Insights on Data Quality and the Chicago River 

Greetings from Chicago

Last week I was in Chicago and during an informal office lunch Q&A I shared the feedback we received from our attendance at the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit in Orlando. We were thrilled to see the amount of interest in our new breed of PIM, which delivers value through our cloud-native scalable product data model, pre-flight validation, and integrated digital shelf analytic capabilities. This proves the importance of having the correct flow of data, but even more so, having the correct digital twin of the product data across the entire product journey. 

Reversing the flow of the Chicago River 

Speaking of flows, every time I cross the Chicago River, I am reminded of how the flow of this river was reversed in the early 1900s to address serious public health concerns. The river was the primary receptacle for the city’s sewage and industrial waste, leading to outbreaks of waterborne diseases and public health hazards.  

To address this issue, the city of Chicago began constructing the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1892, which would divert the city’s wastewater away from Lake Michigan and into the Illinois River, ultimately leading to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The project was completed in 1900, and the flow of the river was reversed through the use of a series of canal locks, pumps, and tunnels, which redirected the flow of the river away from Lake Michigan. Looking at this project in isolation, this was a major achievement and it helped to significantly improve public health and water quality in the region. However, it also had significant environmental consequences elsewhere. 

By diverting the city’s wastewater away from Lake Michigan, the reversal led to the depletion of oxygen levels in the Illinois River and the Gulf of Mexico, causing damage to aquatic ecosystems and contributing to the formation of a large “dead zone” in the Gulf.  

Data quality and building connected, dynamic systems 

I used this reference in several conversations I had with other business leaders. As with the Chicago River, changing only the flow of your product data will not solve your problems – your data still needs to be right. Having both the right data and the right data flow is at the heart of what we are building at inriver with our new breed of PIM solution. As the only vendor with one common infrastructure that provides a single source of truth for all product data and the ability to syndicate that product data out to sales channels and analyze product performance with Digital Shelf Analytics, we are determined to remove waste from the e-commerce process and help businesses learn from feedback in ever-changing systems.  

I am particularly excited about the role of Digital Shelf Analytics in this new PIM ecosystem. With Digital Shelf Analytics, brands can leverage automation to constantly monitor products on the digital self and deliver real-time insight into buyer behavior, product performance, and channel competition. This information lets companies respond to issues with product listing data—such as adding a missing image or changing a broken link—at the moment to keep the right data flowing to customers. 

Rivers are constantly changing; they are dynamic systems impacted by various factors including weather, erosion, and human activities, and over time a river can change its course speed and even size. The e-commerce world is also constantly changing. Having the right strategy and technology to flow with these changes and stay in balance will be a differentiating factor in which businesses thrive in the future. At inriver, we are committed to helping businesses achieve this goal, and I look forward to sharing more insights on the future of PIM in this series. If you would like to speak directly on how the right product data and the right data flow can drive your business growth, contact us today.