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Who Needs a Product Information Management (PIM) Solution?
DynamicWeb
With so many technology solutions today, it can be tricky to know which platforms are suited for business. Learn how to know if your business needs PIM.
With so many business and technology solutions on the market today, it can be tricky to know which platforms and programs are best suited for your business. Each organization is unique. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to achieving optimized productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Product information management (PIM) solutions are one tool in a vast toolbox of business solutions, critical for many organizations to attain success — but how you can know if your business needs PIM?
The fact that you are exploring the idea of PIM is a good sign that there’s something within this solution that speaks to your needs. When you’re considering your organization and its products, one key indicator is complexity. The more varied your products and their attributes, and the more varied your organizational structure and processes, the more work required to keep everything organized. When both of these areas are complex, it’s even more important to have a management system in place. Here’s how complexity impacts your organization’s need for a PIM solution.
Who Needs a Product Information Management (PIM) Solution?
Organizations with Complex Product Information
A product information management system simplifies and centralizes all of the data your organization has on its products. It helps people make better business decisions, work faster, and accomplish more in the same time. For organizations with complex product information, this is all the more useful.
What makes product information complex? It’s not just the number of products in the inventory. Consider how varied your product offerings are, and the size of that assortment. If your products have many different attributes, like size or color, that adds to the complexity. If there are many other details that go along with your products, such as many digital assets attached to each product or category of products, you need to manage that effectively.
How often do you turn over products? The more frequent this is, the greater the complexity, and the more a PIM can help, too. Even the number of suppliers you use to get your products from start to finish impact complexity and increase the benefits of a management tool.
Complex Organizations
Setting your products aside, take a look at your organization and its processes. Any added complexity in this area points to a greater need for a PIM solution. A small business that offers customers a high degree of customization can be just as complex as a larger business that offers standardized products. Also consider regulatory compliance, your geographic spread, the departments, brands, and channels your business operates, and the level of IT support you business needs.
Is PIM the right solution for your business?
A good place to start is to get an estimation of the hours that your PIM project is going to take up. The PIM Project Estimator gives you a ballpark estimate, based on hundreds of implementations.