The 5 Must-Have Roles on Your Product Experience Team

In the six years that I’ve worked for Valtech, a global leader in PIM integrations, we’ve learned a lot as an organization. The biggest mistake we made over the years with brands, distributors, and retailers across the globe was failing to understand our client team’s maturity before beginning the discovery phase. 

PIM technical components are important but so are team roles, training, and adoption! This dual need to focus on both tech and team pushed us to rename our department. Instead of Product Information, we now talk about Product Experience Management (PXM) and our obligatory first step now includes a readiness and governance phase where our client’s PXM program team is created and brought up to speed, collaboratively.

PXM touches more than development; it impacts your product catalog management functions including marketing, merchandisers, legal, and more. Their day-to-day tasks, including how they collaborate to keep data clean, accurate, and complete to send to all their channels, will be impacted. So, it’s better to be prepared with the right people, with the right remit, and a strong team dynamic. 

Based on what we’ve learned at Valtech over the years, we put together a list of the five must-have roles for a successful Product Experience Management (PXM) program team and what to look for when hiring or promoting key players.

1) PXM Champion

The PXM Champion is the program owner who coordinates all teams involved in the PIM integration project. This person provides consistency and communication from the discovery phase to implementation to support and maintenance. During the discovery phase, the PXM Champion helps map an organization’s stakeholders and ensures all impacted business and technical users are involved in relevant communications and workshops.

When hiring or promoting a PXM Champion, look for someone with deep knowledge of the product catalog management organization (the different people who touch the product data before it is sent to different channels). This person should have a business profile with technical understanding, listen to users’ needs, and document processes while unifying the different functions of the organization across the same product data quality goal. The PXM Champion also validates the technology strategy, understands PIM concepts, and is responsible for creating an enrichment strategy, managing roles and users with access to the PIM platform, and training internal users.

The PXM Champion’s primary goals include time and budget savings by bringing the right people into the process at the right time and data ownership to coordinate enhanced product pages across channels.

2) Product Data Specialist

A Product Data Specialist is intimately familiar with a company’s products, attached information, and the needs that drive customers’ product choices. They are responsible for enriching the product, such as SKU, descriptions, specifications, and attributes, and understanding the most valuable product information for seamless end-user navigation and conversion on different channels.

When hiring or promoting a Product Data Specialist, look for someone who already knows the product information, is responsible for data quality, documents the data format, updates data errors, and connects with channel owners and merchandisers to answer their product attribute format requirements. 

3) Systems Architect

A Systems Architect is critical for ensuring seamless data transfers in and out of the PXM platform, acting as a central repository for all attributes and assets. They work with PIM solutions, such as Informatica or Akeneo, to design solutions that support integration, system stability, scalability, and security.

When hiring or promoting a Systems Architect, look for someone with expertise in data architecture, systems integration, and API development, who can create custom scripts and connectors, identify and address bottlenecks, and configure security and firewall settings.

4) Data Governance Officer

A Data Governance Officer is responsible for managing data quality, security, and privacy policies and ensuring that data is accurate, consistent, and compliant. They are also responsible for defining data standards and processes, managing data security, identifying data quality issues, and recommending solutions.

When hiring or promoting a Data Governance Officer, look for someone with expertise in data governance, data quality, and privacy policies, who can develop and implement data quality metrics, establish data standards and processes, and monitor data quality.

5) The Channel Owner

The Channel Owner plays a crucial role in your PXM program, second only to your PXM program champion. They work with your PIM champion and product data specialist to quickly adjust your product information strategy, driving the output your channels need. They monitor errors when pushing to external channels and track the performance of your product catalog for better customer conversions. 

When hiring or promoting a Channel Owner, look for someone who can screen channels to ensure up-to-date data, take customer feedback, track product updates’ impact on conversion, communicate with the PIM team, and recommend SEO optimizations.

The Channel Owner’s main goals are to increase the level of information on all channels’ product pages and analyze the product page’s performance compared to the completeness of product data.

Remember the Business Users!

The people that will work with your PIM are essential in this process. Make sure the five roles stated above understand the importance of the Business Users, and work to implement an efficient governance structure to ensure their needs are met. Business Users make your project a success, and without them, there is no adoption.

You’ve got your team, now what?

A successful kick-off is crucial, and involving key sponsors from the start will set the tone. In the next article, we will cover the importance of setting clear objectives and accurate KPIs to measure them, connected with your customers’ and channels’ goals.

Get ready to start your discovery and keep your PXM program on time, on budget, and with the proper scope with the Akeneo x Valtech partnership. Or, feel free to check out this previously recorded webinar to discover how to leverage AI technology into your PX Strategy.