Having the right product information, in the right place, at the right time is becoming indispensable for enterprises. Businesses have realized, they’re well past the stage of relying on ‘homegrown’ systems, manual processes, dated toolsets to meet the rising product information management (PIM) standards.
PIM Systems have Evolved
Brands on the path of high-growth, spend a substantial amount of time, effort and manpower in launching new products, expanding product catalog, and meeting the dynamic demands of product information. With your legacy product information management (PIM) platform, it can turn into an extremely challenging, complicated, and expensive affair. Hence, if you’re looking to streamline your product information while bringing a positive change in your bottom line, you must replace your legacy PIM system.
The Irrelevance of Fixing a Legacy PIM System
1. ‘Manual’ PIM Fixing
Growing businesses try to adjust to their evolving needs by managing multiple worksheets, sometimes with pivot tables and cross scripting SQL to manage the flood of product data. This isn’t just susceptible to blunders, its management is tough too. Besides, teams that use multiple tools and workflows risk wide gaps in product data which can decelerate back office work and compromise data integrity.
2. ‘Customized PIM’ Fixing
It’s quite difficult, if not impossible for businesses to cease their operations for a while to create, replace or restructure technology systems. And in case a business, after pausing its operations, does resort to exclusively built customized product information management solution, the challenges don’t just go away. That’s because, with continued evolution of technologies and processes, any exclusively built product is bound to become outdated.
3. ‘All-Inclusive Platform’ Fixing
The issue with most all-inclusive platforms is that specialization remains a concern. It’s a classic case of underusing and overspending. There are features and functions you don’t want, which means it can’t create the right value for you. Also, their maintenance, speed and flexibility can be detrimental to your time-to-market and accuracy. Inadequate customization of workflows and hurdles in integration of 3rd party applications can be another challenge.
Get PIM System Perfect
Being aware of how critical product information management is to your business and customers, a PIM system is a worthwhile investment. Here is why:
1. Consolidate & Centralize Data
As businesses expand, huge amounts of product information from multiple sources must be consolidated and the processes pertaining to managing product data must be centralized for a comprehensive, real-time picture of the data. Also, both these factors have a direct bearing on the Customer experience (CX). They enable:
- Consistent data quality and accuracy across systems, formats and locations
- Automated updates and customized checks for your product information
- Swiftness in bringing products out into the market
2. Pimcore’s PIM Can Help You Unify Any Data
Pimcore`s PIM system consolidates any amount of product information in a single location. It centralizes and synchronizes product related data throughout your technology stack with a highly flexible product information management solution, that ensures:
- Single Source of Data: By tying different existing repositories of data, a unique source of master data is created that ups the efficiency and reliability.
- Faster Time-to-Market: Data accuracy and consistency helps push the product into the market faster.
- Omni-Channel Enablement: Unique source of data makes sure all the customer touchpoints receive consistent data and updates in real time.
3. Integrate & Deliver Data
Businesses usually integrate with other transaction systems such as order management systems (OMS), customer relationship management system (CRMs), enterprise resource planning system (ERPs), manufacturing and supply chain, etc. A PIM solution can be integrated with all these systems as it:
- Assimilates large amounts of data through automated workflow and verification mechanisms into the product range.
- Controls, manages and connects commerce engines with marketing for transparency in product information management across regions, languages and channels.
- Publishes directly out of your PIM solution.
4. Pimcore’s PIM Makes Data Integration Easy
Being an open source data integration platform, Pimcore can efficiently aggregate data from a variety of data sources. Its compatibility with any kind of MDM implementation renders it a special place among most available PIMs on the market. Its chief features are:
- Data Import and Export: Pimcore makes sure that the control of all the data exchanges between Pimcore and external systems remains in your hands.
- API Driven Approach: Pimcore’s holistic API driven approach offers boundless connectivity with all the other enterprise systems for customized integration.
- ‘Connect Anything’ Architecture: Pimcore’s ‘connect anything’ architecture can tie together any amount, any type of data for businesses of any industry or size.
Streamline Workflows
The ability to create customized workflows and assign tasks to users and user-groups such as product managers, online merchandisers, and suppliers is critical for the outflow of organized information. It offers the ability to:
- Allow individuals to design and operate, optimized, configurable workflows from a single platform.
- Handle urgent workflow automation requests with very little or no assistance from team members and/or other departments.
- Alerts users when a product needs their attention and gives them the flexibility to design the product’s lifecycle that suits the business the most.
Pimcore’s PIM Can Streamline Your Workflow
Pimcore’s PIM platform enables enterprises to create and modify workflows, as per their unique requirements to improve productivity, precision, while simultaneously minimizing any risks. This is accomplished by modification of workflow paths, making easy selection from drop-down menus, etc.
- Advanced Workflow Engine: Pimcore has the power to define editorial workflows, business processes, and include concept like states, transitions, notifications, and actions required for executing complicated workflow situations.
- Customized Frontends: Pimcore’s management and admin interfaces can be entirely customized and can be improved further with bespoke functionalities and modules.
- Workflow Engine 2.0: This feature has enabled a complete standardization of workflows based on the Symfony workflow component. It’s quite easily configurable, creates the possibility of multiple workflows per element and offers a graphical representation.
Improve ROI
Modern PIM systems have led to a complete reorientation of business models through creating powerful interfaces, integrations and workflow functions, by cutting down expenditure, generating operational efficiency and significantly reducing the time-to-market, thereby improving the overall ROI.
- The evolving link between products and their information, and the bearing it has on omni-channel capability has led enterprises to adopt a smart PIM system.
- Absence of automated tools, disintegrated systems can not only increase overheads, but lead to poor customer experience, which impacts sales.
- A good PIM lets you only invest in functionalities that takes care of your distinct needs and offers seamless integration to maximize your revenue.
Pimcore’s PIM Helps Improve Your ROI
Pimcore’s enterprise-ready PIM software can help you surpass your ROI objectives easily by lowering IT costs, streamlining workflows, increasing automation and driving transformation, thereby boosting the entire selling process. Its main features are:
- Customized, Extensible Platform: Pimcore combines separate tools and information in a single system, making it a perfect option for building marketplaces, omni-channel platforms and multi-tenant eCommerce sites.
- Personalized Customer Experience: The native APIs of Pimcore provides an integrated, consolidated, and user-friendly platform, which facilitates creation of tailored customer experience that helps boost ROI.
- All Inclusive Platform: Being an integrated solution that comes combined with PIM, MDM, DAM, CMS, and eCommerce, Pimcore can make substantial improvements to you ROI.
