Akeneo Announces Category-Changing Offering, Akeneo Product Cloud, Designed to Deliver World Class Product Experiences

Following the promise announced after their Series D investment, Akeneo Product Cloud represents the first step toward disrupting the PIM market category. Akeneo Product Cloud is a ground-breaking, composable solution that will enable commerce businesses to support the delivery of world-class product experiences. 

“Our customers have been extremely successful in crafting product experiences that delight customers by leveraging our modern PIM solution. In partnering with them, we discovered that there is so much more to providing up-to-the-microsecond, fully enriched product experiences that do not necessarily fit neatly inside of a modern PIM,” said Kristin Naragon, VP of Global Marketing & Strategy at Akeneo. “Outside of the PIM, our customers have many siloed and redundant technologies to manage and activate the entire product record, with complex and expensive custom integrations, multiple stakeholders and manual workarounds. This is why we are bringing the Akeneo Product Cloud to market. Our vision is to provide one composable place where the C-suite manages product experiences, similar to how they manage customer and employee experiences,” 

Through phases of development, Akeneo Product Cloud will include:

• Product Data Studios that serve each of the core product record components starting with a modern PIM that natively provides product asset management and syndication capabilities, as the keystone to managing and optimizing the entire product record. Additional Studios will provide support for more dynamic product information elements such as product availability management, pricing optimization, user generated content, and product lifecycle management; 
• a scalable Product Data Platform (PDP) to centralize and orchestrate the entire product record consumed from each of the Product Data Studios, with performance analytics to inform business strategies; 
• and a native App Store that makes it easy to activate product data across any commerce channel or business application, in addition to providing solutions for seamlessly augmenting the core product information created in the Product Data Studios and orchestrated in the PDP.

“We have heard from our customers about the chaos of managing all the different elements that make up the story of their products. The internal processes and technology integrations to activate that story across all the channels that their customers expect them to be on can be just chaotic. That chaos can lead to poor experiences for consumers that can negatively impact a business's bottom line”, said Fred de Gombert, CEO and co-founder of Akeneo. “Akeneo PIM is a keystone to how commerce businesses deliver world-class product experiences. Our vision with Akeneo Product Cloud is to build on that strong foundation that our customers have used to unlock growth, and provide a cloud-native solution that can orchestrate, activate and optimize the entire product information lifecycle in a composable and scalable way. We can’t wait to share more with our PIM and PXM community as we build out Akeneo Product Cloud” 

“After a customer has a negative shopping experience, it can be very difficult to re-engage with them and in many cases, they are lost permanently,” said Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer at Ventana Research. “Our research has shown that businesses who take an omnichannel approach to activating their entire set of product information are the ones who will see long-term revenue growth.. We are excited about  Akeneo’s vision for Akeneo Product Cloud and believe this is what it will take to deliver  world-class product experiences.” 

In addition to the announcement of Akeneo Product Cloud, the company has announced a set of new automation and customization features for Akeneo PIM which are designed to help decrease the time it takes to bring products to market while still delivering the consistent, complete and high-quality product information that today’s omnichannel shoppers expect. 

Key updates for the Akeneo Autumn ‘22 Release include:

• Identifier Manager which enables Akeneo PIM users to save time on product creation and increase data quality by automating the creation and management of custom product identifiers that align with the user’s business requirements;
• Import and Export Scheduling which frees Akeneo PIM users from time-consuming and repetitive data import/export tasks by providing the ability to schedule and automate the import and export of data to and from Akeneo PIM.

“With this release we focused on delivering new Akeneo PIM capabilities that will help our users decrease the amount of time they are spending on repetitive tasks such as importing or exporting data to and from Akeneo PIM,” said Antoine Barbier, VP of Product at Akeneo. “The introduction of our new automation capabilities and customization options frees users from these time-consuming activities so they can focus on the work that will help bring products to market faster and increase sales.”

This spring, Akeneo launched Akeneo App Store, making it easy for customers to find, install, and activate certified apps to help access and use valuable product data. As part of the Autumn ‘22 release,  Akeneo and its partners are providing new capabilities to help customers across a wide array of areas:

• Akeneo App from Bynder: Developed by Dataggo, this app will make it easier than ever before to connect product data and product assets. 
• Product Data Feeds & Marketplace Management App: Created by Intelligent Reach, this app connects Akeneo PIM to Intelligent Reach to automate the activation of product data to hundreds of channels.
• eCommerce apps like the new Shopify App by StrikeTru, Gyroscops App integrating to Proximis and Sylius, as well as the CommerceTools App by Vaimo: These eCommerce apps will enable Akeneo customers to easily activate their product stories on their commerce sites.. 
• The TranslatorApp for Akeneo and Translations.com App by TransPerfect: These tools will allow for seamless and efficient workflows for compelling international content and translations in 50+ languages. 
• Constructor.io App: Will boost search engine optimization and product discoverability.
• Akeneo App for Uniform: Will enable the launch of fast personalized shopping experiences through headless CMS. 

All apps in the Akeneo App Store are designed to connect the ever-expanding commerce ecosystem and bring greater business value to Akeneo customers.  

For more information about future releases for Akeneo PIM, please visit our public-facing product roadmap to learn more about “What’s Coming Next in Akeneo PIM.”

Boilerplate

Akeneo brings a complete and composable SaaS-based solution for managing, orchestrating, activating, and optimizing the entire product record in order to drive compelling and consistent product experiences across all owned and unowned channels and routes-to-market. With its open platform, leading PIM for product data and asset management, and ecosystem connectivity with Akeneo App Store, Akeneo Product Cloud empowers commerce businesses to deliver world-class product experiences that unlock growth.

Leading global brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, including Thrasio, Staples Canada, boohoo, and Air Liquide trust Akeneo to scale and customize their omnichannel commerce initiatives. Using Akeneo Product Cloud, brands and retailers can activate product experiences in any channel, therefore driving improved customer experiences, increased sales, reduced time to market, accelerated expansion, and increased team productivity.