Benefits and developments of using a PIM as a basis for communication strategies
We hear more and more about PIM (Product Information Management), a solution useful for the reorganization and consolidation of product information within the company. But what good is an PIM?
What is a PIM
How many times have you happened to chase information about your products, to ask a description to the marketing manager, or specific data to the technical office? And how many times in the history of a product has information changed? To date, most of the product information travels on spreadsheets, sent by mail, rarely shared with some modern technologies that allow working in more people at the same time on a single file.
Thanks to the adoption of a PIM solution, all these problems are easily bypassed. PIM is found at the heart of communication processes. The data are received by a management system (which remains in charge of the creation of the product code and the management of the entire administrative part), but it is in the PIM that is enriched with all those useful elements to improve communication on various touch-point of contact with customers.
Some useful data
According to research conducted by
Ventana Research "... The first two obstacles to having and using a single version of the product data are incompatible tools (52%) and disparate data sources (48%)." Two problems that can be solved by the adoption of an PIM.
The research returns two important results "
... 74% of organizations claim to have succeeded in eliminating errors in the product information. While 61% of companies, claims to have improved customer experience, increasing customer engagement and improving the quality of interactions".
What can be done with a PIM
First of all, the adoption of a PIM makes it possible to organize all the information on products in the best possible way. The installation and access to the PIM platform via the web (with all data protection procedures), and therefore in a centralized location, make the PIM accessible to every person within the company.
Furthermore, product information can be enriched with all those useful elements for communication, elements such as images, videos, various documentation (think for example of datasheets and assembly manuals), which are thus found to be resident in a single repository. Still today, in fact, in most companies the digital heritage is scattered on shared servers, portable desktops, ftp folders (Dropbox, Drive, Sharepoint).
The PIM at the base of omnichannel
With a centralized location within the business processes,
the PIM is an enabling element of omnichannel. Thanks to the integration with all the existing publishing channels (think of the institutional website, the product brand web minisites, the traditional paper channels such as the product catalogue or price lists)
the PIM reduces time-to-market, speeding up the processes of publishing information, and the possibility of error of published data.
