4 benefits of a single source of truth
blog
June 4, 2024To drive topline growth and hit bottom-line numbers, the centralized access to accurate and up-to-date product data with PIM is essential.
Products never stand still. New attributes are added. New improvements rolled out. New specifications made. The same can be said for the data surrounding and supporting your products. Every new attribute or improvement means more data. Each new marketplace requirement or regulatory obligation means more data. Every new market, geography, or channel you sell into means more data. And that’s before you’ve even considered new product lines or ranges.
It’s safe to say that having a handle on product-related data is essential for the smooth running of not only your sales and marketing operations but your entire organization. That’s why many leading brands, manufacturers, and retailers rely on a single source of truth for all their product-related data. Just how large of an impact can a single source of truth have on your organization? And how can Product Information Management software help you achieve this single source of truth?
Here are just four key benefits of a single source of truth:
> Increased operational efficiency
> Better customer experiences driven by product data consistency
> Simplified product data traceability
> Data-led decision-making
1. Increased operational efficiency
The first benefit of a single source of truth is the increased efficiency it brings to a business. In a large organization with multiple teams across multiple markets and locations, internal inefficiencies can creep in, slowing down workflows and derailing internal and external processes. A key source of inefficiency comes from managing data internally. With data spread across many systems and business units, onboarding, managing, updating, and extracting product-related data can quickly become a time-consuming task riddled with risk.
By integrating a PIM system into your tech stack, you can avoid the frustrations of tracking down accurate data across departments by securing a single source of truth for all your product-related data. This data, onboarded from supply chain partners and internal systems and databases, is centralized, reliable, and simple to manage. With a PIM system, you can manage and update data efficiently in a centralized platform and have it automatically updated at all endpoints. This fosters real-time collaboration between departments and removes the risk of manual data management.
2. Better customer experiences driven by product data consistency
The second key benefit of a single source of truth is the data consistency it delivers to every touchpoint your products reach. In large organizations, data siloing can be a real challenge. With data spread across multiple systems, business units, and databases, version control issues can quickly embed into your workflows. These issues are then amplified as incorrect product data moves down the value chain, causing inconsistencies in your product catalog, inaccuracies on your digital selling channels, and, ultimately, unhappy customers.
However, when your product data is all stored in a single source of truth provided by PIM software, you can always be confident that it’s accurate and consistent. There’s no need to worry about different departments or divisions accessing and extracting different versions of the same data because your product information is automatically updated within the centralized PIM platform. This dramatically reduces the chance of inaccuracies appearing in your online product listings and undermining the hard work put into getting your products to market.
3. Simplified product data traceability
In most sectors, accurate product information isn’t just a matter of customer satisfaction – it’s a regulatory requirement. All over the world, brands and manufacturers are being required to provide more information about the environmental impact of their operations. The EU’s incoming Digital Product Passport, for example, aims to give consumers and regulators clear traceability of a product’s entire lifecycle.
If you’re strategizing how to prepare for Digital Product Passports or similar legislations, a good place to start is implementing a PIM system that can provide a single source of truth to support the scrutinization of product data by regulators. A PIM system stores and manages data from every stage of the product cycle, providing the entire organization with access to up-to-date product information on everything from the social impact of raw material sourcing to carbon emissions from transportation and distribution, accelerating compliance procedures.
4. Data-led decision-making
Making the right decisions at the right time is crucial for any business. Whether it’s knowing how to develop a product or which market to open next, businesses need accurate, real-time data to inform decision-making. That’s why another, often overlooked, benefit of a single source of truth is the transparency it provides for internal strategizing and decisive action taking.
It doesn’t matter what you’re selling and where, empowering the entire organization with the ability to access all product-level data gives significant visibility into what’s working and what’s not. It’s this visibility that individuals and teams alike can use to make more informed decisions. For example, an e-commerce manager can efficiently compare which specifications and factors influence sales across multiple digital sales channels with data stored in a PIM’s single source of truth, enabling more effective decision-making on sales strategies moving forward.
inriver: More than a single source of truth
With so many benefits of a single source of truth, it’s understandable that a growing number of global brands and manufacturers are putting centralized product data governance at the heart of their organizations. The inriver PIM does just that. Underpinned by a fully extensible single source of product data truth, the inriver platform extracts added value from your product information at every touchpoint at every stage of the product journey, from sourcing and design to selling and repair.
Inriver offers the most complete PIM solution on the market, with built-in capabilities including API-based content syndication and digital shelf analytics, giving you total control over your entire digital sales strategy, both online and in-store.
want to see the inriver PIM in action?
Schedule a personalized, guided demo with an inriver expert today to see how the inriver PIM can get more value from your product information.