Management

Riversand is positioning itself to redefine Product Information Management (PIM), and deliver solutions it calls PIM 2.0, a critical component of their overall MDM 2.0 strategy and offerings. PIM solutions can integrate data from a variety of channels and sources, beyond the capabilities of traditional ERP or ecommerce solutions. It brings together complex data sources, including information from vendor feeds, consultants, data pools, content aggregators and more. After the necessary rationalization and governance, it helps publish this data to all downstream system, channels, partners, etc. With this versatility, PIM solutions can directly benefit manufacturers, distributors and retailers through increased sales, increased productivity, cost reductions, improved customer service, and improved channel partner collaboration. “We’re in the ‘age of the customer,’” says Omer Farooque, Riversand’s VP of Product Strategy. “Corporations will need to focus on engaging with their customer, and maximizing their revenue potential.”

According to The Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites, Q1 2015, today’s commerce suites support four core ‘pillars’ of functionality; Experience Management, PIM, Commerce Management, and Order Management.

“Shifts in how customers engage online can be indicators of a need for Product Information Management,” says Omer, citing falling conversion rates, increased cart abandonment, and reduced average cart size as just a few of the telltale signs.

PIM can address many of the challenges retailers face, such as creating multi-channel scale, intelligent syndication and readiness for brick and mortar retailers, increasing speed to market, and managing vendor performance.

“Current PIM solutions focus on improving the quality (Trust) of data. What is additionally needed is focus on doing the right governance at the right place and time (Relevance), and having tools that can help infer data from past, present and competition (Insights) to make the right decisions. The digital age is fundamentally requiring enterprises to rethink how to discover, manage, govern, and analyze data, transactions, interactions and policies,” Omer says. “especially for master data domains like product and customer.”

Product data is becoming extremely crucial to the success of strategic imperatives. Current methods and solutions are very process and application driven, as well as generally reactive. Next generation data management capabilities are needed to augment base PIM capabilities, allowing businesses to achieve company objectives.

Riversand is actively creating technologies that are meant to bring increased benefit to manufacturers, distributors, and retailers alike.