{"id":46531,"date":"2016-11-16T16:08:14","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T16:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.akeneo.com\/blog\/automating-product-information-management-6-steps-to-productivity-2\/"},"modified":"2024-07-04T06:50:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T06:50:57","slug":"automating-product-information-management-6-steps-to-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.akeneo.com\/de\/blog\/automating-product-information-management-6-steps-to-productivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Automating Product Information Management: 6 steps to productivity"},"content":{"rendered":" \n \n
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\n Product Experience<\/span>\n <\/div>\n

Automating Product Information Management: 6 steps to productivity<\/h1>\n
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Like many labor-intensive processes, maintaining great product information can be greatly improved by automating as many portions of the process as po…<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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\n \"\" <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n \n Like many labor-intensive processes, maintaining great product information can be greatly improved by automating as many portions of the process as possible.

Should you be automating your product information?<\/h3>\r\nTo answer this, just ask yourself one simple question: Do I repetitively cut and paste into documents or upload spreadsheets on a regular basis when updating or enriching product information? If your answer is \u201cyes,\u201d then you could save time<\/strong> by automating at least some parts of your product information process.\r\n

How to automate product information:<\/h3>\r\n

Step 1: Ditch your spreadsheets. Use a Product Information Manager instead.<\/strong><\/h4>\r\nSpreadsheets are wonderful general-purpose tools that are good for a great many things. However, keeping your product catalogs up to date with the latest product information is not<\/strong> one of them.\r\n\r\nStill attached to Excel? Check out this blog post on why spreadsheets suck for e-commerce catalog management<\/a>.\r\n\r\nSo, please, ditch your collection of spreadsheets for a purpose-built tool: a product information management (PIM) solution. Excel just wasn\u2019t built for managing product information in an efficient manner. There\u2019s also no good way to automate your processes and stop cutting and pasting if you can\u2019t let go of spreadsheets as your primary tool.\r\n

Step 2: Connect your data sources<\/strong><\/h4>\r\nA key feature of any good PIM is its ability to connect to: your ERP, suppliers\u2019 data sources, media servers, custom internal data sources, and, yes, even to import the various spreadsheets that get sent your way.\r\n\r\nWork with your IT team to integrate each of these sources with your PIM. Depending on what you\u2019re integrating, and the PIM solution you\u2019ve chosen, this may be plug-and-play, or it may be more challenging.\r\n\r\nIf your IT department doesn\u2019t have the resources available, consider working with a specialized integrator. For instance, Akeneo integrators can quickly get virtually any configuration of inputs and outputs working with Akeneo.\r\n

Does reading the words \u201cwork with your IT team\u201d give you a headache? Consider working with a PIM implementation team.<\/a><\/p>\r\nOnce the basic plumbing is done, figure out how often each of these sources needs to be updated and work with your IT team to have your PIM suck the updated information in, on a regular basis.\r\n\r\nThis integration effort represents a not-inconsequential investment in resources, but the payoff is tremendous. You\u2019ll never cut and paste again. And your time spent with Excel and CSV files will be limited to uploading them into your PIM (and this can generally be automated as well).\r\n

Step 3: Enrich and update your product information<\/strong><\/h4>\r\nAs a catalog, product, or ecommerce manager, this is what your team should be focused on. And, now, thanks to magic of automation, you can:\r\n