From product design to sales: the product data journey

In today's hyper-competitive environment, companies are obliged to innovate and create new products on a regular basis, while improving their Time to Market to remain attractive and meet customer expectations. The stages in a product's journey from birth to market can be divided into 3 main phases. It is during these major stages that the product data is shaped, which will ultimately serve to seduce your customers when they make their purchase. Not insignificant, is it? Let's find out together how to work correctly with product data, and which tools to use along the way to obtain product data that effectively meets your challenges.

1. From idea to product design

Between imagining and producing a new product, there are a few essential steps. Generally imagined by your engineers or designers, the product must be thought out, studied and prototyped before it can be put on the production line. This process includes the various stages from ideation to production and even maintenance: R&D, planning, design, conception and strategy, which will enable the basic idea to be refined and lead to a viable and marketable product.

This stage in the life of a product is managed through a PLM, i.e. a Product Lifecycle Management tool. By facilitating collaboration between the different teams By automating work processes and sharing information, PLM facilitates workflow and teamwork to gain agility and time. But above all, it allows you to centralise your data related to the definition, manufacture and maintenance of your product throughout its life cycle (from BOL for Beginning of Life, to EOL for End of Life). No loss of information, historical management and easy sharing of resources (information, documents, etc.): PLM is a key ally in your product development strategy.

During this ideation and research phase, you'll collect a wealth of product data, providing you with information on the market, new trends, customers, consumer needs and your competitors. This centralization of product data will enable you to identify opportunities to create new products and/or improve existing ones.

2. Product definition

Now that you've found THE product that will meet a specific need and for a particular clientele, it's time to use the product data previously collected to define the features and specifications of your future product.

Here, the use of a platform PIM makes perfect sense. A PIM like Quable's will be able to help you effectively characterize your product data (information, colors, materials, components...) to make your product unique and its data enriched, complete, exhaustive and systematically updated.

3. Product design and testing

During the product design phase, product data will also play a major role. In fact, it's during this stage that you'll be able to test thefirst product you create, also known as a protoype. The protoype will have to test various aspects such as market, price, product features, benefits, target customers, etc.

Following these test phases, your teams will be able to collect and centralize a wealth of data on the prototype's performance. This will enable you to make relevant and effective improvements to the features of your product during development, so that it fully meets customer needs and market expectations. Based on the data obtained, it is then possible to carry out several phases of testing and iterations to finally find the ideal product to develop.

4. Product manufacturing

Here, the teams and stakeholders involved in creating the product get down to manufacturing it. Product data will be useful at this stage not only for monitoring and optimizing the manufacturing processes of the new product(s), but also for controlling product quality and checking that it meets regulatory standards.

5. Product marketing

At this stage, to prepare your product for online and/or physical sales, your teams will need to use certain product data to target appropriate market segments, and then implement appropriate marketing strategies. This marketing and sales strategy will form the basis for the positioning, pricing and promotion of your newly conceived product.

Once again, monitoring this marketing and sales campaign will enable our teams to collect a certain amount of data to assess the relevance of the actions deployed.

6. Logistics and supply

Once your product is on the market, other teams take over the logistics side. Numerous departments are usually involved in this phase of the product's life: accounting, sales and logistics must work together to ensure proper order and stock management.

This phase will be facilitated through the use of an ERP ERP: dedicated to the management of the company, it allows the centralisation of information related to accounting, commercial or stock management. Orders, prices or inventory: all these data can be managed, structured and standardised within the ERP. This allows your company to share a unified view of the data It allows the company to manage all the data related to its activity and to base all its processes on the same information.

3. Product dissemination

You have created a great product in the right quantities at a consistent price? Well done! Now all you have to do is... sell it! It's as simple as that by distributing the product through the various sales channels. The e-commerce and marketing teams then ensure the availability and quality of product descriptions (technical and marketing), translations product associations for upselling and cross-sellingor media (photos, videos, packshots, etc.).

To make this step really simple, the essential tool is the PIM (Product Information Management). It allows content, marketing and creative teams to collaborate easily on enriching product information and making it available on the various sales channels, both on and off-line. Practical, it allows to differentiate the information published according to the channel concerned, but allows a centralization and standardization of the product data necessary to any marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Now your new product is on sale! By managing the data throughout the life cycle of your product using tools dedicated to each stage, you have optimised the quality of the product data available. Ultimately, the structured and collaborative work around your data allows you to create sublime product sheets at points of sale, on your website, in print or on marketplaces. Your omnichannel marketing strategy is implemented seamlessly, as friction is reduced and your teams' work is optimised. Your processes are automated to free up your employees' added value and allow them to focus on the most important tasks. Look forward to the next product development...

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