Instant communication with individually adapted information for prospects and customers is increasing, but the time to do so, certainly isn’t. Creating personalized data sheets, price lists and product catalogues is key in growing and retaining your base of users. However, extracting the necessary product information from SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA and other data sources is mostly a drag and requires enormous amounts of manual work.
Consequently, there is a need for working smarter, and this can be done by utilizing systems, which structure and automate the time-consuming tasks. A Product Information Management (PIM) system makes the work collecting and extracting product data from SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA and other data sources much easier.
Traditional formats like printed and digital data sheets, technical specifications and price lists are examples of material that marketing managers generally require to service the sales organization on an ongoing basis.
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6 daily tasks in SAP
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SAP not suitable for printing
A standard scenario is where a salesperson must send out an offer to a prospect or a customer and wants to provide a data sheet, which contains the technical description, a couple of images and a price list adapted to suit the customer’s discount agreement or with the prospect’s introductory price.
All the necessary information is accessible but spread across different systems. For example, images are stored in an image database, product descriptions in Excel or InDesign files or in your CMS or e-commerce platforms.
The necessary prices and master data are in the SAP system, but it is not possible to generate a PDF file directly in SAP that is ideal for the prospect or the customer.
This means that the salesperson needs help from marketing to create an adapted document, and even though it is a trivial task, it requires time from the always busy marketing colleagues. Time, which marketing could better spend on creating the next creative campaign.
A few days later, the same salesperson or a member of their team has a similar requirement. The document must once again be created from scratch. When tasks become laborious in this way, it’s time to look for an efficient shortcut.
How many times have your sales team got impatient and created their own documents? Usually based on earlier versions, with the obvious risk that the design has stopped and the information has become obsolete. Soon, the wrong font types and outdated images are used, just as logos are used incorrectly in relation to your company’s design manual. This creates not just an internal bottleneck, but a companywide branding issue!
The PIM system makes printing SAP data a breeze
Stop the tedious wasting of precious time and start regaining control of the company’s branding. You require a system that can efficiently generate individually adapted documents, based on valid product information!
This is just one of the major benefits of a best-of-breed PIM system such as Perfion. The PIM system is the central location for all types of product information, a “Single Source of Truth”. This means you can be certain that your Sales & Marketing team always have the correct information at hand, including logos, descriptions and much more. Product data that does not “live” in the PIM system can still be accessed from here as it works seamlessly together with other systems, for example SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA.
Because of the close integration between the PIM system and SAP, the SAP master data can easily be published in PDF files and advanced printing formats. Marketing systems such as Adobe Creative Suite can also be integrated with Perfion PIM, making it easy to update all variations of product data through InDesign catalogues, product sheets and more.
Create unique PDF files from within SAP at the press of a button
PIM system document templates are the making rapid individually adapted subject matter such as offers, data sheets, pricelists, brochures and more. Templates are a user-friendly way of ensuring a uniform design on overall whilst still adapting content case-by-case. In just a few clicks you and your team can choose the relevant information.
Therefore, your Marketing team can concentrate on what matters most, as the salesperson is able to create the desired content, via the PIM system. He first selects which offer, price list or data sheet template he will use and then the relevant information in the system for which customer, products, images, prices and any other details needed. Via a live notice in SAP, the PIM system can take into consideration any differentiated prices and similar factors.
To conclude, a product information management system makes your teams processes not just more efficient, but more effective in regard to SAP data for advanced printing formats.
Guide:
6 daily tasks in SAP which become a lot easier with a PIM-system
Learn how a best-of breed PIM system can optimize your product information management.
In the guide "6 daily tasks in SAP which become a lot easier with a PIM-system", we review six everyday scenarios and show the difference between working with an SAP system or PIM system.
