What many businesses fail to fathom is that digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. As market dynamics change through this journey, you must review your tools and systems and make the necessary updates. With new technology advances, it’s essential to regularly evaluate whether your current PIM system is meeting the needs of your business. So it’s only when workforces start spending over 90% of their time (36 hours a week) on data-related activities, or when businesses start losing 15-25% of revenue due to “dirty data”, that they realize the real impact of failed data management efforts. (Source – Experian).

When your PIM no longer meets your needs or its not able to adhere to the marketplace requirements or when you discover a more effective solution, you should think about switching.

As businesses look to grow market share in digital commerce, it is imperative to have data management solutions (like PIM) to help them have a foot on the peddle in terms of data, so they can introduce new products faster (NPI), manage product data across channels and improve business performance. Because growth, and not stagnation, is the name of the game.

Why Switch PIM?

These are the typical signs of ineffective data management in organisations that still rely on legacy PIMs, and they call for a PIM switch right away.

• High spending on IT infrastructure, yet limited access
• PIM infrastructure maintenance hassles
• Limited customization capabilities, forcing businesses to force fit processes to suit the PIM system
• Complicated upgrade processes, leading to extended system downtime
• Increase data siloes due to lack of PIM adaptability
• Siloed systems for data management, syndication, and digital asset management
• Manual efforts in data ingestion and distribution
• Lack of automation in catalog creation and other processes (requiring manual data modeling and schema design)
• Complicated systems requiring a high level of expertise
• Lack of support from the PIM provider, leading to excess downtime during issues

Finding the Perfect Match

Many organizations look at switching a PIM system as “reinventing the wheel”, with too much time and effort required. And not to mention, the added cost. However, provided you find the right PIM system to switch over to, the reality of switching PIM can open up a whole new world of possibilities for your business. These are some of the key aspects to look for when switching your PIM.

1. Cloud-Native SaaS Architecture

And this is where we cut to the chase, alleviating all the fears CIOs and CTOs may have when thinking of a PIM switch – time, cost, and disruption. Pick a cloud-native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) PIM, and you can hit the ground running. A PIM SaaS requires little or no IT infrastructure investment or setup. Migrating data to a PIM SaaS that’s set up on the cloud causes minimum disruption to business as usual and can be set up within a matter of weeks.

2. Easy Customization

PIM SaaS solutions are highly flexible for varying business requirements. These solutions provide teams with a variety of modules to play around with, giving them options to set up systems and processes in a way that suits unique business objectives the best. Legacy PIM systems took a one-size-fits-all approach to solutions, forcing teams to work within the limitations of the provided framework. Not the case with modern-day PIM SaaS. Different teams can leverage different modules, while still ensuring data consistency and interoperability.

3. A Centralized Source of Truth, A Control Tower

The stark reality of any business is that no matter how unified the vision, departmental siloes and varying processes are unavoidable. In this scenario, a PIM SaaS allows businesses to maintain a centralized source of truth where data is consistent, unique, accurate, and up-to-date. This is where legacy PIM systems drop the ball at some point, and data tends to “get away”.

The reason we call it a control tower is that with the right PIM, businesses get the power to control access and ensure that the right team members get the required access for the best results while limiting access in areas that aren’t required.

4. Prioritizing Data Quality

No matter how robust a system is, there are always chances of errors creeping in. And this is why the PIM SaaS you choose should have measures for validation and error management. Legacy PIM systems may streamline data to some extent, but when it comes to validation and error management, the process is still up in the air. Modern-day PIM SaaS solutions, on the other hand, have automated mechanisms for validation and error flagging. This gives businesses the ability to gain complete visibility of data quality, and prioritize error fixing depending on criticality, volume, and other parameters.

5. Disruption Free Upgrades

Another major challenge with legacy PIM is that when there is an upgrade, it’s usually tedious, and may also force businesses to stall operations for a while. This is just not feasible in a market where new products are out in the market every second, and customers are always on the move. On the other hand, modern PIM solutions give businesses the luxury of almost instant upgrades that cause little or no disruption

6. Automation for the Win!

Automation, AI, and ML are now finding their way into all aspects of digital commerce, and data is perhaps the most pertinent benefactor of these features. Modern-day PIM solutions inculcate automation into every step of the process, from ingestion and enrichment to distribution, and ensure that processes are sped up, while also improving quality. AI and ML can also be employed to accelerate data modeling with recommendation-based taxonomy and schema design. The combined impact of this results in not just faster time-to-market, but also better customer experience.

7. The Complete Solution

While a new-age PIM SaaS will put your business on the path to own the digital shelf, why stop there? To truly own the digital shelf, you need technology and expertise beyond basic data management. Whether you’re selling products on your own website, on marketplaces, or other distribution channels, syndication (again, driven by automation) can go a long way in reducing the distance and time between your customers and your products. Similarly, you can also leverage digital asset management (DAM) to improve the customer experience even further. A DAM tool that helps you centralize your digital assets and create a centralized repository for all the “good stuff” that makes your products stand out even more.

So, when you consider switching from legacy PIM to a new-age PIM, might as well go for the full package – a digital excellence suite – that can drive your digital transformation organically.

8. Benefits of an Advanced PIM System

Business Benefits	Team Benefits	Customer Benefits
Accelerated time-to-market	Comprehensive training	Access to more products, faster
Reduced cost-per-SKU	Better control of processes	Higher quality of product information
Increased ROI	More time for innovation	Improved buying journey and customer experience
Increased revenue	Ongoing support
Improved visibility of product data
Disruption-free upgrades

Well, if you think all this is too good to be true, and it’s not possible to get all these benefits wrapped into a single package, you haven’t heard of Amaze Product Experience Cloud yet.

The Amaze Product Experience Cloud consists of three configurable purpose-built product content management solutions that can be used in concert with one another or independently of each other.

• Amaze Data Bridge, a PIM agnostic middleware solution, purpose built for product content. Amaze Data Bridge speeds up the collection and distribution of product data while improving data quality and compliance
• Amaze PXM, the most intelligent product information management solution for B2B and B2B2C organizations. With Amaze PXM, companies can deliver amazing, relevant, in-context product experiences across all channels with ease.
• Amaze Data Xchange, a turnkey, configurable, cloud-based platform for communities, ecosystems, and marketplaces to exchange and govern product content based on industry developed standards.

An end-to-end PXM SaaS, Amaze gives businesses the power to build for the future!

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