Our 8 essential tips before launching your project PIM

Has your company decided to switch to Product Information Manager (PIM) ? We congratulate you and encourage you in your decision. It's good to know that it's not a trivial process, and will require investment on the part of your team, as well as a great deal of patience and apprehension to ensure a successful transition. After that, you'll be in for a treat! To help you make the transition, we'd like to give you a few tips to consider.

1. Determine why you want to move to Product Information Manager (PIM)

If you want to make this transition, you probably want to solve a problem that PIM could address. Although it may seem obvious, it is essential to identify this problem and understand how the Product Information Manager could help you achieve certain objectives that you have defined with the rest of your team beforehand. Remember that PIM is not a tool for solving IT-related problems, but a tool for contributing to the success of your business by by a good management of your data by helping you to solve certain problems.

2. Integrate, educate and coordinate your teams during the implementation of the PIM

In order to coordinate your teams and educate them about the Product Information Manager it is essential to define specific roles for each user of the tool. Beforehand, think about identifying the employees who will use the PIM. All of this is done in order to achieve perfect supervision and implementation of the tool. The efforts will be concentrated and the efficiency in the use of the tool will be of high quality.

3. Free up time and resources

It is essential to define a schedule, which should be respected as much as possible. Indeed, it will allow you to ensure the efficiency of your platform PIM. Bring all stakeholders together when planning, and give them enough room to give constructive feedback on the strategy for using Product Information Manager . Finally, try to leave time for the implementation of data models and their integration into the process.

4. Think big and think future!

In most cases, we have seen that the PIM solutions that had been put in place had only been designed to manage basic data, limited ranges, etc. It is better to take a long-term view and think about another strategy. Take into account the future needs related to your business and integrate them as soon as possible in the Product Information Manager tool (supplier, customer base data, etc.).

5. Involve all entities in the company

It is important that all departments work together and cooperate when implementing when implementing the PIM tool. In most companies, it is clear that everything related to data management is managed by a single department. In the case of PIM, it must be seen as a resource, a corporate asset that must therefore be handled by all entities for optimal Product Information Manager operation.

6. Have high ambitions but always work in an organised, step-by-step manner

It is important to have a long-term vision and a certain ambition in using PIM . However, it is necessary to put things in perspective and always work in stages. You will need to be realistic about the time, money, and coordination required to achieve the desired goal. When you touch and modify the solution PIM in order to achieve the desired goal, roll out the implementation step by step to ensure success at each step of the process. You won't frustrate your current employees or potential future employees, and you'll be better able to assess your monetary and human needs.

7. Dedicate a team of specialists to manage the data repository

We have seen before that all departments in your company need to work together in the implementation of the Product Information Manager. However, for the management of the data repositoryHowever, for the management of the data repository, it is advisable to leave it to a specialized team that will spend its time only on this subject. Once PIM is implemented, nothing will be more important than the management of your data and it is important that it remains of the highest quality and value to your company.

8. Test, adapt, test!

When the process of integrating the Product Information Manager into your company begins, it will involve a series of decisions that must be made in accordance with your initial objectives related to your business and the optimization of your PIM. You will have to do a lot of testing in order to make adjustments in order to be as effective and efficient as possible with a business objective always in the back of your mind. Test, improve, adapt to your business! These are the keys to success when using a solution PIM.

Conclusion

Every business has different objectives, different challenges and therefore the PIM installations, too, differ between two businesses. However, these best practices are general and apply to everyone, and have proven time and time again in the past to help implement Product Information Manager and speed up the process.