ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

This guide is created to help equipment and automotive parts suppliers to know more about PIM. In a series of short articles, we will share some basic concepts of a PIM, identify if a PIM would help you and provide some useful tips to buying and deploying a PIM.

Product Information

Product information is comprised of part numbers, interchanges, labels, attributes, descriptions, fitment information, packaging information, safety information, pricing, images, videos, manuals, warranties and more.

Accurate product information, especially for auto parts category, is critical to customer satisfaction and trust. Finding the right part, the first time and avoiding costly returns are key to achieving desired sales volumes, happy customers and overall profitability.

Key management decisions on portfolio strategy and competitor response are dependent on having the correct product information.

It is in this context, understanding PIM software becomes useful.

Intro to PIM

The PIM (or) Product Information Management software is a repository of all data of all your products.

The purpose of the PIM, or raison–d’être as the French would say, is to be the “single source of truth” for all information about your products. For product data to be accurate and complete, it is critical to maintain it in one place and make it available wherever it is required.

Other than being a repository, many PIM software provide capabilities to manage product information for appropriate decision making.

The Right Questions

In this first article, we talk about the key questions that you might need to ask to lend clarity to the overall decision-making process. You could have brainstorming sessions with your colleagues (or with us too!) using some of these questions as triggers.

1.  Do I need a PIM?

2.  What are my goals in using a PIM?

3.  Is the PIM suitable for my product category / industry?

4.  Where does the data reside?

5.  Who has access to the data?

6.  How to evaluate different features of a PIM for my goals?

In the subsequent articles, we address each of these questions in greater detail.