Technologies for online effectivity: PDM, PIM, MDM, CIM, ...?

How do you choose the right tools for you online channel, for sales, marketing and corporate information sites? As usual in the IT-branche, we have a lot of abbreviations and "newest of the newest that you cannot do without".

PDM (Product Data management), PIM (Product Information management), MDM (Master Data Management), CIM (Customer Information Management), CMS (Content Management System), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), you name it.

So: "What do you need" or more basic "what is it"?

Obviously no one answer can describe it, nor is any single answer truth for all.

This short blog entry is an attempt to clarify what is the position of some of these technologies, with emphasis on the fact that it is the actual view, so December 2009.

For your online experience, you need to feed actual productdata to your potential customers. ERP-vendors (like SAP and Oracle) will tell you that they have the main capture of that covered. Truth is however, that typical ERP-software has a high focus on "production", "warehousing" and other logistical processes.

These processes have a high throughput of volume, yet a very low dynamic where it comes to (marketing-)data. A sportscompany would have the whole Bill-Of-Materials, size, weight, box-size, location of the shoe, etc. of every sportsshoe in the ERP, but the information for the use and sales of the shoe ("this shoe is especially designed for people with slim feet that run marathons" and "now on sale in combination with an apple iPod") are not covered.

Do the ERP-vendors than not have the ambition to grow into the marketing area? Yes, but the main financial driver for them seems to be the supply chain related "standardised" market(sub-)segment funtionality. They work with the logistical people, not the marketing (sub)domain.

Several attempts have been made to fill this gap through the PDM solutions. When you design a product visually (the typical domain of a PDM-system), you do that with the end-customer in mind, no? Of course, but it turns out that PDM-suppliers have their hands full with support of the design cycle. To improve that, they are working with the product designers, not the marketing people.

Many companies have used CMS software (like GX, Morello, Joomla, TYPO3, Alterian, Microsoft Sharepoint,

etc.) to fill the marketing gap, which now turns out to be very usefull for more static content, but not the product-data related marketing and sales information.

This is where modern Product Information Management systems (like, Heiler, hybris, jCatalog) come into play.

"But we can only have on source of truth!" you may counter. Quite correct! The whole data-lifecycle should only start- and end at one point in your data-landscape.

That often lies in the supply-chain (procurement, good receipts). But from there on, the PIM -system is the marketing source for all sales and marketing data.

Why is that PIM so important all of a sudden? Well, in the typical production, marketing and sales company we see that the logistical cycle is well-supported. But marketing has to arrange for prices per country, descriptions per language, promotions, visuals to that promotion, making photo's for high quality visuals online and in brochures, etc.

That is often supported with a myriad of spreadsheets, documents, uncharted workflows with agencies, etc. The effect? Changing an online price taking 24 hours, finding a price hindered by many separate spreadsheets, ownership for descriptions per language troublesome.

Is PIM now the newest "medicin against all of this"? Of course not, but a next step towards effective and agile online sales and services to the clients.

Next in row are MAM (Media Asset Management) and CIM (Customer Information Management), because you need to offer the customer rich content (video, pictures) and know the customer. As prof. C. Molenaar writes; we need to make our online experience recognize the customer and behave different for each customer (Behavioural targeting).

MAM already start to be a usable and integrated module in todays technology, CIM is developing quickly, driven by the customers desire to be recognized.