inRiver

Facing the challenges of managing product information for all channels, markets and languages is hard. That's why so many companies invest in a PIM solution or have on built. We would of course recommend buing one, but let’s say we use a PDM system for storing the attributes like size, color and material, a text database to store descriptions and sales arguments and a media database to store images and documents. Then we have three places to fetch data. Then some question must be answered:

• How do we relate a text to a product so that it is, and stays, consistent in all channels (web, e-commerce, printed catalogs etc)?
• How do we relate an image to a variant so that it is, and stays, consistent in all channels?
• How do we create all the language versions of a catalog in InDesign?
• How can we control the status of all these information types to know if they are ready for distribution?
• How can we control the structure and content of an assortment on a web site or in a web shop?
• How can we work with the upcoming assortments “carry overs” without changing the current one in all channels?
• How do we know what information to change if a product is updated in PDM. How do we know where this information is published?

If you need to know the answers to many of the questions above the question is not if you need a PIM system, it is when You should implement it.  

Building a solution to manage the flow of product information to all channels is a lot about managing workflow, rules for selection and distribution to all channels and creating relations between products, variants, text, attributes and images. It is of course also a matter of storing the data, but just like any other system support, the data storage is more a consequence than the purpose of the system. Nevertheless it is prudent to store the data in one single database as it makes it easier to create the business rules and business logic to control them. This is why most systems, from ERP to PIM, is based on storing the data in one single database. 

 There are also huge number of both organizational and customer related benefits to be gained from implementing a multi-channel strategy. Here’s a few:

Organisational Benefits

• Increased revenue and growth opportunities – more touch-points into target market.
• Better responsiveness and sensitivity to changing environments.
• Organisational efficiency and effectiveness opportunities through sharing of processes, technology and information.

Customer Related Benefits

• Better and wider customer interaction with a greater variety of information available for improved understanding of customers and identification of opportunities for increasing value per customer.
• Increased customer loyalty through better understanding of their behaviour.
• Better customer experience reducing churn and increasing loyalty.
• Significant opportunity to leverage and improve brand impact and perception.

Customers themselves also benefit from increased choice in interaction opportunities and the ability to switch channels as convenient.