shopping experience and brand perception.
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Faster Time-to-Market: With standardized templates and automated workflows, manufacturers can rapidly onboard new products and update existing ones while streamlining product data management processes. Besides, integration with eCommerce platforms, marketing channels, and other systems enables seamless synchronization of product information, eliminating delays caused by human intervention in data entry leaving no scope for discrepancies. By facilitating faster product launches and updates, manufacturers can enhance agility, responsiveness, and competitiveness in the market to promote business growth.
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Higher ROI: An advanced data management strategy with PIM improves adaptability to multiple geographies, automates workflows, reduces complexity, and minimizes data irregularities. In fact, every improvement through PIM, be it launching products swiftly, enhancing supply-chain transparency, speeding up new product introduction (NPI), introducing localization to grow the market footprint, bringing nimbleness in business processes, crafting sophisticated workflows, increasing brand prominence and product margins—contributes towards growing the enterprise ROI.
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Better Scalability and Flexibility: Manufacturers must be thoroughly prepared to onboard new products and give access to new internal and external users. If a PIM system is scalable enough, it can easily incorporate the growing demands of the business. A flexible PIM can adapt to the needs of the product by allowing itself to be customized accordingly. Scalability becomes essential in adhering to go-to-market timelines and maintaining a business’s competitive advantage. PIM systems that allow onboarding vendors through vendor portals can also play a crucial part in quick scaling and faster user adoption.
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Improved Customer Experience: By centralizing product data, PIM enables manufacturers to capture and deliver coherent marketing campaigns and brand messaging by spreading accurate product details across various channels like marketplaces, eCommerce platforms, retail stores, mobile apps, etc. Consistent product information builds customer trust and confidence, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty. An AI-enabled PIM system can significantly facilitate personalized product recommendations and targeted marketing efforts by providing rich product attributes. Hence, with improved data quality and accessibility, manufacturers can meet precise customer expectations, drive sales, and foster long-term relationships.
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Compliance and Regulations: PIM assists manufacturers in establishing robust governance frameworks and taking data integrity measures. Product data management requires following the laws and adhering to standards and policies set by regulators and compliance authorities. It encompasses data protection, data security, user consent, and respecting privacy laws and ethical standards. PIM makes sure all essential regulatory obligations are met. Additionally, PIM facilitates real-time updates and version control, enabling manufacturers to promptly respond to regulatory changes and maintain compliance across diverse markets. With comprehensive data governance features, manufacturers can mitigate risks, avoid penalties, and uphold the standards effectively.
Pimcore PIM: A Manufacturer’s Perfect Ally
Pimcore PIM serves as a comprehensive solution for manufacturers that aids them in the efficient shaping, management, and dissemination of product data. By centralizing all product information in a single platform, Pimcore PIM ensures data accuracy, consistency, and accessibility across various channels. This approach streamlines product creation to distribution processes, facilitating collaboration across teams and departments. As a result, manufacturers benefit from improved efficiency, reduced errors, and faster time-to-market.
Additionally, Pimcore PIM enables manufacturers to adapt quickly to changing market demands, enhance product quality, and maintain compliance with industry standards and regulations. Ultimately, Pimcore PIM empowers manufacturers to achieve their goals by improving competitiveness and driving innovation in the rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape.
Here are some of the Pimcore features tailormade for manufacturers:
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Significant Focus on Data Quality: Pimcore focuses on a comprehensive set of product data attributes from product specifications (details like dimensions, material used, technicalities, usage details, and warranties), pricing specifications (regular price details, discounts, special offers, and price distinctions), and product lifecycle data (product’s journey spanning from design, development, modifications to discontinuation).
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Advanced Personalization: Pimcore PIM facilitates customized product experiences that are essential to a manufacturer’s brand image through superior data management features such as personalized product search and suitability to global markets. Pimcore PIM strengthens product content and aids product segmentation while driving tailored product recommendations for exceptional CX.
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AI and IoT Integration: Apart from automating repetitive tasks, forecasting future trends, and examining insights from data sets, manufacturers can leverage Pimcore’s AI-powered PIM platform to offer tailored product suggestions and customizations to cater to individual user behavior. Likewise, Pimcore PIM supports IoT enablement by providing up-to-the-minute product information and insights to drive real-time product experiences by bringing the physical and digital worlds closer.
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Maximum Security and Compliance: Pimcore PIM platform complies with the latest security, data protection, and privacy regulations, which minimizes the possibility of any breaches or cyber threats. The platform undergoes regular updates, including encryptions, access controls, and security audits. Pimcore’s Enterprise Edition comes with ‘Pimcore Secured,’ a carefully designed security feature that includes multiple layered security—ideal for manufacturers.
- Product Experience Portals (PXP): Pimcore PIM comes equipped with a product experience portal that can significantly contribute to manufacturers’ processes and functioning. PXPs offer a seamless, single point of access by providing users with a secure, personalized log-in environment. It can offer suppliers and partners flexibility and self-service options while providing manufacturers with a single point of control to access all communications in one place.
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Pimcore DAM: The need for digitalization in an assets-driven industry like manufacturing has prompted businesses to ensure their digital assets stay consistent, visible, and visually appealing. Besides, to streamline product portfolios and rule out irregularities, upholding the integrity of digital assets is crucial. Pimcore DAM has the requisite capability to support digital asset dissemination for manufacturers, while helping them control and future-proof their business effectively.
Explore Features of Pimcore PIM
Success Stories
Stanley Black & Decker: A Case of Centralized Data Management using PIM:
The French subsidiary of this leading tooling company had over 200,000 products and wanted to create a single source of truth for their product data. The biggest challenge was finding data quickly and easily, decreasing data loss and time spent searching for information. Pimcore implemented a PIM solution to tackle the problem of data centralization by deploying a flexible data model. From store classification to categorization, attributes were grouped as per industry standards. As a result, over 53,700 technical attributes, 6800 attribute groups were initialized, and 15 distinct objects were created. And the marketing and sales team got access to 215,000 SKUs. Finally, the brand was able to minimize duplicate data and cut down time-to-market and total cost of ownership. Read the entire case study here.
AUDI: A (B2B) Case of Brand Consistency in Dealer Network:
The world-renowned luxury car brand with €58 bn annual turnover wanted to ensure brand consistency for its 3,000 global dealers. A significant challenge was that the ordering process involved manual tasks involving order forms to be printed, scanned, and emailed. The process resulted in a lot of discrepancies and data loss. Pimcore PIM was deployed to automate the entire process and flexibly adapt to Audi’s business requirements. An ordering portal was set up and installed at Audi dealerships in less than a year. The system could automatically detect relevant suppliers based on the dealer’s location, eliminating manual work. Pimcore’s flexible data modeling also ensured vast user rights management. Audi was able to make various business improvements. Finally, it led to decreased time-to-market, time-saving on data maintenance, and a curtailed ordering process. Read the entire case study here.
