Product Information Management

Why Retail, CPG Distribution companies need PIM

Goals of Today’s Session

Gain a common understanding of PIM and its value to your organization

Understand why managing product information is critical to your Ecommerce / ERP initiative (upgrade or rip & replace)

How can Riversand’s MDM Center solution help ensure your digital imperatives meets / exceeds it stated business benefits of effectively engaging with their customers and thereby growing revenue

Lets start off with a video about PIM

• A Product Information Management (PIM) solution can integrate the data from all channels, far beyond what a traditional ecommerce or ERP system can handle.

• PIM brings together complex data sources, including information from vendor feeds, consultants, copywriters, data pools, content aggregators, marketplaces, photographers and agencies.

• Forrester points out 5 areas where PIM can directly benefit retailers:• Increased sales• Increased productivity• Cost reductions• Improved customer and channel partner service and

satisfaction• Process and SKU on-boarding time improvement

http://www.riversand.com/integrating-omnichannel-data-with-pim

We’re in the “Age of the Customer”

In the “age of the customer” corporations will need to focus on the following four pillars 2 to engage with their customer and maximize their revenue potential

• Experience Management (B2C & B2B)

• Product Information Management (PIM)

• Commerce Management

• Order management

By the end of 2014 1

US cross-channel retail sales will be at $1.4

Trillion

US Online sales will be another $294 Billion

Web impacted retail (online and cross channel

sales) will constitute 52% of the entire retail pie

• By 2018 1

• US cross channel retail sales will approach $1.8 Trillion

• US Online sales will be another $414 Billion

• Web impacted retail is expected to constitute 59% of the entire retail pie.

References

1. Forrester Research US Cross-Channel Retail Sales Forecast_2014 To 2018 , 2. Forrester Research- Commerce Technology Investment And Platform Trends — 2014, 3. WebCollage – Impact of enhanced content on online sales

In 2014-15 – What were you focused on? What should the focus be during 2016 and beyond?

Here’s how your customer engages with you online today

My Ecom site

Two colors of same shoe taking up valuable category level landing page real estate

2

No color swatches for multiple colors of the same style sandal.

Product description is sparse and not geared towards SEO (both Internal to you website as well as external ones like Google, Bing, etc)

3

1Shallow web categories and Navigational criteria reduces page hits and shunts overall search capability to pull right results –reducing overall traffic, conversion rates and increasing abandoned cart rates

2Showing SKU level product at a major category landing page reduces – overall traffic, abandoned cart rates and conversion rates and increases customer fatigue

3Sparse product details, identifiers, no color swatches, high quality media for the same style and static cross sell recommendations based on browsing history – reduces average cart size and value, conversion rates and increases abandoned cart rates and overall customer repeat business.

Telltale signs you need a PIM

Telltale signs you need an ecommerce overhaul

1. Reviews and Ratings

2. Better recommendation

3. Better Search, Enhanced Web classification and Navigational Criteria based browsing

4. Product Data Page features

5. Mobile engagement & Performance

Relatively shallow customer facing classification for a major category like Shoes 1

Here is how one large North American Fashion Retailer is engaging their customers in the Shoes Category ACME Retail

1Multi level Web classification and Navigational Criteria

2Sophisticated Style to SKU groupings that handles category specific variation like (in the case of Womes>Shoes>Sandals Brand, Colors, Sizes, Width

3

Product data relationships that feeds into their recommendation engine which now has the most signals (including, static, behavioral from their ecommengine and cross-sell / upsell relationships from PIM)

Riversand’s MDM Center powers (among a whole host of other

PIM capabilities)

4Syndication from and to data pools like GXS, 1WS GDSN, etc and to their ecommerce engine on a near real time basis across all banners and markets

To understand the risk of not doing PIM along with Ecomm or ERP – take a look at Target Canada

Must Read the following article http://www.canadianbusiness.com/the-last-days-of-target-canada/

The investigating team went to Fisher and John Morioka, the senior vice-president of merchandising, with a

drastic proposal: Shut down the entire merchandising division so everyone could comb through and verify every

single piece of data in the system—manually. The team stressed there was simply no other way to get it done.

Hiring an external consultant would take too long, and it was impossible to expect the employees to do such a

painstaking, arduous task and their regular jobs at the same time. Fisher immediately gave the green light.

Thus, “data week” was held in the fall of 2012. Merchandisers essentially had to confirm every data point for every

product with their vendors. A buyer might have 1,500 products and 50 to 80 fields to check for each one. The

more experienced employees had the foresight to keep records of verified information (dubbed “sources of

truth”), which made the task a little easier. Others weren’t so lucky. Complicating matters was the dummy

information entered into the system when SAP was set up. That dummy data was still there, confusing the system,

and it had to be expunged. “We actually sat there and went through every line of data manually,” says a former

employee. “It was terrible.” Target anticipated how awful it would be and designed the week to help keep

employees sane. To kick it off and rally spirits, a few employees performed a hip-hop song-and-dance routine on

the first day. Ice cream and pizza flooded in to keep employees fuelled up, some of whom stayed well past

midnight that week, squinting at screens through bleary eyes.

Followed by

But data week was successful on a number of fronts. It weeded out the worst of the errors and forced Target

Canada to realize the importance of accurate data. It was also a bonding experience—as terrible as it was. “The

company came together that week,” says a former employee. “We were all in the trenches doing this unglamorous

work.”

Major issues include

• Empty store shelves

• Incorrect weights and dimensions

• Inability to locate product across supply chain

• Store Shelf labeling

• A whole host of ecommerce issues

Why do you need Enhanced Product Information Management Capabilities in addition to Ecommerce overhaul ?• Enhanced product information positively impacted online sales by an

average of 6-36% depending on product categories 3

• The above numbers don’t account for web influenced sales which would indicate that each dollar spent online, five to nine dollars are spent offline 1 & 2

• Delivering a seamless shopping experience across Follett’s channels and customer touch-points and integrated product data management and analysis capability will be crucial 2 & 4

References

1. Forrester Research US Cross-Channel Retail Sales Forecast_2014 To 2018

2. Forrester Research- Commerce Technology Investment And Platform Trends — 2014

3. WebCollage – Impact of enhanced content on online sales

4. PWC – Multichannel shopping survey – Fig 6, page 11

Online Shopping Activity Impact

of Enhanced Content

Orders (sales) +9.3%

Add to cart +7.4%

Add to registry +10.26%

Add to wish list +17.26%

• Here is how enhanced product information impacted the various stages in the purchase cycle for one Fortune 250 cross channel retailer 3

Where and who would PIM be applicable to across your supply chain?

Common myths about PIM

PIM isShareable, accurate and slowly changing

information that describe products across

your enterprise

About managing relationships between

products and merchandise hierarchies and

classifications

PIM isn’tTactical, quickly changing or transactional

data about products that are only relevant to a

particular operation

About managing point in time marketing

promotions or markdowns

Benefits What PIM does What PIM doesn’t do

• Increased Sales

• Shorten product

introduction time

• Improved Customer

Service

• Consistent shareable product data

across stores, online and mobile

• Single Source – create once and

share everywhere

• Easily identify and classify products

across multiple channels

• Promotions and Markdowns

• Manage and store inventory

levels across supply chain

• Details about where a

particular order is

• Improved vendor

collaboration

• Increased

productivity

• Cost reductions

• Maximize content via Vendors who

make and supply product

• Manage by exception only what is

needed to enhance customer

experience and drive sales

• Automate and streamline the product

onboarding process

• Ensure lowest cost offered by

Vendor / Supplier

• Streamline the operational

processes like forecasting,

allocations, planning, WMS,

etc

• Optimize the pricing for a

given product

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What Challenges could PIM Address for you?

Brick and Mortar Channel Scale and Readiness – Current merchandising business process are silo-ed for stores, web and mobile sites

FROM TO

Multi-Channel Scale and Readiness – True

multi-channel business process that can support the

product data needs across all Channels you sell through

Slow & Fragmented Product Introduction / Maintenance – Inefficient processes across multiple business groups and system touch points

Speed to Market – Integrated and centralized Item

induction and maintenance processes across multiple

(Follett and vendors) business groups and system touch

points

SKU Level Merchandising – Merchandising functions at which you manage products at a SKU /UPC level incurring significant operational inefficiencies

Item Level Merchandising – Business functions

can leverage Item level vs. SKU level entities to better

merchandise and support multi-channel needs

Vendor Collaboration Effectiveness: Multiple

touch points (ECOMM, FTP, emails, manual) with

vendors for data requests, inefficient data usage across

biz functions

Manage Vendor Performance: Consolidate

vendor touch points via a vendor portal, measure, score

and motivate vendors towards accuracy and timeliness

of product induction and maintenance SLAs

Merchandise Effectiveness: Product attribution is

in adequate , lacks merchandise category specific

context, unable to support context specific attribution and

requires intensive IT support and coordination to execute.

Merchandise Context Aware Attribution: Product attribution is tailored to merchandise category

specific context, support multi channel descriptors to

support product navigation and alternate hierarchies

and classifications that require IT support by exception

Product Information Management (PIM) Overview

Product Induction and Maintenance

(PI / PM)

Vendor Collaboration

(VC)

Media Ingestion and

Correlation (MIC)

Hierarchies and

Taxonomies (TAX)

Data stewardship

and Governance

(DSG)

Product induction and maintenance related aspects that typically involve merchandisers, buyers and

operations. Product setup, approvals, maintenance, syndication across all merchandise categories and

lines of business.

Vendor partners collaborate with and

provide or receive product information to/from Follett

Organization roles, structures, processes and tools needed to

govern product as data asset

Correlating media assets to describe product – typically for web

enrichment and multi-channel commerce

Merchandise hierarchies, classifications and other grouping and navigational structures that

are products need to be classified under or are part of

Managing the Product Information Supply Chain

Riversand’s MDM Center is a true multi domain master data management solution ready for your future needs as well

Summary

• PIM helps customers like you drive efficiencies in your business and grow revenues

• PIM is crucial to any Ecommerce / ERP initiatives – especially to ensure predictable and sustainable engagement of your customer

• Talk to us to help you not only ensure success on these strategic imperatives but lift customer engagement, bring predictability and drive efficiency at your enterprise.

Thank you