Gain a common understanding of PIM and its value to your organization. Understand why managing product information is critical to your Ecommerce / ERP initiative (upgrade or rip & replace)

1. Product Information Management
Why Retail, CPG Distribution companies need PIM

2. Goals of Today’s Session
Gain a common understanding of PIM and its value to your
organization
Understand why managing product information is critical to
your Ecommerce / ERP initiative (upgrade or rip & replace)
How can Riversand’s MDM Center solution help ensure your
digital imperatives meets / exceeds it stated business benefits
of effectively engaging with their customers and thereby
growing revenue

3. Lets start off with a video about PIM
• A Product Information Management (PIM) solution can integrate
the data from all channels, far beyond what a traditional
ecommerce or ERP system can handle.
• PIM brings together complex data sources, including information
from vendor feeds, consultants, copywriters, data pools, content
aggregators, marketplaces, photographers and agencies.
• Forrester points out 5 areas where PIM can directly benefit
retailers:
• Increased sales
• Increased productivity
• Cost reductions
• Improved customer and channel partner service and
satisfaction
• Process and SKU on-boarding time improvement
http://www.riversand.com/integrating-omnichannel-data-with-pim

4. We’re in the “Age of the Customer”
In the “age of the customer” corporations will need to focus on the following four
pillars 2 to engage with their customer and maximize their revenue potential
• Experience Management (B2C & B2B)
• Product Information Management (PIM)
• Commerce Management
• Order management
By the end of 2014 1
US cross-channel retail sales will be at $1.4
Trillion
US Online sales will be another $294 Billion
Web impacted retail (online and cross channel
sales) will constitute 52% of the entire retail pie
• By 2018 1
• US cross channel retail sales
will approach $1.8 Trillion
• US Online sales will be
another $414 Billion
• Web impacted retail is
expected to constitute 59% of
the entire retail pie.
References
1. Forrester Research US Cross-Channel Retail Sales Forecast_2014 To 2018 , 2. Forrester Research- Commerce Technology Investment And
Platform Trends — 2014, 3. WebCollage – Impact of enhanced content on online sales
In 2014-15 – What were you focused on? What should the focus be
during 2016 and beyond?

5. Here’s how your customer engages with you
online today
My Ecom site
Two colors of same shoe
taking up valuable category
level landing page real
estate
2
No color swatches for multiple
colors of the same style sandal.
Product description is sparse and
not geared towards SEO (both
Internal to you website as well as
external ones like Google, Bing,
etc) 3
1
Shallow web categories and Navigational criteria reduces page
hits and shunts overall search capability to pull right results –
reducing overall traffic, conversion rates and increasing
abandoned cart rates
2
Showing SKU level product at a major category landing page
reduces – overall traffic, abandoned cart rates and conversion
rates and increases customer fatigue
3
Sparse product details, identifiers, no color swatches, high quality
media for the same style and static cross sell recommendations
based on browsing history – reduces average cart size and
value, conversion rates and increases abandoned cart rates and
overall customer repeat business.
Telltale signs you need a PIM
Telltale signs you need an ecommerce
overhaul
1. Reviews and Ratings
2. Better recommendation
3. Better Search, Enhanced Web
classification and Navigational Criteria
based browsing
4. Product Data Page features
5. Mobile engagement & Performance
Relatively shallow customer
facing classification for a
major category like Shoes 1

6. Here is how one large North American Fashion
Retailer is engaging their customers in the Shoes
Category
ACME Retail
1
Multi level Web classification and
Navigational Criteria
2
Sophisticated Style to SKU groupings
that handles category specific variation
like (in the case of
Womes>Shoes>Sandals  Brand,
Colors, Sizes, Width
3
Product data relationships that feeds
into their recommendation engine which
now has the most signals (including,
static, behavioral from their ecomm
engine and cross-sell / upsell
relationships from PIM)
Riversand’s MDM Center
powers (among a whole host of other
PIM capabilities)
4
Syndication from and to data pools like
GXS, 1WS GDSN, etc and to their
ecommerce engine on a near real time
basis across all banners and markets

7. To understand the risk of not doing PIM along with
Ecomm or ERP – take a look at Target Canada
Must Read the following article 
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/the-last-days-of-target-canada/
Theinvestigatingteam went to Fisher and John Morioka, thesenior vice-president ofmerchandising, with a
drasticproposal:Shut down theentiremerchandisingdivision soeveryonecould comb through and verifyevery
singlepieceofdata in thesystem—manually. Theteam stressed therewas simplynoother wayto get it done.
Hiringan externalconsultant would taketoo long, and it was impossibletoexpect theemployees todo such a
painstaking, arduous taskand their regular jobs at the sametime. Fisher immediatelygavethegreen light.
Thus, “dataweek” was held in thefall of 2012. Merchandisers essentiallyhad toconfirm everydatapoint for every
product with their vendors. Abuyer might have1,500products and 50to 80fields to checkfor each one. The
moreexperienced employees had theforesight to keep records ofverified information (dubbed “sources of
truth”), which madethetaska littleeasier. Others weren’t solucky. Complicatingmatters was the dummy
information entered into thesystem when SAPwas set up. That dummydatawas stillthere, confusingthesystem,
and it had to be expunged. “Weactuallysat thereand went through everylineof datamanually,” says aformer
employee. “It was terrible.” Target anticipated howawful it would beand designed theweektohelp keep
employees sane. Tokick it offand rallyspirits, afewemployees performed ahip-hop song-and-danceroutine on
thefirst day. Icecream and pizzaflooded in to keep employees fuelled up, someofwhom stayed wellpast
midnight that week, squintingat screens through blearyeyes.
Followed by
But dataweekwas successfulon anumber offronts. It weeded out theworst oftheerrors and forced Target
Canadatorealizethe importanceofaccuratedata. It was alsoa bondingexperience—as terribleas it was. “The
companycametogether that week,” says aformer employee. “Wewereallin thetrenches doingthis unglamorous
work.”
Major issues include
• Empty store shelves
• Incorrect weights and
dimensions
• Inability to locate
product across supply
chain
• Store Shelf labeling
• A whole host of
ecommerce issues

8. Why do you need Enhanced Product Information
Management Capabilities in addition to
Ecommerce overhaul ?
• Enhanced product information positively impacted online sales by an
average of 6-36% depending on product categories 3
• The above numbers don’t account for web influenced sales which would
indicate that each dollar spent online, five to nine dollars are spent
offline 1 & 2
• Delivering a seamless shopping experience across Follett’s channels and
customer touch-points and integrated product data management and
analysis capability will be crucial 2 & 4
References
1. Forrester Research US Cross-Channel Retail Sales Forecast_2014 To 2018
2. Forrester Research- Commerce Technology Investment And Platform Trends — 2014
3. WebCollage – Impact of enhanced content on online sales
4. PWC – Multichannel shopping survey – Fig 6, page 11
Online Shopping Activity Impact
of Enhanced Content
Orders (sales) +9.3%
Add to cart +7.4%
Add to registry +10.26%
Add to wish list +17.26%
• Here is how enhanced product
information impacted the various
stages in the purchase cycle for
one Fortune 250 cross channel
retailer 3

9. Where and who would PIM be applicable to across your
supply chain?

10. Common myths about PIM
PIM is
Shareable, accurate and slowly changing
information that describe products across
your enterprise
About managing relationships between
products and merchandise hierarchies and
classifications
PIM isn’t
Tactical, quickly changing or transactional
data about products that are only relevant to a
particular operation
About managing point in time marketing
promotions or markdowns
Benefits What PIM does What PIM doesn’t do
• Increased Sales
• Shorten product
introduction time
• Improved Customer
Service
• Consistent shareable product data
across stores, online and mobile
• Single Source – create once and
share everywhere
• Easily identify and classify products
across multiple channels
• Promotions and Markdowns
• Manage and store inventory
levels across supply chain
• Details about where a
particular order is
• Improved vendor
collaboration
• Increased
productivity
• Cost reductions
• Maximize content via Vendors who
make and supply product
• Manage by exception only what is
needed to enhance customer
experience and drive sales
• Automate and streamline the product
onboarding process
• Ensure lowest cost offered by
Vendor / Supplier
• Streamline the operational
processes like forecasting,
allocations, planning, WMS,
etc
• Optimize the pricing for a
given product
ToplineBottomline

11. What Challenges could PIM Address for you?
Brick and Mortar Channel Scale and
Readiness – Current merchandising business process
are silo-ed for stores, web and mobile sites
FROM TO
Multi-Channel Scale and Readiness – True
multi-channel business process that can support the
product data needs across all Channels you sell through
Slow & Fragmented Product Introduction /
Maintenance – Inefficient processes across multiple
business groups and system touch points
Speed to Market – Integrated and centralized Item
induction and maintenance processes across multiple
(Follett and vendors) business groups and system touch
points
SKU Level Merchandising – Merchandising
functions at which you manage products at a SKU /UPC
level incurring significant operational inefficiencies
Item Level Merchandising – Business functions
can leverage Item level vs. SKU level entities to better
merchandise and support multi-channel needs
Vendor Collaboration Effectiveness: Multiple
touch points (ECOMM, FTP, emails, manual) with
vendors for data requests, inefficient data usage across
biz functions
Manage Vendor Performance: Consolidate
vendor touch points via a vendor portal, measure, score
and motivate vendors towards accuracy and timeliness
of product induction and maintenance SLAs
Merchandise Effectiveness: Product attribution is
in adequate , lacks merchandise category specific
context, unable to support context specific attribution and
requires intensive IT support and coordination to execute.
Merchandise Context Aware Attribution:
Product attribution is tailored to merchandise category
specific context, support multi channel descriptors to
support product navigation and alternate hierarchies
and classifications that require IT support by exception

12. Product Information Management (PIM) Overview
Product
Induction and
Maintenance
(PI / PM)
Vendor
Collaboration
(VC)
Media
Ingestion and
Correlation
(MIC)
Hierarchies
and
Taxonomies
(TAX)
Data
stewardship
and
Governance
(DSG)
Product induction and maintenance related aspects
that typically involve merchandisers, buyers and
operations. Product setup, approvals, maintenance,
syndication across all merchandise categories and
lines of business.
Vendor partners
collaborate with and
provide or receive product
information to/from Follett
Organization roles,
structures, processes
and tools needed to
govern product as data
asset
Correlating media assets to describe
product – typically for web
enrichment and multi-channel
commerce
Merchandise hierarchies,
classifications and other grouping
and navigational structures that
are products need to be classified
under or are part of

13. Managing the Product Information Supply Chain

14. Riversand’s MDM Center is a true multi domain master data
management solution ready for your future needs as well

15. Summary
• PIM helps customers like you drive efficiencies in your
business and grow revenues
• PIM is crucial to any Ecommerce / ERP initiatives – especially
to ensure predictable and sustainable engagement of your
customer
• Talk to us to help you not only ensure success on these
strategic imperatives but lift customer engagement, bring
predictability and drive efficiency at your enterprise.

16. Thank you