Companies operating in the B2B market are not immune to omnichannel trends that impact the B2C market and that include the adoption of a PIM. A recent survey found that 80% of B2B companies now face more competition than five years ago. In order to differentiate, they must therefore offer different purchasing experiences.
The amount of product information needed to support omnichannel communication is unmanageable with traditional technologies, which is why the new solutions, such a PIM, they must be able to provide accurate and reliable information throughout the customer journey.
Marketers need to demonstrate their ability to adapt to every request that an omnichannel communication strategy might present. Companies need to adapt their strategies much faster, in line with increased competition and across multiple channels. The accuracy of information is the most challenging aspect of the launch of a product, so marketers, in supporting omnichannel strategies, must recognize the negative impact that delays in product launch can have on business results.
Some surveys and research highlight this problem: first it emerges that 33% of organizations have withdrawn products from the shelves or delayed launch due to inaccurate information about the product; Secondly, half of the respondents said that the creation and/or updating of the product content takes between 6 and 11 months.
In an era of increased competition, more channels and growing customer expectations, these challenges are sufficient to hamper the transformation efforts of any organization. 87% of managers agree with the statement that "while marketing is the common term used to indicate the growth of the relationship between brand and business, merchandising is the activity that encourages both such growth and sales. How does the customer feel when he sees the product before buying it? He is confident to really get what he is going to buy".
Existing marketing technology is not enough to optimise customer experiences of product content. Most marketers are struggling against outdated Excel spreadsheets to keep product information up to date. This is why it is essential for marketing experts to update their technologies in order to easily manage increasingly sophisticated data. By significantly reducing a load of a high amount of product information to manage, marketing can move easily to omnichannel retail and improve alignment with sales, product teams, customer support and IT.
Retailers monitor the market to understand which brands are really able to offer consumers the omnichannel experiences they want. When dealing with tens of thousands of products, copying and pasting inventory prices and other product information through hundreds of channels becomes a considerable waste of marketing resources, especially when operating in over six global markets. To meet the challenge, 89% of decision-makers say they have brought high levels of automation to product information management.
How to choose the best tools for managing information? You have to take into account first a few things: can a launch succeed if the products are returned due to unfulfilled expectations? What do you do when unfulfilled expectations become the main cause of customer dissatisfaction? Can your company risk losing an important deal with a distributor or reseller due to inaccurate product content?
The modern solutions already on the market can help to solve these problems thanks to:
Transformation cannot succeed without bringing innovation into product information management practices. Change can be a challenge for marketing, but once in place, it will prove more rewarding because it can adapt to modern customer needs.
--> Source: TOTAL RETAIL - The Retailer's Source for Content & Community
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