Understanding Product Information Management

Companies that deal with their products on platforms like Excel relinquish a lot of time, quality data and productivity by opting to manage their product information in this way.

Customers’ interactions with a brand vary from person to person, however, most of them would like to have a product’s complete and detailed information available during these interactions to make informed choices.

A 2016 study states inferior descriptions of the product as a major reason for customers to opt-out of buying a particular product. This depicts the importance product information has in attracting or losing out on a customer.

Therefore, handling information about products is very important and requires a set procedure in place that can maintain and keep track of large volumes of various products’ information for maximum efficiency.

The PIM (product information management) system can simplify data handling for many companies.

What is PIM?

Simply put, the Product Information Management (PIM) system has a set of processes or tools in place, where all the information regarding a particular product/service is managed on a centralized level, to make sure that it has the accurate and relevant view of the product that is to be marketed and sold later.

It also makes sure that this data is available for internal viewing and distribution on multiple channels. This management tool ensures the smooth running of business processes by collecting product information across various departments and categorizes it under one product data.

It is especially useful for any kind of organization dealing in sales, e-commerce and marketing areas.

PIM Market

The PIM market is in the middle of witnessing a significant rise in its business, especially dominated by the software industry and is expected to keep growing till 2026.

Due to the clear advantages the PIM tool is offering to business enterprises like reducing mistakes in product information or orders of customers, flexibility with products in development, etc, has led to its market growth.

Based on research, in 2017, the on-grounds model of the PIM tool led the market. The problem with the on-grounds model is that as the number of users and products increases, the requirements from the tool increase further. This leads to the model’s infrastructure and working servers to suffer and not perform optimally.

The cloud-based variant of this system is likely to grow fast as it has considerable product features and has a faster resolution speed.

The PIM market, geographically, was dominated by North America in 2017. The presence of significant companies like Oracle Corporation, Edgenet, Informatica, IBM, etc has significantly influenced the growth of this management system in the market.

A list of the key players in this field includes both regional and international players like Salsify, Inc, Edgenet, Informatica, Aprimo LLC, IBM, and many more.

Types of Information on products that are managed

• Important product data like names, descriptions, SKUs, etc.
• Sales information like cost, customer reviews, etc.
• Categories, labels, etc.
• Design specifications like style document, instructions for assembly, etc.
• Technical aspects like warranties, size, materials used, etc
• Data required for marketing like keywords, SEO aspects, etc. and many more.

There are many product management solutions available in the market. These tools offering solutions allow companies to combine and handle their complete product service in one place. These can be an on-grounds model or cloud-based variant or home-grown solutions. There are other tools used for product management who go by names like –

• Product Image Manager
• Product Content Manager
• Product Data Manager
• Item Master
• Product Resource Manager

Though they have different names, they serve the same purpose, provide a central database of product information with standard information.

What can you use this tool for?

• Data that is spread or scattered can be centralized and cleaned
• It can be used to highlight product descriptions and details
• It can help in noting the product’s progress and its completion
• This tool can be used to attach links, documents or images to products
• Different products and their files can be classified
• Data that is upstreamed can be managed and prepared for sales channels
• It can be used to handle relationships between products
• Product sheets with details can be created and published
• With this tool’s help, customized product feeds can be created
• This tool can format data for multi-channel integration
• Brand portal creation and its maintenance can be automated through this tool
• Every significant or necessary product information can be added to a centralized database and accessed easily for business efficiency

Advantages of using PIM

This system is ideal for companies or organizations that need to handle a lot of product information and sell them on various channels. The advantages of the usage of this tool are significant, especially favoring productivity. This tool can save an organization their time, enhance their data quality and manage their product details.

• Using this tool decreases the scope for mistakes and irrelevant data by relying on stored data.
• It can help create attractive content optimized for all available sales channels
• There is no need for manual work like data entry or updating
• It eliminates the chances for data bottlenecks and silos
• With access to better and accurate data because of this tool, the sales process becomes easier
• As analysis and access to data become easier, it is easier to enter the market earlier than other competitors
• There is quicker access to importing and sorting data
• This tool can increase a product’s offering in a sustainable manner

Who needs this tool?

• This tool can offer very efficient use to sales teams who require updated and accurate product details and information on a constant basis
• Managers of e-commerce who can use this data to update data, improve customer or user experience and rates of conversion
• Teams that handle marketing strategies require access to a lot of pertinent data to create and modify campaigns on all channels
• Customers of an organization who use this tool will be satisfied as they’d have access to detailed and important information about the products/services

Vinculum is a global software company offering Omnichannel retailing services. The company offers its clients services to rise to new levels and achieve global distinction.