Collaboration central: Unify marketing, product management, sales, and IT teams

It can be really frustrating when the different parts of your business aren’t linking up effectively. In a world of digitalization and transformation, the emphasis is on enabling seamless data flows between teams so that your organization benefits from faster, smarter decision making.

Achieving this is not always that simple, and many brands find themselves with siloed teams, disconnected workflows, and inconsistent information. This can result in inefficiencies, miscommunication, and missed opportunities. The effects can ripple across your whole organization. Marketing campaigns might use outdated product details, sales teams may struggle to answer technical questions, and IT departments might buckle under a maze of fragmented data while no one takes ownership of data quality issues.

What would it take to get your marketing, sales, IT, and product management teams working together more effectively? How about having a centralized hub of accurate, up to date and standardized product information that anyone in the organization can access at any time.

Product information management (PIM) software can add so much more value than making it easier to manage product data. It can also act as the glue that binds your teams together.

• “It takes me ages to track down the right data and verify it’s the latest version”
• “My teams are constantly chasing each other for missing information”
• “Some of our marketing campaigns have featured inconsistent messaging”
• “Sometimes we struggle to work out where changes to our product information have come from”
• “I feel like I’m making critical decisions based on outdated or inaccurate information”
• It doesn’t have to be this way

“It takes me ages to track down the right data and verify it’s the latest version”

If your product information is scattered, even simple tasks like verifying data can become complex and time consuming. There are very real risks that are created by teams using outdated data, not just in terms of giving customers misleading information but also not meeting compliance requirements.

By acting as a single source of truth, your PIM software creates a central location where your information is stored, managed, and accessed. Whether you’re updating product descriptions, verifying specifications, or coordinating launches, every team member works from the same, up-to-date set of data.

“My teams are constantly chasing each other for missing information”

Product information rarely sits with a single team. For most businesses, there are multiple internal – and, sometimes, external – teams involved in the enrichment, localization, personalization, and compliance of that data.

We’ve introduced Workflows to provide even more oversight and management of these processes. Workflows centralize and automate key product data tasks, ensuring every team member has access to accurate, up-to-date information. By assigning clear roles, such as Workflow Creators who design custom processes and Workflow Users who execute tasks, you can create a seamless flow of information. You can also automate task handoffs so that product information moves swiftly from creation to distribution.

“Some of our marketing campaigns have featured inconsistent messaging”

One of the key risks of teams working in isolation is that sometimes the review and sign off process does not incorporate expertise from other parts of the company. This might see important technical information get misrepresented or outdated marketing messaging being used.

Inconsistent messaging confuses customers and undermines your brand’s credibility. This issue often stems from misaligned teams and fragmented data management. PIM software provides a shared platform so that everyone in the organization can access a single source of truth for product information. You can be sure that no matter through which touchpoint a customer is interacting with your brand, they are getting the same message every time.

“Sometimes we struggle to work out where changes to our product information have come from”

Getting stuck in a ‘version control’ disaster is never any fun. Tracking changes to product data takes time and care, especially when multiple teams and individuals are involved. Without clear accountability, it is surprisingly easy for errors to slip through the cracks, delaying projects and creating frustration.

PIM software gives you a detailed audit trail for all changes made to product information. Every update is logged, allowing teams to quickly identify who made changes and why. This transparency fosters trust among teams as everyone can see and understand data changes. Additionally, it encourages accountability by showing who is responsible for each update, and it simplifies error resolution by making it easy to identify and correct mistakes before they cause costly delays.

“I feel like I’m making critical decisions based on outdated or inaccurate information”

Data accuracy is at the core of effective decision making. With a PIM solution, all your teams base their strategies on the latest and most reliable information, instilling the confidence needed to drive growth and improve efficiency. Through digital shelf analytics (DSA), you also get comprehensive insights into product performance, market trends, and emerging opportunities. With this knowledge, teams can align their efforts and make bold, strategic moves that reinforce business objectives.

It doesn’t have to be this way

Better collaboration is always worth pursuing. And the benefits spread far beyond profitability – it helps people feel connected, listened to, and valued by showing how their efforts contribute to the bigger picture. The right tools really do help – and while PIM software can’t solve all your collaboration-related problems, it does provide a simple solution to many of them.

By breaking down silos and pulling all the product info together, PIM software lets marketing, sales, IT, and product management teams work smoothly as one. It gets rid of inefficiencies, improves decision making, and keeps messaging consistent. It’s worth it just to never have to send another email asking where the latest product data is.

Unleash the power of seamless collaboration across your teams with inriver’s flexible PIM solution. From creating a single source of truth to accelerating workflows with AI, inriver empowers your business to make smarter decisions, faster. transform how your teams work together.