Customers have more options in their buying experience than ever before. In addition to physical stores, shoppers can now access global marketplaces with the touch of a finger, no matter where they are, look for and buy products on social media networks like Facebook or Twitter, or even interact with potential purchases via augmented or virtual reality. But it isn’t just the number of new sales channels that continue to grow — customer expectations have also constantly and continually risen in recent years. What’s more, customers of all stripes are making purchasing decisions based on which company offers a better shopping experience. Roughly 80 percent of buyers said that the quality of a company’s customer experience makes a significant difference in whether they choose to shop with them. Add it all up, and it’s clear that great customer experiences are no longer a nice-to-have – they’re an urgent need. But no great customer experience can exist without a solid foundation of compelling product experience — consistent product information delivered in context wherever and whomever, your buyers are. So what’s a modern business to do?

Why PXM matters

Offering all of this, and meeting those changing expectations, of course, is often easier said than done. That’s why to make sure you’re offering the best product experience possible, you need Product Experience Management — better known as PXM. Product Experience Management is more than just a data management solution — it’s a new methodology. It’s the art and science of delivering rich, high-quality product information in context, adapted and scoped by channel and locale to match every touchpoint’s buying experience. Having the right information and insight into the product experience buyers expect is the foundation for any great customer experience, of course, but PXM is about more than just data and technology. It’s also about the people and processes involved in the management of that data. Product Experience Management touches almost every part of your relationship with your customers. It’s how you make sure potential customers can find your products and how you ensure product data is accurate, complete, and consistent across all channels and markets. It helps create an emotional connection with your buyers, accelerate time-to-market, and give your team more selling days. Most of all, it’s how you make sure you’re meeting those ever-increasing expectations of both B2B buyers and B2C shoppers.

Introducing The Akeneo PXM Maturity Assessment

It’s no secret that product experience, and effective management of that product experience, is crucial to success. But to get to where you want to go, you need to know where you are. So, to help you figure out exactly where you are in your PXM journey, Akeneo has created the PXM Maturity Assessment! It’s designed to provide you with recommendations and guidance on how to think about the different ways that product information is leveraged, who should be contributing, and help you find ways to improve business processes that involve PIM. It also includes a clear path of recommendations to continue your progress toward becoming a PXM Champion. The assessment consists of 14 questions designed to evaluate how you’re managing information. The questions ask you to identify and describe how your organization is currently using your people, data, and technology to manage product information, including enrichment processes, workflows, time-to-market, employee satisfaction, and more.

Become a PXM Champion

So, once you’ve taken the assessment, what’s next? How can you use this to elevate your PXM practices and become a PXM champion? Once you’ve completed the assessment, you’ll receive a personalized report that explains the next steps you can take at your current level of PXM maturity that will help you and your business progress along the maturity journey. You’ll get a clear picture of where you are in your journey, plus a better idea of just how far your company can go with increased or modified applications of PXM best practices Ready to get started? Take the PXM Maturity Assessment for yourself, or contact us to get help from our team of product experience experts.

Data, we’ve been told, is the new oil, the new gold, even the new bacon. No matter what it may be, we can all agree that it’s crucial to the success of your business, and you’ll need to manage it properly to realize that potential. If you lack the right solution to help you handle, interpret, enrich, and distribute that data, it won’t matter how much information you have, your business will still struggle to succeed in the modern world. So, where to begin? It can be tempting to find a one-size-fits-all solution to manage all of your information, and Master Data Management solutions can seem appealing for just this reason. But, is an MDM solution the right fit for your business and its data needs? Not if you’re planning to use it to manage product information. In that case, you need a PIM, or Product Information Management solution. Why is PIM better than MDM when it comes to managing product data? Allow us to explain.

Built-in connectivity

Gone are the days of simply having a brick-and-mortar store or a printed catalog as a merchant’s only sales channel. Instead, sellers need to meet their customers where they are — namely, everywhere. The number of channels used by both B2C and B2B buyers is on the rise, with some researchers estimating that the average consumer uses an average of six different channels when researching and buying products, while 67% of B2B purchases were influenced by digital channels.  That’s why a good PIM solution will offer no shortage of connections to a wide range of channels, including eCommerce stores, multi-vendor marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba, print catalogs and other materials, even social media. This makes it easier to ensure that all of your product information is accurate, complete, and consistent, while also helping to control enrichment costs and get your products to market more quickly. MDM solutions, on the other hand, are typically used to provide a common data record for internal operational and analytical systems. They do not generally contain the level of product information required for an ecommerce shop, a print catalog, or a marketplace listing. And as a result, few if any MDM systems offer pre-built connectors to those selling platforms.

Attribute-supporting strength

Modern consumers aren’t just using more channels than ever before, they also want to know more about your products than ever before. They want to know what size it is, what color it is, what materials went into making it — and much, much more. According to Retail Dive, 87% of customers went online to research products before making purchasing decisions last year. That’s why it’s crucial that any solution you plan to use to manage product data be able to handle hundreds, if not thousands, of attributes. When it comes to managing large amounts of product attributes, PIM has the competition beat. PIM solutions are typically able to handle a huge volume of product data attributes covering technical data, usage data, and emotional data often delivered in rich product descriptions, images, and much more. This information varies often depending on the channel and the local market. PIM solutions help improve your product experience by making it easier than ever for your customers to find what they’re looking for. MDM solutions, meanwhile, are built to handle no more than a few dozen product attributes needed to identify a SKU. They often manage technical data but are not built to handle narrative text like usage data and rich, emotional product descriptions, leaving your customers looking for more information and likely moving on to the competition.

Digital asset aptitude

Attributes are just the beginning, however. If you want to succeed in the omnichannel age, you need to allow customers to see your product in action or get an inside look at how your product functions via digital assets like photos or videos. This is especially true as competition becomes all the more fierce on digital channels — in fact, recently published research indicates that the majority of consumers use these digital assets when they make purchasing decisions. When it comes to digital asset management, there’s no question which solution is superior. Unlike most MDM systems, a strong PIM solution will include asset management capabilities that are designed to help your team more efficiently and effectively manage digital assets alongside product information. These asset management capabilities are designed to offer flexibility while also making it easier to organize, manage, and transform your assets. They can also help enable linking capabilities to support different needs in different channels, and a dedicated asset library to help you easily visualize all your digital assets.

Superior supplier onboarding and management

Managing product information isn’t just about organizing and enriching data generated by internal sources, of course. It’s also crucial that any solution that you use to manage product information be able to handle data from external manufacturers and distributors — but that’s often easier said than done. Managing product information from suppliers can be a time-and-resource-consuming process even when it involves existing suppliers, and introducing new suppliers to the equation only results in more friction, which can lead to errors and a slow time-to-market. Simply put, most MDM systems lack the ability to help manage product data submitted from suppliers. Good PIM solutions, on the other hand, will be able to easily and efficiently onboard and manage supplier data. Top-of-the-line solutions will even make it easy for suppliers to provide product information directly to you, in the format you need, without having to go through the painful, time-consuming manual process of editing Excel sheets, copying and pasting data, and manually reviewing and approving their submissions. The results? Better and easier collaboration with suppliers, faster time-to-market, and better product experiences for your customers.

Choosing the right solution for your business

So what’s the right product data solution for your business? This is just a short list of some of the key differences between a PIM and a multi-domain MDM system. PIM is a dedicated, business-centric marketing solution that offers a much faster deployment and quicker ROI than its more intrusive, complex, and expensive enterprise-wide MDM system cousin. If you’re looking to enable marketing and merchandising teams to increase sales via omnichannel expansion, create great product experiences, expand your product catalog to carry new products, or manage digital assets, then you want a PIM. Want to learn more about the world of product information management? Discover the sweet science of product experience management with our eBook, PXM for Dummies, or discover the secrets of PIM success with our customer stories!

In 1995, two soon-to-be internet giants made a modest foray into eCommerce. Amazon sold its first book, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, and eBay auctioned a broken laser pointer. The digital landscape has evolved dramatically in the years since. Now, nearly 60% of the global population, or 4.57 billion people, have internet access, and more than 3 billion use smartphones. Digital shoppers are finding products through websites, mobile apps, marketplaces, and social media, and businesses of all sizes, including manufacturers, warehouses, and distributors, have eCommerce platforms. B2B is expected to be the largest area of eCommerce growth over the next five years, making it essential for businesses to embrace digital transformation to boost competitiveness. Digital transformation is about more than incorporating innovations into the workflow to improve efficiency and productivity — it also positions companies to quickly respond to changing consumer expectations and opens new revenue streams. Let’s take a closer look at trends driving digital transformation and how companies can prepare for future growth in an increasingly customer-centric environment.

Social Trends Driving Digital Transformation

The most significant push toward digital transformation is the shift of consumers online, with an estimated population of 230.5 million digital shoppers in the United States by 2021. Consumers are buying through a variety of channels, and purchasing decision-makers are carrying this buying trend to the workplace. Here’s why consumer behavior is making digital transformation critical for all businesses.

1. Customers are making more online purchases

Online sales are growing at a rapid pace. The global eCommerce market is projected to hit $24.2 trillion sales by 2025, a CAGR of 11.1% from 2018. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic altered consumer behavior and sent more shoppers online, B2B eCommerce in the United States was forecast to reach $1.8 trillion and account for 17% of all B2B sales by 2023. B2B sales are, in part, driven by globalization and technology, but also a changing demographic, as 73% of millennials are involved in purchasing roles, according to one Merit study. This generation is accustomed to navigating an online environment in all aspects of life and is increasingly turning to digital channels to improve productivity and efficiency at work.

2. Omnichannel is becoming prevalent

While businesses may have multiple channels for reaching customers, there’s now an expectation that customers can navigate between them seamlessly. Known as omnichannel commerce, this customer-centric approach brings together traditional and digital channels to create a singular experience, no matter what touchpoint a client is using. Whether a customer is interacting with a company through a website, smartphone, social media, physical storefront, chatbot, sales department, or customer care, the same information must be available and delivered consistently. Digital transformation sets the framework for this interaction.

3. Having an online presence is valuable

More than 8 out of 10 Americans are online every day. Pew Research reports that 28% are online almost constantly, and 45% are browsing several times a day. Not only is a digital presence essential, but savvy consumers expect sleek designs and functionality expect this experience whether they’re on a B2C website, like Camelbak and Natori, or a B2B eCommerce platform. According to senior B2B executives, clients want a digital sales channel for the convenience of buying online (72%) and not waiting for a sales rep (52%). They also like to see inventory, delivery times, product information, and order history. A robust digital presence extends beyond an eCommerce website. Bliss, for example, opens additional channels of communication with customers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. Businesses also need to build trust with consumers by providing social proof, which LARQ accomplishes by prominently displaying the 5-star rating for its LARQ bottles at the top of its product page and linking to reviews.

Digital Trends Shaping eCommerce

New digital technologies that can optimize efficiency and deliver rich user experiences are coming online every day. Before adding to your tech stack, consider what problems the technology solves and how it supports desired outcomes. Here are recent innovations that can improve eCommerce workflow and customer engagement.

1. Automation is essential for growth.

As more people turn to online and omnichannel shopping, automation is key to managing sales across platforms and boosting productivity. Basic tasks, like generating invoices, shipping labels, and tracking information, can be automated. Centrally storing product information lets you distribute consistent, up-to-date information through multiple channels. Businesses can also integrate their PIM tools with inventory management software to track online and in-store purchases and automatically replenish low stock.

2. Customer engagement marketing.

Customer engagement marketing focuses on engaging customers across all channels in a way that’s relevant and satisfies their needs.

• Video is in demand In the United States, 85% of internet users consume online video content on YouTube, social media, websites, and other platforms. Millennials who are involved in purchasing decisions rate video as a preferred channel for learning about B2B products and vendors.Businesses use video testimonials, tutorials, and product demos in a variety of ways. Skullcandy, for instance, places a video highlighting features of Sesh Evo earbuds directly on its product page, while Bliss has demonstrations of its skincare line on YouTube and TikTok.

• Chatbots Chatbots offer immediate support 24/7 to customers who have questions or problems on a website, helping to remove friction and offering an alternative to emailing or calling customer service. More than one-third of consumers prefer an instant response from a bot to waiting for a delayed reply from a person.

Bots can also seamlessly prioritize and direct inquiries to humans.

3. Measurements across all devices

Consumers expect personalization during their shopping journey, but 34% of marketers don’t have access to relevant data, while 40% struggle to link data to marketing efforts. Digital transformation can offer the tools to pull this information instantly and put it to work to conduct targeted advertising, improve decision-making, and convert sales.

• Data-driven targeting Businesses can leverage data from an eCommerce platform to customize marketing. Consider offering discounts to customers with low average order values or providing product announcements to frequent customers based on transaction history. Sales teams can also identify inactive customers and begin re-establishing relationships.

• Smarter retargeting Retargeting involves serving up an ad campaign that appears on social media, search page results, and websites to re-engage consumers that interacted with your business. Smarter retargeting focuses on specific segments. For example, instead of randomly serving a generic ad to all users who visited a website, improve conversion by tracking which pages a consumer visited and delivering relevant content.

Headless commerce

As the digital world changes at a blistering pace, eCommerce platforms must keep up with customer expectations. Traditional eCommerce sites connect the front and back ends, meaning that updates to the look and feel of a site also require changes to the technical engine, which runs the platform. Headless commerce separates the two components, allowing updates to be made independently.

• Customization and personalization As marketers develop new ways of engaging customers, headless commerce enables front-end customized features to be introduced much faster than in a traditional eCommerce system. The ability to quickly change what a customer sees or how they interact is critical considering 67% of consumers say content must be personalized according to context.

• Increased flexibility Headless commerce also facilitates the move to omnichannel, opening up consumer interaction from endless entry points. The front end can be set up for easy access from social media platforms, mobile apps, and kiosks. Data in the back end related to inventory, pricing, customer information, and checkout, can be called using an API and made available without overhauling the entire site.

Headless commerce offers significant potential for future growth as channels evolve. Businesses can also integrate their systems using cloud computing, which provides further flexibility and scalability. Rise of the use of PWAs Some businesses maintain a website and separate native mobile apps for Android and iOS. Progressive web apps (PWAs) are a relatively new application type that offers the navigation, appearance, and features of a native app — including push notifications — while also boasting the accessibility of a website.

• Speed and accessibility A one-second delay in loading a web page can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. Smartphone users encounter additional friction with websites that aren’t mobile-friendly. PWAs eliminate these challenges with fast, reliable performance even without an internet connection. They take little disk space on mobile and are extremely responsive, allowing for a smooth customer experience.

• Reach a wider audience PWAs make the rich experience of a native app available to a wider audience on mobile devices. Consumers add the PWA to the home screen of their phones with a click, eliminating the need to download a separate app. The application works on all devices and browsers, freeing developer resources. PWAs also appear in search engines and can be ranked high based on fast load times and reduced bounce rates.

The promise of digital transformation

Customer standards and expectations in B2C and B2B transactions are rapidly evolving as consumers shift online, onto smartphones, and toward omnichannel. With all signs pointing to continued digital growth, it’s critical for businesses to embrace digital transformation. Tools like automation, video, chatbots, customer data, headless commerce, and progressive web apps can be effectively leveraged to improve productivity and efficiency. More importantly, digital transformation positions businesses to meet changing customer needs and scalability for future growth. For more information on BigCommerce, visit their website.

Akeneo set out to help with those two dimensions by introducing an AI assistant, Franklin. This assistant helps fill in empty attributes with trusted normalized values, identify and correct erroneous attribute values, and suggest catalog improvements by proposing new attributes. We tested Franklin in the US market over three years and — after collecting feedback from our early adopters — determined that we need to do a deeper deconstruction of the components. We realized that we need to embed Franklin features deeper into existing data enrichment workflows to positively impact the quality of the data  With that in mind, we have decided to put the Franklin Insights feature on hold and re-introduce it at a later date in a different way in our application. We also want to ensure global coverage for our global customers. And you know what? We’re excited and proud to do it. We’ve learned a lot about how you, our customers, interact with AI in the context of PXM, and how and when you’re ready to use it. We are committed to innovating – and ensuring that innovation is truly actionable and makes a difference for our customers. Stay tuned for more to come with Franklin in the future!

A system of record for accurate, up to date, and complete product data with all the necessary attributes, stored in a platform that mandates governance, empowers collaboration, and facilitates syndication to all of your sales channels is critical to delivering a product experience that can help unlock growth for your business. However, the leaders that typically approve the investment in PIM projects always ask the payback question — what is the ROI from this project? The good news is that qualitative measurements abound. Let’s dive into the following metrics getting down to the calculations you can run for your own analysis.

Better conversion rates 

PIM tools have been credited with helping improve conversion rates through better quality and more complete product information. With better product information, PIM improves search functionality and Google indexing, which helps increase both conversion rate and average order value. Here’s an example of how PIM can help increase online revenue. Let’s take an eCommerce site that gets 10,000,000 sessions per year that has a pretty typical 2% conversion rate, and generates 200,000 orders annually. Implementing Akeneo PIM gives them a 3% relative lift in conversion rate, equating to a new conversion of 2.06%. Now, those same 10,000,000 sessions will generate 206,000 orders. Multiply the difference, 6000, by your Average Order Value (AOV) and you get the revenue lift you can conservatively expect from your new PIM. In this scenario, with a $100 AOV, this merchant would realize an additional $600,000 in revenue per year from their PIM. Not too shabby!

Fewer returns

It’s not just about convincing customers to buy your products, of course — it’s also about making sure they are satisfied with their purchase and won’t be returning the product. Product returns are a growing concern for merchants — estimates show that up to 40% of online orders are returned by customers — and with an average cost of $25 per return, it’s easy to see how much this can cost a merchant. Reducing the rate of returns can have a huge impact on the bottom line, and many returns are caused by customers not understanding the product they’re buying. In other words, low-quality product information and poor product experiences drive higher return rates. The governance and collaboration capabilities a PIM offers guarantees that merchants will provide better product experiences. Therefore, most of our merchant customers factor in a 10% reduction in returns into their ROI model. Staying with our merchant from the previous example, you’ll recall they do 200,000 transactions per year. If 30% of those transactions get sent back by customers, that’s 60,000 returns per year. At $25 per return, this merchant has to carry a negative $1.5MM line item in their books — ouch! Reducing the return rate by a conservative 10% will reduce the number of returns by 6,000. The new, lower return rate of 27% means the company faces only 54,000 returns, saving the company roughly $150,000.

Efficient enrichment 

We all know the expression time is money. But for merchants, particularly in the modern omnichannel world, it’s not just an old adage — it’s a fact of life. Fortunately for Akeneo customers, however, the strong collaboration around product data enrichment powered by a top-notch PIM  means fewer people can enrich product data in less time. Merchants continually report that a PIM significantly reduces workload. To determine the productivity cost associated with product enrichment, our merchants analyze how many Full-Time Employees manage product data in some way, shape, or form. They then average out how many hours these employees spend on product data. Lastly, most leaders tell us they expect a 5X return in productivity from their employees. This gives us all the data points you need to calculate your productivity cost. Let’s revisit our merchant example. Today, they have 10 employees that earn an average of $100K who each spend 25% of their time working on product enrichment, costing the company roughly $250,000. However, a PIM can reduce enrichment time by at least 50%, saving $125,000 in raw cost.

Accelerated time-to-market

Increased enrichment speed can not only help your company save money, but help them bring more revenue in as well. One big pain point merchants often express is how long it takes for them to get a new SKU merchandised and ready to sell. It is common to hear it takes 6 weeks or more to collect all the right data, fill in all the attributes, ensure it is correct, and then list it across sales channels. These merchants have products that are ready to ship today, but they have to sit there losing money until the product data enrichment cycle is complete. When all of that downtime is multiplied by all the new SKUs that get produced every year, the losses add up. It has been proven that a PIM like Akeneo has allowed merchants to get new products live up to 80% faster. What does this mean in the real world? The simplest way to estimate the value of improving time to market is to start by estimating the number of new products you release every year. Next, apply your average sales price to each of those SKUs. With this data you can estimate the value these SKUs add to your business per day. Finally, multiplying this daily value by the number of days a PIM like Akeneo shortens your time market gives you your ROI. The easiest way to calculate this metric is with a series of proportions. The first says that if I currently generate $20,000,000 per year with my 50,000 SKUs, I should generate $22,000,000 with 10% more or 5,000 additional SKUs. The next proportion equation says that if I generate $2,000,000 in additional revenue in 365 days, I should generate $5,479.45 per additional sales day. Now that I know the revenue per day I can expect from my new SKUs, I can calculate how much incremental revenue that I can earn by chopping Time to Market by half. In this case, our merchant earns $115,068 by reducing Time To Market by 50% or 6 to 3 weeks.

Easy catalog expansion

Once you’ve fixed conversion and return rates and accelerated your enrichment and time-to-market processes, it’s time to take your PIM to the next level by using it to expand your product line. In fact, many Akeneo customers tell us they’ve been able to expand their catalog by exploring endless aisle capabilities. Some begin working with dropshipping suppliers, some create their own marketplaces, and others are empowered to stock bigger and better product lines. No matter how they go about it, more products mean more sales, and it’s all possible thanks to Akeneo PIM. The merchant in our example recently decided to expand its catalog by roughly 10,000 SKUs, 2,500 in each of the next 4 quarters. Using the same proportion we used in the Time To Market section, we can begin to estimate what these new SKUs mean to the business. If our retailer earns $20MM with 50,000 SKUs, how much will they earn with 60,000 SKUs instead? With help from PIM, they could see as much as $125,000 in new revenue, depending on when the products are released and whether these are considered core products or accessories. 

Simple sales channel expansions

Akeneo PIM can help you not only expand the number of products you sell, but also increase the number of channels you sell them on. In fact, many of our customers have used Akeneo PIM to easily package product data and distribute it to all of your sales channels. Increasing the number of sales channels your products are available on makes it easier for potential customers to find your products. That means they’re more likely to make a purchase — so how much extra value can new sales channels bring to your business? Start by taking the number of new channels they’ll begin selling on and multiply that by the number of products they plan to sell there. For example, our retailer wants to open up 3 new channels selling an average of 2500 of their products in each of them. Because it will take time for the new channel to ramp up, we’ll estimate that a new channel will initially add 5% of the value of their existing business, or in the case of our example merchant, roughly $150,000 in revenue.

Get great ROI with Akeneo PIM

For merchants that take full advantage of a PIM, the ROI is no doubt outstanding. They’ll see a nice lift in revenue from a higher eCommerce conversion rate, they’ll reap the benefits of lowering their rate of returns, and they’ll be able to enrich more products with fewer people in a shorter amount of time. From there, they open up new sales channels and even explore carrying additional products or becoming a marketplace of their own. Taken together, our $20 million merchant has generated nearly $1 million in new revenue and saved $275,000 in cost from using Akeneo PIM. Want to learn more about how to calculate ROI from Akeneo PIM? Contact us and we’ll walk you through our ROI model using your data and assumptions.

From slow time-to-market to rising costs, from inefficient processes to collaborating with suppliers, you’ll need to battle a long list of foes if you want to see good product experience triumph in this age-old struggle. These obstacles can dramatically decelerate your operations, drive your time-to-market down to a crawl, or cause your product data enrichment expenses to skyrocket as you watch your cost-control structure crumble, threatening your growth. But never fear! Akeneo’s very own team of product experience superheroes are here to help you in your battle to create compelling product experiences for customers. The Akeneo PIM Fantastic Four includes: The Extraordinary Efficiency: Our first hero is here to eliminate expenses and help companies of every kind safeguard valuable resources. He offers colossal cost-cutting strength and blazing time-to-market speed to ensure your product data management processes run smoothly. The Awesome Adapter: Need to update or change your product catalog to keep up with seasonal changes or shifting consumer tastes? No problem. This hero has you covered, with rapid product repositioning features, perfect pivoting tools, and crystal clear communication capabilities. The Outstanding Onboarder: The team’s supplier relations expert helps you overcome even the most daunting onboarding obstacles. He’ll help you accelerate time-to-market, get better quality information from your partners, handle the long tail of suppliers with ease. The Marvelous Minimum Viable PIM: The fourth and final team member helps you fight against rising costs and slow timelines by providing flexibility and getting your PIM project off the ground with ease! Want to learn more about our team of heroes, and see how they’ve already helped businesses of every shape and size take on their product experience challenges and come out on top? Download our new eBook, The PIM Fantastic Four: Keys to Unlocking Growth today!

Download the eBook

My formative years were a good time for such teams. The Chicago Bulls dominated professional basketball, winning 5 championships in 7 years. Meanwhile, the New York Yankees set records for wins on their way to 4 Major League Baseball championships in 5 years, and the New England Patriots ruled American Football, winning an unprecedented 6 Super Bowls since 2002. Each of those teams had their signature superstar — Michael Jordan was, and still is, considered the greatest basketball player to ever live, as is Tom Brady in football, and Derek Jeter was recently elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. But what made those teams so dominant, what propelled them to title after title, was the deep, well-constructed roster each team boasted. Succeeding in omnichannel commerce is no different. You can’t build a championship team with just one person. You need to construct a deep roster of talent to come out on top in any industry. So, with that in mind, we thought we’d put the spotlight on the different members of a championship-winning PIM team.

Leadership teams 

When it comes to any major project, it’s crucial to get your leadership team on board, and PIM is no exception to that rule. In fact, because PIM requires you to get buy-in from a wide range of teams in your organization, it’s even more important that you have members of your company’s leadership team on board with your PIM project from the very beginning. That way, they can help ensure everyone leans into PIM and get the solution up and running quickly and efficiently. How do you get your leadership team on board? Start by demonstrating the value PIM can bring to an organization and the potential return on investment implementing PIM can bring, including lowered enrichment costs, higher conversion rates, and more.

IT teams 

At first glance, it may seem like the IT team is not directly invested in the business outcomes, meaning that they might not be primetime players on your PIM team. Think again — the IT team often does the heavy lifting when selecting a PIM, and just as importantly, making sure it integrates and plays nicely with the rest of your existing tech stack. They also typically play a role in implementing and maintaining the data governance and product information hygiene processes that allow you to get the most out of your PIM. Your IT team plays a significant role in just about every software implementation, and PIM is no different. So, make sure you have an IT specialist on your team to help you understand the ramifications a PIM can have for existing infrastructure and operations. They’ll also help ensure the continued good governance and use of PIM after it is rolled out.

Media managers 

In the omnichannel age, digital assets are king. Customers want, expect, and even demand to see your products in action via photos, videos, PDFs, and more. What’s more, they are much more likely to make a purchase if they do interact with these digital assets — 73% of consumers who saw a digital photo or video on an eCommerce site made a purchase, according to Hubspot. What’s more, they don’t expect only to see this information on your eCommerce website or in physical stores — they also expect to see it on mobile apps, via social media pages like Pinterest, Instagram, or Twitter, and many other channels. That means you need professionals dedicated to managing these vital assets in the form of media managers. Empower them to centralize your product images, videos, user guides, and more, stored both internally and externally, in one place, and use Akeneo PIM to enrich that information to ensure it is presented in the proper context for the channel you’re selling on. This will allow you to enhance your customer experience with compelling images and videos and cause conversion rates to climb by as much as 400%.

Translation and localization teams 

When you’re selling products across borders, you need to speak the local language — and so much more. Research indicates that consumers worldwide are increasingly buying products from international merchants, thanks mainly to the ease of buying from anywhere in the world online. But while they’re more than happy to do business with merchants in other countries, they expect those sellers to speak their language and provide product information in the proper context for the market they’re in. That includes everything from translating product descriptions to converting measurements into local units, even updating product collections or digital assets to fit the norm of a new market. That’s where your translation and localization teams come in. By getting them on your PIM team, you can make sure product information is prepared for every market you sell in — and with Akeneo PIM, they’ll be able to work more quickly than ever, accelerating time-to-market and lowering enrichment costs along the way.

Catalog managers AKA Julias 

We’ve saved perhaps the most essential member of your championship-winning starting lineup for last — the marketers, product managers, and commerce teammates who are responsible for managing your product catalogs, or Julia as we call that persona here at Akeneo. When it comes to managing product information, your catalog management teammates are your MVPs. The product collections they create, curate, update, and manage are the basis of any good PIM system. Without this foundation of accurate, consistent, and compelling product information, your product enrichment efforts would likely never get off the ground. What does all of this mean for your PIM project? It means that the project should center around the needs of Julia, with other concerns such as migration, integration, and customization, falling behind. Ensuring that catalog managers are the focal point of your team is how Akeneo customers have seen massive returns on investment, including 500% reductions in enrichment costs, and more.

A deep bench

Of course, it isn’t just about the big stars and starting players. For a team to be genuinely great, every member of the organization has to commit to the game plan and find a way to contribute. The same is true when it comes to PIM. For a PIM project to truly be successful, you’ll need everyone involved with using the software, from leadership teams and IT heads, to catalog and media managers to the many, many other departments that will use information and resources created and enriched in your PIM. This can include development teams, manufacturing teams, external groups like suppliers, and everyone in between. So, make sure you don’t underestimate the change that you are going to impose on your entire organization. Using a new tool requires understanding a new process and establishing new habits. Ensure your team has the proper functional and technical training they need to fully understand how to use the PIM and understand the benefits of fully adopting it for catalog management. That way, your team can take home the top product information prize! Want to find more tips on using PIM to take your team to the next level? Discover how Akeneo PIM can help you create a great employee experience on our blog, or download our PXM for Dummies eBook!

Over these last few months, we have seen a great shift in online purchasing behavior, defined by the closing of brick and mortar stores, which has forced shoppers to rely more heavily on online shopping. This change in customer behavior requires companies of every shape and size to reconsider their business models and take a hard look at their omnichannel commerce capabilities. From engaging with eCommerce for the first time to bringing in-store items online and assessing online catalogs, both newbies and well-versed commerce businesses must take a hard look at how they sell. As a result, nearly every business is looking to reduce complexities that are often illuminated by relying more heavily on commerce. From the complexities surrounding sourcing, management, distribution, and business models, you may think there are just as many complex solutions. Luckily for all of us, there is a one-stop-shop solution to managing all types of complexity — Akeneo PIM! So how does PIM help you simplify the many complexities that can plague eCommerce? Allow us to explain…

1. Sourcing Complexity 

We have seen already an unprecedented rise in demand for products like cleaning supplies and PPE (Personalized Protective Equipment). Businesses that sell these products have been scrambling to onboard new suppliers and vendors that can produce products at the quick speed at which they are becoming relevant and irrelevant. This can create an issue for your business, however. Different vendors may categorize the same product in different ways, leading to challenges with establishing consistent product information and sorting criteria. With Akeneo PIM, you can mitigate the issues caused by inconsistent labeling and data from multiple vendors and sort through the technologies that each vendor employs, helping you determine the different language that vendors’ technologies are using for the same products.

2. Management Complexity  

As we mentioned, COVID-19’s impact on demand for PPE and cleaning supplies is unprecedented. For more context, in March of 2020 alone, the sales growth for aerosol disinfectants and multipurpose cleaners rose by 385% and 148% respectively. With such a large influx in demand, businesses are struggling to keep up due to their reliance on people and processes managed by person-to-person communication. Akeneo PIM allows you to optimize your workflow by moving away from outdated solutions and processes that are subject to human error. In their place, they leverage a business-wide governance model through a PIM that helps to validate data, establish a universal set of rules to govern products, and provides a dashboard to manage product performance.

3. Distribution Complexity  

An increase in both supply and demand will cause you to consider how and where you are disseminating information about your product data. It is crucial that you publish consistent, accurate, and relevant data through your channels, whether that be your own website, a 3^rd party marketplace, search engine, or otherwise. As you experience changes in supply and demand, there is a greater likelihood of errors with respect to inventory accuracy and product description as you add more items to your site. With a PIM, you can integrate your website and your marketplace, assuring that you have a central location to manage products efficiently. A PIM can also help you with data translation and copy. It is critical to assure that the copy you are putting out at a rapid rate is correct with respect to data, grammar, content, and sentence structure. Leaving all four of these variables to human error causes too great of a risk, digitizing these with a PIM eliminates worry, confusion, and backlog as your catalog fluctuates rapidly.

4. Business Model Complexity  

Shipping products from different places can lead to a great amount of complexity and human error. As your business grows due to your increased catalog size and demand, you may have to take a harder look at your business plan, and whether it is still working for your business. Your company needs may change, and quickly. Akeneo PIM can help you manage your logistics effectively at scale.

Manage eCommerce complexity with PIM

Complexity in your product catalog is inevitable. With a PIM acting as a master catalog or organizational tool for all your product information, it ensures a positive and consistent commerce experience for your customer. As you work through the upswings and downturns of demand, both reducing human error and boosting customer experience is more critical than ever. Akeneo’s PIM offering will help you orchestrate the acquisition, enrichment, and distribution of consistent assets, leading to a more efficient leveraging of data, and an improved overall business model. MRM Commerce is focused on end to end commerce, from commerce strategy and digital transformation to commerce visual and interaction design, Amazon/marketplace optimization, and commerce platform implementation for platforms such as Salesforce and Magento. We help brands grow meaningful relationships with people through commerce.

All these seasonal events and changes mean that brands and retailers need to work double-time to adapt their product catalogs and keep up with the changing seasons. After all, most consumers won’t be buying new backpacks in October, nor Halloween costumes in November, and most families get their holiday shopping done long before the New Year is rung in. That means you only have a precious few days to make your seasonal catalogs and promotions count. But making these seasonal changes in your product catalog isn’t as simple as flipping the calendar to the next month. It means onboarding new products from manufacturers and suppliers, adding new photos and other digital assets, and updating hundreds or thousands of SKUs on multiple sales channels in time for the new season, all without succumbing to errors and inaccuracies in your product information. Add it all up, and adapting your product catalog can be a monumental undertaking. Here are four keys that you can adopt to help make the holiday shopping season more successful for you, and deliver a better shopping experience to your customers.

Automate and adapt with ease

Adapting your product catalog for each new season can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. Manually managing photos, videos, and other digital product assets can quickly become a nightmare, but getting products to market on time is critical to meet shoppers’ expectations.  That means you need to rapidly update your assortment, and take advantage of anything you can use to help your product managers take control of your product catalog and adapt information on a timely basis. Akeneo PIM can help your team automate processes, easily model new categories, offer bulk editing, and centrally manage product data and digital assets like photos and videos. Just our customer Turner Price, a foodservice wholesaler that turned to Akeneo when it pivoted their business, modifying their product catalog with additional information required to facilitate selling directly to consumers in just one week.

Get more sales days

When it comes to seasonal sales, time is of the essence, and organizations can’t afford to miss their seasonal window. A long catalog enrichment process could doom your holiday sales plans if the catalog isn’t available during peak buying times. What your team needs is a way to help them significantly increase productivity and keep up with changing seasons — all without making careless errors or providing inaccurate product information to customers. Akeneo PIM can help foster collaboration across the teams involved in onboarding new products, streamline the catalog update process, eliminate errors, and inconsistencies in product information. It can also help ensure that any updates made within the system are distributed to all of the appropriate channels. Akeneo customer Petra, for instance, has already seen the benefit of using PIM to accelerate time-to-market.

Communicate with customers

Accelerating your time-to-market can also help you make sure customers can rest assured any gifts they purchase will arrive by Christmas, Hanukkah, a birthday, or any other special occasion. But around the holiday season, customers could always use some extra reassurance before they complete their purchase. The key is keeping your customers informed and aware of what’s happening with their purchase. That way, their expectations stay realistic, and your relationship with them remains intact. Keep your customers in the know by trusting Akeneo PIM as part of your buy online pick-up in-store offer, just like Akeneo customer Rural King. By efficiently collecting and enriching the right product data to support the program, the company’s BOPIS program increased online sales and in-store foot traffic.

Broadcast your values

Modern shoppers don’t just want to know about your brand’s products, and when they can expect them to arrive — they also want to know your values. In recent years, brand values have emerged as an important buying criterion. Buyers and shoppers want to know where products are made, are they ethically produced or sourced, sustainable, cruelty-free, and so on. Let them know what you stand for by easily and efficiently adding new attributes and rewriting descriptions in one central system and rapidly populating them to all sales channels in context. Akeneo customers like Made.com, for instance, have attracted attention and acclaim for using PIM to make information about brand values the centerpiece of their brand strategy. Improving product enrichment and management processes can benefit every part of your business, from your team to your customers, and even your bottom line. Try out these tips to make sure your team is ready to conquer the Christmas rush, beat the summer heat, get back to school, and bloom with spring flowers.

Check out more insights and recommendations from new Akeneo research in our Akeneo Global B2B Survey 2020: 5 Takeaways on the Rising Importance of Product Experience eBook, or learn from Akeneo success stories by checking out some customer stories!

It’s with deep regret that I inform you of our decision to cancel the 2021 edition of our Akeneo PIM Summit (APS) in Paris, France. APS is a much-anticipated and highly energizing event for Akeneo, our customers, and our partner ecosystem, and we will greatly miss our annual gathering. However, in these uncertain times, we must put the safety of our employees, customers, and partners first. Given the unpredictable evolution of the COVID-19 situation, we do not want to take any unnecessary risks. We are looking at ways to keep our APS spirit alive throughout 2021 without our in-person reunion and welcome your input. Feel free to email us your ideas and suggestions at [email protected].  In the meantime, make sure you ask your Akeneo Customer Success Manager or Partner Manager about the recently launched PXM Pioneers Program! We are more eager than ever to build up a dynamic community, continue our conversations, encourage peer networking, and share best practices. Our community is strong, and don’t forget we’re here to support each other! I wish all the best to you, your teams, and your families. Keep well and stay the course! Best Regards, Fred de Gombert, CEO