Every company in the world wants to save time and money so they can maximize profit margins. Avoiding errors in operations is one of the primary ways that companies can learn to leverage their existing opportunities effectively and efficiently. To do this, you need to manage the way your staff does business and how much information they have. While you cannot do much to improve the process beyond establishing procedures and auditing activities, you can do something to improve the effectiveness of your company's data. You can adopt a Product Information Management system or PIM system.
What Is a PIM?
A PIM system is a way of collecting and organizing data relating to the products you sell. It includes the technical data and specifications for your products, as well as the marketing data, media files, and user data. While product information systems do have value for your tech department, PIM systems also benefit your marketers, sales teams, business developers, customer service agents and, ultimately, your customers. Here is what you need to know about the value of a PIM system for your company.
Avoid Errors
Product information management systems have the value of being able to pass quotes through very quickly - and avoid errors with product and pricing. PIM systems offer a central source of company data that can be accessed as needed by any member of your company. This way, your sales department doesn't have to confirm pricing information - everything is synchronized from a central data point. In turn, you save time creating quotes, and you can ensure their accuracy at the same time.
Happy Customers
There is also the value of a happy customer, one who has access to the requested information as quickly as possible. According to ICMI, around 13 percent of people insist on no wait time at all, while around 67 percent of people will wait up to two minutes. That isn't much time. When you adopt a PIM system, you give your staff the tools they need to make sure your customers don't have to wait too long to have their questions answered.
Speed to Market
PIM systems also have the value of helping your new products get to market faster because all of the internal processes regarding product information work better. When you adopt a product information management system, your products get to market faster - as much as tenfold increase in the case of software companies. PIM systems make creating items easier, and they reduce the time spent on correcting data errors and looking for product information.
Improved Employee Satisfaction
You might also find that employee satisfaction improves after you adopt a PIM system. Product information management tools have the value of eliminating time-consuming and cumbersome manual tasks - and they tend to result in better job satisfaction. According to a study from Cornell, "Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback are all important aspects to keep employees engaged and motivated to work for a company." Adopting a PIM system helps accomplish all of these things.
Easy Access to Information
Product information management systems have the value of self-service as well. When your employees can access the information they need without having to ask colleagues for help, everything moves more quickly. With PIM systems, all information is accessible for every member of the team at once. There will be no more waiting for a team member to respond to a query or finish tasks.
Download our guide to choosing a PIM system
You got a lot of knowledge about how to unlock the hidden values of a Product Information Management system in this blog post. Still, one question has not been answered: Which PIM system will suit you best?
We can guide you through the decision process with our free whitepaper “Five crucial questions you need to answer before choosing PIM”.
