Manual product entry will rank pretty highly on the list of tedious tasks as a product manager in companies using SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA. This isn’t just time consuming for you, but companywide. Slowing down the process of entering your product lists and categories creates a huge bottleneck for other departments and can even result in a loss of sales.
Utilising a Product Information Management (PIM) solution that works perfectly together with SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA will not just speed up the product entry process, but totally automate it. This has a huge impact on efficiency, resources, and revenue! An innovative PIM system should come with data inheritance functionality, an integral feature in reducing the friction of managing product data.
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6 daily tasks in SAP
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But what is data inheritance?
When you create a new product in your Product Information Management system, that product "inherits" the data it has in common with other products in the same product group. This way, you do not have to enter large amounts of product information all over again. As the PIM system is fully integrated with SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA, the new or updated data entered via the PIM system will automatically flow into SAP.
International jewellery provider Trollbeads are amongst many PIM users who have found real benefits in utilising data inheritance, seeing a return on investment almost instantly. The efficiency in reducing manual insertion of variants saved huge amounts of the time normally spent on product entry.
The beauty of data inheritance is how flexible it can be, regardless of the product ranges you distribute.
German electronics distributor Wentronic explained how the possibility of exchanging data in real time with their ERP system, along with the data inheritance function, was crucial in choosing Perfion as their Product Information Management system.
Data Inheritance for all SAP users
Another advantage of data inheritance functionality is the ease in which all departments can use it. Previously, you may have had to consult IT to help with the uploading of information due to the complexity of already implemented systems. Or you may have needed IT to create new data fields in SAP for new product variants to be entered. With a PIM system any user can easily add as many new fields as needed – instantly.
Ease of access and time saving are just some of the benefits. Below, explains further why implementing a best-of-breed PIM solution to handle all product information together with SAP data at your organisation is key to success.
Minimising of risk of errors
When common product information is inherited to new product variants, you minimize the risk of typing errors. And, as all types of product information – including SAP data – are managed via the PIM system, you will have one always updated Single Source of Truth for product data that all employees can access 24/7.
Updating of already established data
All product information updates – including SAP data updates – are made via the PIM system, ensuring a complete overview of all available product information. When data is updated on product group level, your changes will automatically apply to all products in this product group.
Improvement of customer experience
When using the data inheritance functionality of a PIM system you ensure uniformity of product information across products – and across all sales and marketing channels where you publish your product information. In this way you will always offer your customers a consistent experience.
Immediate cost savings
Time is money. You will probably experience immense time and thus cost savings when not having to enter all product data from scratch for every new product in the same product group. And the ability to create new data fields fast and easy will prevent bottlenecks and enable a faster time-to-market for new products.
Exporting of information to all commerce streams (webshop, catalogues, apps, website etc.)
When managing all your product information via a best-of-breed PIM solution, you can easily export it – including SAP data – to any sales and marketing channel in exactly the format you need. This can even happen automatically.
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6 daily tasks in SAP which become a lot easier with a PIM-system
In this guide we go through six daily scenarios and illustrate the difference between working with either an SAP system or a PIM system.
