An effective Product Information Management (PIM) solution centralises the management of factual and descriptive information and assets relating to a company's products. This provides increased control and communications consistency across whichever channel or territory the company is operating in.
PIM emerged as a business discipline over the last few years, inspiring academic researchers, research agencies and management consultants to investigate the business efficiencies that can be realised.
While many companies have addressed organisational efficiencies from the supply chain perspective, many are yet to introduce the same concept to their marketing and sales operations. For most it doesn't make sense to try and extend already complex supply chain technologies to offer these facilities due to the mission critical nature of these systems. It also makes no sense to manage such core marketing information in a channel-specific application such as a web content management system.
In a standard deployment, Expro would take a data feed from a supply chain system (such as SAP for example), which would supply core factual information which would then be enhanced and categorised by product, merchandising and marketing personnel.
Access to this validated product information is then opened up meaning that other stakeholders can collaborate and enrich the product information. This may be between internal departments or can involve external parties such as copywriting, media or photographic agencies.
A central single-entry data repository provides the consistency and discipline to mobilise product information as a strategic asset. You can rest safe in the knowledge that your product information is accurate and complete - ready to deploy across the business.
