Most retailers now face a common problem - product information has historically been managed within separate functional or geographical business units and the knowledge available to one business unit is often not available to another.
This leads to several problems. The lack of accountability for the provision of product information often results in data that's created for a single usage, which means it is usually inaccessible, incomplete, and inaccurate. At best, these factors can lead to a loss of revenue, an increase in the costs of maintaining information and lengthy product lead-times. The strategic implications of communicating inconsistent information are much greater.
Consumers now regularly use more than one channel when making a purchase, so retailers need to be confident that product information can be published across all their channels (e.g. in-store kiosks, the web and direct mail catalogues) and sales regions seamlessly. Incoherence of product information across these channels is confusing and potentially misleading, which translates into a lack of brand coherence and eats away at customer confidence.
It's easy to see how many retailers have ended up in this situation. For most decentralised retail businesses it has been simplest to use departmental budgets to implement systems that serve the objectives of the single department. But modernising these marketing systems can be a straightforward task with the right level of integration and careful change management.
