When Excel can no longer keep up: data governance
7 June 2021
Anyone in a business tasked with managing marketing data, whatever the type (product data, internal data, image files, etc.), comes to the same conclusion: It’s a daunting task, especially when multiple contributors are involved, yet data is now a cornerstone of a company’s organisation.
The importance of reliable data management within a company
Data is the bedrock of all business processes (Sales, Marketing, Applications, Reporting, etc.). And yet, it is clear that for most companies, data management is far from being a priority. It usually takes a failure in a process for anyone to take an interest. What remedy is prescribed following a failure? Very often, a futile short-term fix that will only temporarily resolve the issue. To put it simply, it might boil down to: “Just change the values of these 10,000 Excel entries and we’ll see what happens afterwards”.
The same applies to image files. When dealing with 100 or 200 images, it’s still possible to manage it ‘by hand’. But when it comes to managing several hundred or thousands of images associated with products, it becomes much more complicated as numerous questions arise:
- How do you search for specific ‘assets’?
- How do you automatically convert them from TIFF to JPEG or PNG?
- How can they be automatically resized to the correct dimensions according to the required format (thumbnails/miniatures/large photos, etc.)?
- How can you work with colleagues and service providers easily, without errors or back-and-forth communication?
These are all questions that remain unanswered, yet they are a source of wasted time – and therefore money. However, there are solutions that are simple to implement… and, above all, sustainable.
How does a Product Information Manager (PIM) simplify the management of your product data?
Start by creating a proper product data governance model. The good old Excel spreadsheet isn’t a tool designed to fulfil this role. It’s difficult to take a step back and optimise your processes given the complexity, cumbersomeness and disorganisation of the files.
This is where PIM & DAM—an acronym for ‘Product Information Manager’—comes into play. PIM is a collaborative tool that brings together all product information in a single repository. With this single product repository, managing your data becomes much simpler.
- It is estimated to reduce the error rate to around 0.1 per cent thanks to the integrated ‘workflow’ system, which enables data validation. As there is a single product repository in a PIM, the dashboards are always reliable.
- PIM is the key to multi-channel communication. Overall, it is estimated that using a PIM reduces ‘time-to-market’ by a factor of seven. This is a significant figure in a world where customers always want to buy faster and have as much reliable product information as possible, otherwise they may be lost...
Try this exercise: Map out your data flows, contributors and workflows related to managing your product information. You’ll discover how a centralised tool can drastically improve your processes, your reporting and, consequently, your ROI – and do so for the long term.
Don’t hesitate to seek support on this – a PIM isn’t just about purchasing a licence and integrating it; focus your project on the business, and success is guaranteed!