What is Product Information Management (PIM)?
Product information management (PIM) is a complex process that helps businesses, companies, and e-commerce brands optimize their workflow by reducing the number of tasks and removing duplications. The complex structure of PIM helps specialists distribute tasks and maintain core processes.
It was a short description of product information management and its purpose. Now, we will go deeper and uncover the core points. Keep reading to find out what PIM is needed for, who exactly uses it and why, and what benefits it brings to your team.
What Is Pim and How Does It Work?
PIM is software created to manage data. With product information management, you can gather, centralize, enrich, and distribute product information through the available channels. This useful feature allows you to manage any information, from banners and reviews to pricing and product descriptions. In short, with product information management, you can effectively track and process the following data:
- Basic data. Universal product codes, article numbers, titles, etc.
- Assets. Images and video files that help clients understand what exactly they are buying.
- Technical information. Product’s size, color, length, volume, material, etc.
- Marketing information. Major keywords, descriptions, Google categories, etc.
- Sales information. Store pricing data, latest reviews, and testimonials that can be used for promotion.
- Localized information. Information tailored to the region you operate in. It could be regional currency system data.
- Design information. Information about how the product is displayed and how it fits with your business's branding.
- Emotional information. Content that resonates with specific client’s personalities.
- Taxonomy. Variations of the catalogs, connections between them, and core categories for the company’s structure.
The PIM system becomes a single source of truth, allowing you to simplify your communication and ensure that you publish updated data on the right platforms at the right time. There are two main types of product information management systems:
- SaaS PIM. Software is created and maintained by a third-party provider, which means you can’t change the code. Such software requires payment to be able to use a license. At the same time, you no longer need a development team.
- Open-source PIM. In contrast to SaaS PIM software, you have full access to the code, so you can add new features and change the existing options.
What does PIM Stand For?
Product information management (PIM) is generally a subcategory of master data management (MDM). It offers great scalability and can be integrated with any legacy software through flexible APIs, making it the go-to solution.
| Aspect | Definition |
|---|---|
| Definition | Centralized management of product data for accuracy and consistency across channels. |
| Purpose | To ensure accurate, consistent, and up-to-date product information across multiple platforms. |
| Key features | Centralized Database, Data Quality Management, Multi-Channel Publishing, Digital Asset Management, Workflow Management, Integration Capabilities, Localization and Translation |
| Benefits | Improved Data Accuracy, Enhanced Efficiency, Better Customer Experience, Faster Time-to-Market, Increased Sales, Compliance and Risk Management |
What is PIM Good For?
Before implementing a new approach or technology, it’s essential to understand its potential benefits. First and foremost, PIM allows businesses and major companies to escape repeatable issues, especially with data management and distribution. The idea is to create high-quality content and share it across the available channels.
PIM is good for data centralization. The system helps simplify the process and reduce data isolation, establishes workflow management, and makes the integration process less problematic. This means that connecting with e-commerce platforms or EPR will be much easier.
Another benefit of using PIM is its ability to process and generate data with superior quality. The system integrates rule-based workflows, automatically checking the quality of the received information. When you deal with gigabytes of data and have to deliver it fast, you’ll have a tool that keeps you away from human errors.
The third major reason to use PIM is the short time to market. The more stock-keeping units (SKUs) you have, the more problematic it could be to process them, maintain them, organize them, and deliver them to the needed channels. With PIM, the time needed to input, verify, and enrich products is short.
What Is the Function of PIM?
As a database application, product information management has four core functions:
- Data collection. Import, map, and transform through the selected channel.
- Consolidate data by rationalizing it.
- Enrich data. Classify, move to the needed category, and extend (if needed).
- Disseminate data. Customize, export, and publish on the selected sources.
Besides these key functions, we should also mention additional capabilities of product information management.
Unlimited Channels
Another feature of PIM is unlimited product channels. These allow users to store the same product information differently, removing or setting them for different languages. This is essential when you work in multi-national teams and share your products around the world.
Free Brand Portals
Free brand portals are good for growing companies. Businesses that don’t have enough resources yet will get a serious advantage. It will be much easier to create e-commerce setups, increase revenue, and simplify the download for retailers.
PIM Views
Select from multiple views for your PIM system and have the best work experience.
Product Categories
Categorizing products is essential for the overall team performance. Since you have marketing specialists, members of the IT team, and other experts, you have to give each of them topic-related data. That’s why product categories are needed.
Product Variants
With PIM solutions, you can see several versions of one product. This option allows you to share common characteristics (size, material, colors, season, etc.). With PIM, you can easily adjust widgets, so they will show you variants with different characteristics.
Product Relationships
With product information management, you can build connections by making different types of associations (for example, recommended products). When you work on optimizing product information, product relationships will help you see items with similar characteristics, descriptions, or other matches.
Product Data Transform
When processing and distributing the information, you have to work with complex data formats. You will work with mark-up text, pre-defined selection fields, multi-dimensional pivot tables, and other complex formats, so using PIM is necessary.
Who Uses PIM?
Depending on your company's structural build-up, PIM may be used by different departments and specialists. It will boost the entire organization, but now we will outline core roles and departments.
E-commerce Managers
By sending product listings from a PIM system to syndication platforms, e-commerce managers deliver 100% accurate data without permission to double-check it. Since PIM solutions offer auto-check, they deliver a superior customer experience without spending much time.
Creators
Content writers, photographers, designers, search engine optimization specialists, and others who work with information take it from the PIM system. Since data is structured for each department, individuals don’t need to search for it. They just come and take what’s needed.
Product Managers
PMs need PIM for accurate product information delivery. If the data is changed during its lifecycle, the product manager doesn’t need to inform everyone in the marketing team personally. Thanks to the PIM feature, changing the information inside the system is more than enough. This is the control product managers are looking for, and thanks to free PIM solutions, it has become as simple as possible.
IT Department
Product information management simplifies the work of the IT department by automating low-rank tasks and switching to high-priority operations. Since the PIM system has open API architecture, you are free to integrate across the whole tech stack. Secure access is guaranteed, so people can easily connect to the system at any time. Moreover, the data is backed up, so you won’t miss anything and accomplish the task safely.
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Chief Officers
Today, digital presence is an essential component of any business. Regardless of what you do (distribute, sell, or manufacture), you have to maximize your presence on all related platforms. To make your presence stronger, you need to maintain the quality of product data and digital assets, and that’s where PIM solutions are needed. When all the employees work with a single system, the productivity of the whole team rises immediately.
Why Is Pim Needed?
To Reduce Pressure on the Employees
Workers may get overburdened after consistently monitoring data. If people keep doing this for hours, it means you failed to manage the data. Imagine what will happen when the product count increases, so even the experienced specialists will fail the operations. Using product information management will help you avoid this problem in the future.
To Help Analytics Avoid Repeatable Mistakes
Data accuracy directly impacts the decision-making process. If something is wrong with the information (for example, it was not updated on time), it may fail future decisions. Data analytics must receive only verified information, and the best way to do it is to implement PIM solutions.
To Frequently Make Changes to Product Data
Regular updates are a must for those who sell products, especially via multiple web pages. When you have regular updates like size changes or something similar, you have to make them on time. Clients often cancel their orders when they see that the information does not match with images or videos. Consider using PIM for frequent updates.
To Reduce Time-To-Market
Data automation is, without a doubt, one of the strongest points of using product information management. When all the processes are automated, you can decrease time-to-market, and launching new products will take less effort and time. Even if you have to follow specific requirements when preparing products for sale, it won’t take long. When all the operations are accelerated, you reach a higher sales count and can earn more every day.
To Improve ROI by Cutting the Cost
PIM solutions automate workflows and improve the performance of the whole team and each department as well. When you remove repeatable tasks, reorganize the whole process, and avoid repeatable, you should expect increasing of the ROI and a higher income.
Benefits of a PIM Solution
Saving Your Time, Money, and Effort
Depending on your budget and the amount of work you do, PIM can save up to 9 million dollars per year. With good information management, you also avoid making additional effort and reducing the time needed to complete a specific task. Everything will be stored in one place, so any specialist will find the data in seconds.
Increasing the Quality of Product Information
Product information management gives you powerful tools to edit, organize, and optimize data in catalogs regardless of size. If you are worrying about handling information with multiple connections, leave it to PIM. It’s the best solution for any case.
Rapid Data Sharing
When working with data, you must share it with retailers, partners, sales specialists, and other recipients. PIM technology makes it easier to share everything, thanks to quick data sheet exports. The information on catalogs and sales channels will be updated automatically.
Strong Presence on Multiple Channels
Whenever your customers are shopping, you need to have a strong presence there. With PIM, you overcome two major challenges that prevent you from building a multi-channel presence:
- Dealing with different rules and requirements on channels.
- Sending product information to multiple channels.
Product information management automates multiple operations and allows you to organize this information (for example, if you decide to change priorities).
Improved Makreting
Marketing campaigns won’t succeed unless you don’t have your information organized and delivered properly. With product information management, you can go beyond regular selling and try upselling or cross-selling. Moreover, updated PIM tools allow you to change the design of the catalogs and sales, making your marketing campaigns more effective.
The Role of a Properly Implemented PIM Strategy
A properly implemented PIM strategy will be advantageous for your business. With a well-balanced strategy, you no longer struggle because inaccurate product content may disorientate customers. With high-quality product listings delivered on time, you can ensure that all the information on the sales channels is updated on time. Major companies worldwide have already seen changes after implementing product information management. After getting rid of data quality issues, they started seeing positive changes.
Besides, the well-balanced product information management strategy brings positive changes to digital assets management. Now, when dealing with images and videos related to stock keeping units, you can easily manage them and connect them to the needed descriptions and do this on different platforms.
When using product information management, you can significantly improve the performance by implementing the following steps:
- Focus on improving the overall quality and reliability of the dataset inside your company.
- Use specifically designed tools to work with complex data management tasks.
- Work with your team. Clear gaps, set clear goals, and
Real PIM Use Case
Hussmann Corporation
Hussmann Corporation, a subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation engages in millions of dollars of online replacement part sales annually. Hussmann wanted to extend their product line data to contain competitor compatibility information as well as filterable product category specific parts attribute data that could be used to enrich the end consumer experience.
PIMinto PIM was selected to provide the functionality required by Hussmann. All functionality required by Hussmann is supported by PIMinto as standard features.
- Initial product data was imported from spreadsheet into PIMinto.
- PIMInto Feeds were configured to fetch new products / SKU’s nightly from available external business system API’s and add them to the PIM along with available attribute data.
- New products / SKU’s are added to the PIM accordingly. Existing SKU attributes are updated accordingly.
- Headless eCommerce solution extended to utilize PIMINTO fast data serving API’s to deliver product data to eCommerce channel in real time.
- Automated and manual Product and SKU data exports configured for automated and manual channel exports.
By implementing PIMinto PIM, Hussmann Corporation effectively extended their product line data, improved data management, and enhanced the customer experience.
Vermeer Corporation
Vermeer Corporation, founded in 1948 is a manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment. Vermeer wanted to expand their eCommerce reach to include retail customer online order placement using a unified platform. Additionally they wanted to provide order fulfillment and order pickup through their dealer network. Meeting this goal would require that a single source of Parts Information was utilized by Vermeer and it all 150 participating dealers and that this single source of truth not only contains “global” master parts data but also contains parts information for each part specific to each of the 150 dealers. This dealer specific parts data should only be editable by each individual dealer and served by the eCommerce solution for the specific dealer that was selected for order fulfillment.
- Initial Product data was loaded by Vermeer from spreadsheets and API connections.
- Dealer access keys were generated for each participating dealer.
- Access keys are used by each dealer to maintain their parts specific data in the editing user interface and through the PIMInto API. API Keys only grant editing access to specific fields defined for each dealers. Master parts data is read only and not editable by the dealer.
- Vermeer’s headless retail eCommerce solution is connected to PIMInto PIM and automatically utilizes the dealer specific parts data for the dealer fulfilling the order. By utilizing the standard “View” functionality from PIMinto PIM and the API, the eCommerce solution always has the correct parts data.
- PArts data can be updated using the visual user interface of utilizing the API for leveraging automation.
- By leveraging the PIM, all 150 dealers utilize the same PIM API for parts related data and integration with the retail eCommerce solution. This eliminates the need for creating unique connections to different dealaer business systems and eliminates any custom integration code.
By implementing this solution, Vermeer Corporation successfully expanded their eCommerce reach and streamlined parts data management across their dealer network.
RBI Corporation
RBI Corporation, a distributor with over 250,000 SKU’s and multiple sales channels needed a single source of truth that could be used to drive truly headless eCommerce web sites across multiple sales channels. Each sales channels was limited to various product lines and SKU subsets. RBI corporation’s product data would need to be maintained using automated loads from business systems, and be able to import product fitment and attribute data provided by its suppliers, as well as allow manual editing from the PIM user interface. PIMInto was selected due to its standard features, API speed and functionality.
- PIMInto was configured to import data from external business system on a scheduled basis. New SKU’s are automatically added to the product dataset. Existing SKU’s attribute subsets are automatically updated when modified in the external business system.
- RBI data management staff consistently utilizes the PIM User interface to enrich product data.
- RBI utlizes the PIM “View” feature to visually map to import files provided by its suppliers to import and update SKU specific attribute data.
- RBI’s retail and wholesale eCommerce sites were integrated with PIMInto API to allow real time data integration.
By implementing PIMinto PIM and integrating with their eCommerce sales channels RBI Corporation effectively leveraged their product data across multiple sales channels leveraging multiple data enrichment paths and providing an enhanced customer experience.
When is the Right Time to Invest in a PIM System
There is no wrong time to invest in PIM solutions. In most cases, clients understand that the time to invest in PIM is when multiple issues show up. For example, customers start making order returns due to incorrect information. It means you have to change the approach to
managing your data and implement a new strategy.
How to choose a PIM system?
To choose a good product information management system, you need to understand who will be using it, how many users will work with the tool, and what skills they possess. Depending on how skillful your colleagues are, you’ll have to set training sessions and practice. This will help you build confidence and work at your usual pace, being able to overcome challenges, capitalize on market opportunities, and build a loyal and recognizable brand. PIM is a useful tool, and all you have to do is to find those who’ll help you implement this tool into your workflow.