How to Create Flexible Data Modelling for Your PIM Strategy?

E-commerce businesses growth without rich and updated data is like riding a car without an engine.

We all know that Product Information Management (PIM) platforms are essential for creating accurate, uniform, and consistent data. Also, organisations that do update their data frequently require an automation process.

According to a study by Camunda, more than two-thirds (67%) of companies use automation in their business processes to improve end-to-end visibility across multiple channels.

With a dedicated PIM system, you can automate all your products. It gathers all structured and unstructured data at one place so that you can make all the desired changes.

As the business grows, the requirements change, so does the data but the updating process remains smooth and easy due to the integration of the PIM system.

A study revealed that around three-fourths of business executives say their organization outperforms from their competitors within three years by implementing automation.

Let’s take a closer look at how PIM will help you create a flexible data model.

Also, what to consider while creating a flexible data model for your PIM strategy.

What is Flexible Data Modelling in PIM?

Data modelling is creating a visual representation (blueprint) of data, which ultimately helps you create a smooth workflow of product data as per the business objectives. It understands and clarifies your data requirements and bridges the gap between your IT and business teams.

What is Data Modelling?

Let’s understand this with an example. Imagine you want to publish a book and hire a writer, editor and designer. They all start their work after receiving guidelines, and within no time, the book is complete.

The end result: You have a beautiful cover image, except that image is at the end of the book, content is written on the front page, and the index is missing.

So, why did this happen? The answer: lack of proper communication among members.

Well, the same goes with data also. Think of a data sheet as a complete book, except the datasheet has thousands of rows and columns. And your product manager has to manually upload all the data sheets, such as product title, description, etc. This is time-consuming and can become a nightmare for your team members.

What should you do to solve this issue?

Automation is the only solution to this problem. Product Information Management (PIM) creates a flexible data model, basically a blueprint that finds information and processes and helps you to connect all the dots and information for your product catalogues.

Let's discuss the benefits of a PIM system that can provide your business with a flexible data model.

Benefits of Flexible Data Modelling in PIM

Before using any approach and implementing it for your business, it is always crucial to understand its benefits.

If you are picking a tool, that means you expect some quality results from it.

Product information management is a tool which creates a single source to store all your data.

You can create product catalogues and distribute product data across your sales, marketing, and e-commerce channels.

Look at how PIM can make a flexible data model for all your products.

1. Reach Target Audience in Real Time

Many organisations have slow data processes, discrepancies and higher workloads with fewer conversion rates. This mainly happens in larger organisations with vast and complex data catalogues that must be updated frequently or in real-time across multiple channels.

PIM helps businesses to deal with this. Data delivery becomes accurate and quick. As per Top Design Firm, half of the consumers say they will leave the website if it functions poorly. It also helps departments to create hierarchy and structure to track different things in shorter times, such as discounts, promotions and many more things.

Also, it enhances workflow and operational efficiency among different enterprise functions, which smooths out the process of sales and marketing teams.

With PIM’s flexible data model, the implementation of new product launches becomes faster. As a result, businesses can create a competitive mark in the market. In addition, you can reach your target audience in no time, even on their preferred channels.

2. Multi-Language Support

Businesses are expanding their hands across regions, so the demand for multilingual tools to connect with new customers is increasing. E-commerce websites reach customers beyond boundaries. For instance, UK companies might vend in France and Canada, or German manufacturers set their sights on Japan.

According to Alexika, two-fifths of global customers will not buy in a language other than their native language. It is ubiquitous in B2B sectors where customers purchase directly from retailers and distributors. However, they also preferred to buy in their native language.

English is a universal language; still, 30% of respondents do not buy from english language sites. Just think about how much you will be comfortable purchasing from a website which presents all content from the landing page to the checkout screen in your language.

Companies always talk about personalisation which overcomes cultural and language barriers and greet customers on their terms. With flexible data modelling, all data differ. All channels are easily translated and work best for different customers from different countries or regions.

3. Saves Time and Achieve Goals Fast

Updating every single data manually can be challenging and time-consuming for a business. Wondering how? Let’s understand this with an example.

You hire two writers to complete 100 product descriptions for your e-commerce website. They meet the task in two weeks and start uploading it manually on CRM. However, filling that one product detail consumes your writer's entire day. They need to fill each and every column such as title, colour, size, material and much more.

Individually all these tasks will take a hundred times more effort and time. So, how can you automate all the processes?

The answer is PIM. All this is possible with the flexible data model in your PIM system. With the help of its special links, it places all information into the correct columns.

With this, the data will go to the right place, changes can happen within seconds, and updates can be made without any hustle.

Create once and then transfer your entire data wherever you want.

See how Nitrogen Solutions helped Goods.ru (an online platform with thousands of products) to automate their PIM export of one million products from 9 hours to 6 hours.

Read the entire case study here.

Components of Creating Flexible Data Model for PIM Strategy

The focus behind creating a flexible data model is to keep the integrity and value of the product as a priority. It can be a game changer for an organisation if implemented right.

To win the product information strategy, you must create quality data that can be used repeatedly across multiple channels. Put more focus on increasing the usability of available data. And all this can happen with the right PIM strategy.

Here are five components needed to create a flexible data model in PIM strategy.

1. Create a Single Source of Database

First, PIM collects all the data from different sources such as suppliers, manufacturers and various teams. All this data is collected through multiple sources, so it is quite possible that there may be some dis-separation among data.

For example, a product measurement could be 5 inches, 5 in, or 5’’.

However, PIM will automatically standardise all the data in one single format as you need. After that, data can be transferred to your desired platforms. Around two-fifths, (38%) of consumers will not engage with a website if the layout is unattractive.

“Design is like a mom, nobody notices when she’s around, but everybody misses her when she’s not - Insivia.”

Many well-organised e-commerce websites also face data issues with their product categories. PIM can solve this issue from the root.

2. Data Governance

Data governance is a part of the enterprise which ensures that your data remains accurate throughout its life. It sets clear rules for individuals who have access to data and are responsible for any change. All these rules must be verified by all the members of the enterprise.

For example, maintaining the privacy of patients' information and health records is essential in the health industry. Doctors and staff preserve the confidentiality of patients; the same also happens in an enterprise's data. Employees ensure that companies' records and consumer data will not leak.

According to Forbes, 85% of consumers want more information and control over the data companies collect.

Data governance allows businesses to control and enrich all data on their website and product pages. Companies give access to different team members to edit the data as per the changes. This shows having data governance is a must.

3. Automation and Standardisation

Without proper scheduling, managing huge amounts of data can be disillusioning for businesses. Doing changes manually can make sense for smaller enterprises as their structure is small and products are less.

On the other hand, in large enterprises with dynamic structure, products are thousands. There it becomes crucial to have an automated process.

Automation standardisation helps you change data as per your requirements within nuances. To ease down your process, create standard fields such as units, language, tags, measurements, etc.

PIM helps you here. It creates master databases which will be a single source of trustful data. If something has changed overall in business activities, you only need to change it in master data, and it updates everywhere else on its own. As data is maintained centrally, it becomes crucial to have a flexible data model which ensures high quality.

The better your product field, the easier it is to categorise product catalogues.

This way, you can distribute all your content without hesitation and data will remain uniform across channels.

See how Nitrogen helped Balsam Hill (multi-brand e-commerce retailer) to reduce manual work and increase operational efficiency by 80% through detailed order alerts and automatic restarts in case of node failures.

Read the entire case study here.

4. Rich Content

Declining sales, bad reviews, zero customer satisfaction - no business wants to face any of these conditions. Moreover, these are not real problems. Entreprises are facing a much more pervasive problem of bad data quality.

Around three-fourths of business, executives do not trust their own data. Accordingly, one-fourth of organisations have low or moderate thrust levels in their data.

High-quality data plays a vital role in the success of an online business. Ignoring the significance of quality content can hit sellers and retailers hard in the marketplace. Companies lose 15% to 25% of revenue due to their data issues.

In product information management, brands can create rich content and update resources. Having flexibility in data, all the product information can be updated across multiple channels within nuances.

5. Destroy Silos

In recent years silos have become trendy among business leaders. According to a PwC study, more than half of companies work in silos.

When a business doesn't do division between its many parts from the beginning, the chances of failing becomes high. When you manage thousands of raw product data, maintaining quality becomes challenging.

In an Adobe Survey of 1000 IT decision makers, 37% of responders cited data silos as the biggest challenge in creating a single view of a customer.

Different departments have access to limited data initially required to them. With time many issues appear in data, such as inconsistent, outdated and errorful data.

Data silos are the most significant threat to your product data.

“Just because a course of action makes sense for silo managers, it doesn't mean that the action is the best way to do things, or even best for the company - Zooma.”

What happens if your teams have access to one centralised data? PIM can create one cloud system where all the data will be reserved. All departments will get rich, up-to-date data.

Conclusion

Flexible data modelling in PIM software helps you gather different data types in one place (metadatabase) and, if required, update it later. It is necessary to edit and manage metadata and data governance seamlessly.

Also, for maintaining data governance, flexible workflow is needed. In short, it means the main user interface should be created for automatic updates. This means you don't need any coding or extra effort.

A well-designed PIM can help you in increasing the ROI of your company. It also improves data accuracy and employee efficiency.

Set realistic goals, and choose the right PIM system and an experienced partner (Nitrogen Solution) who can help you implement this strategy in the best way.

It's time to take your business to the next level.

Note: This article is written for Nvizion Solution