On-demand webinar: Create growth through high-quality product data

Angela Meyer: Welcome to our diva-e webinar: Create growth through high-quality product data. Today, our experts Guido Juchert, Markus Kettler and Max Hasenkamp from Akeneo will tell you more about the introduction of a PIM system and the preparation of product data for a targeted customer approach. My name is Angela Meyer and I am part of the diva-e marketing team and your moderator today. Markus, would you like to start by introducing yourself?

Markus Kettler: Thank you, Angela. My name is Markus Kettler and I'm here today as a PIM Consultant. I look after customer projects from the diva-e side when it comes to PIM integration and consulting.

Angela Meyer: Guido?

Guido Juchert: A warm welcome from my side too. My name is Guido Juchert. I'm from the diva-e office in Berlin. I work as Senior Sales Manager, but I am also Partner Manager for our PIM and MAM solutions, so I take care of the integration between our customers, our partners and our delivery in order to create the perfect system.

Angela Meyer: Lastly from Max.

Maximilian Hasenkamp: Hello everyone, my name is Max Hasenkamp. I've been a Sales Consultant at Akeneo since 2018. In my position, I advise and support companies on how a PIM can best help with digitalization. I am also the point of contact for all questions relating to the PIM evaluation process and manage all projects from a commercial perspective.

Angela Meyer: Perfect. Now we can start the presentation straight away. And I'll hand over the broadcasting rights to Guido.

Guido Juchert: Yes, one second, my screen is broadcasting.

Angela Meyer: Always an exciting moment, but that looks very good.

Guido Juchert: Very nice.

Angela Meyer: Then, Markus, you can start with the first part.

Markus Kettler: Yes, thank you. As the title of today's webinar suggests, it's all about the use of a PIM system and how this use can create a decisive competitive advantage for you. There are actually two parts to this. Firstly, we have process optimization, which means that process costs are minimized. And that doesn't just apply to product data maintenance. On the other hand, we have the opportunity to increase sales potential and achieve a better conversion rate by using a PIM system. We have divided today's webinar into three sections. The first section is about the concept of a PIM system, its advantages and how such an integration works. In the second section, we will then give an insight into practical experience that we have gained with customers, but also with the support of Maximilian Hasenkamp, because he will explain the view from the Akeneo side again. In the third part, we will have time for questions and a Q&A session.

How the customer cycle has changed in recent years

To get a good introduction to the topic, we can switch to the next slide. Let's take a look at the customer life cycle and how it has changed in recent years. Years ago, or a few years ago, it was simply the case, as you can see quite clearly on the left-hand side, in the traditional customer cycle, not life cycle, that the customer chose a product. They actually informed themselves via the few channels. In other words, they found an item, chose a retailer, perhaps looked again to see what the retailer is like, did a bit of research in that direction. Then, if the product range was right, they perhaps renegotiated the price again and finally bought the product. If this whole retail process, this transaction, went quite well, then the customer remembered that and actually stuck with it the next time because they didn't have so many incentives to deviate from it.

But in the course of digitalization, as you can see quite clearly on the right, this whole divorce process has become much more complex. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about B2B or B2C, a customer doesn't just get information via the familiar channels, i.e. they don't just go to a store, they don't just have one or two print catalogs to choose from and perhaps the online store of their regular retailer, but they are actually able to browse through different channels at any time of day or night, wherever they are.

This means that I'm interested in an item and don't just look it up in a store or catalog, but also on marketplaces like Amazon, which everyone knows, then read blog posts about a product and maybe look at reviews from other buyers who are already using the item. If I go a little further, I look for suitable tutorials that explain the product on YouTube or Vimeo. And if you go one step further, you might even be using voice search, i.e. voice search from Alexa and the like, where you simply have access to many more channels. If you look at the B2B side again, automation has already found its way in, meaning that reorders of office supplies or other ten-part items happen automatically. This means that the product data is forwarded from the manufacturer to the retailer and then directly to the customer in the CRP.

So, to summarize, it's easy to deduce that, as a customer, I have almost unlimited opportunities to obtain information. This results in a competitive advantage for those retailers who present their products on all channels in exactly the way that the target group needs or, to put it another way, simply expects.

Changing requirements for product data

Conversely, this means that you are confronted with completely new requirements for product data. Product data must be maintained much more extensively. This means that a product text, which may be very well formulated, is no longer sufficient because we are simply using many more channels. From the ERP, I might have an article number, descriptions and a price. None of this is sufficient because, for example, if you are on the move in the marketplaces, different description data is required by all marketplaces. And the better the products are maintained for the respective channel, the fewer questions the users have, they find the product and then decide to buy it if they find everything they are looking for. If you look at this complex data maintenance, we at diva-e simply reach a point in a large number of projects where we recommend that the customer introduces a PIM system. We can skip to the next slide, please. We then recommend introducing a PIM system.

A PIM system as a solution for complex product data

And yes, what does PIM mean? PIM, as most people here probably know, stands for Product Information Management. And PIM simply makes it possible to manage, edit and distribute product data completely and simultaneously on a channel-specific basis. This PIM process is actually always divided into three steps. You can see this quite clearly here, first, second and third.

Erstens, da kommen die Daten rein. Das heißt, wir sammeln die Produktinformationen aus allen Quellen. Zweitens werden die Daten angereichert. Das ist das alles, was in PIM Passiert. Und drittens werden die aufbereiteten Daten verteilt. Im ersten Schritt ist es ja nun mal so, dass man als Händler von diversen Lieferantendaten in unterschiedlichster Art und Güte bekommt. Das heißt, ich kriege von dem einen eine Excel Datei, der andere fordert eine XML-Datei und Produktbilder, Videos liegen vielleicht noch auf irgendwelchen Drittsystemen und sollen da irgendwie bereitstehen. Titel und Beschreibungen kommen eventuell direkt aus dem ERP System. Und durch diesen Einsatz eines PIM Systems werden alle Daten eben an einem Ort strukturiert gesammelt und in ein umfassendes Datenmodell zusammengeführt, wo einfach einmal alles standardisiert vorliegt. Und in diesem zweiten Schritt werden die Daten nicht nur gesammelt, sondern dann eben angereichert, aufbereitet, für alle Kanäle vorbereitet. Das passiert in der Regel in abgestimmten Workflows. Das heißt, ich habe eventuell einen Manager, der die Grundinformation zum Produkt erstmal anlegt. Dann haben wir diverse andere Abteilungen, Mitarbeiter, die daran beteiligt sind. Das heißt, dann kommt nochmal das Content Marketing, das SEO-Texte hinterlegt. Und dann haben wir eventuell externe Mitarbeiter oder Übersetzungsagenturen, die sich dann um eine Übersetzung der Texte und der Aufbereitung für den internationalen Markt befassen.

Genau, wenn mir so eine Aufgabe zugewiesen wird, bin ich verantwortlich, die abzuschließen. Wenn mein einer Aufgabenbereich getätigt ist, kann ich dem einfach sagen, meine Aufgabe ist abgeschlossen. Und dann wandert das Produkt in der Verantwortlichkeitskette zum nächsten rüber, der dann die Daten weiterverarbeitet und so weiter. Wenn alle ihre Arbeiten abgeschlossen haben, gibt es am Ende nochmal einen Freigabeprozess, wo dann in den meisten Fällen der Produktmanager einfach nochmal schaut, es ist alles so in Ordnung, alle Übersetzungen gepflegt, Haken dran. Und dann kann das immer für die entsprechenden Kanäle auch rausgegeben werden. Und das ist eben dann der dritte Teil, hier ganz rechts auf der Folie. Wo wir eben alle Informationen, die wir im PIM haben, so ausgeben, dass jeder Kanal genau die Informationen hat, die er braucht und eben genau in der Struktur, wie es benötigt ist. Soweit erstmal grob zum Thema PIM und diesem Workflow. An dieser Stelle haben wir eine kleine Publikumsfrage vorbereitet. Und da würde ich gerne mal zurück an dich geben, Angela.

Angela Meyer: Gladly, exactly. We have prepared a question for you. We would like to know whether you use a PIM system and if so, whether you are satisfied or not. I'll give you a moment and then Guido will go into the results. (13 sec. ) That looks exciting. I will now end the survey and transmit the results. Guido, what do you think?

Guido Juchert: Yes, it's super interesting to see that different areas are represented. People who are already satisfied with their system and others who are still looking for it. And that's why we're naturally pleased when the content for people who are perhaps already satisfied with their system, but still want to ask more specific questions, then you can ask them and we'll be happy to answer them for you in the Q&A process.

Angela Meyer: Exactly. And then we'll continue with your part.

Guido Juchert: Thank you, exactly. I've now put the advantages of a PIM on here again. But I would start here again beforehand. When does a customer buy? A customer only buys when all the questions they have asked themselves are actually answered in the process, in the purchasing process. What we often see is that for many of our customers or companies that we advise, the main information is all in the ERP system. And an ERP system is not designed to generate a good product experience or customer experience, but has very limited options for recording the description of the attributes in it. This means that there is only limited space for images, descriptions and graphics. And all of this is what really adds so much value to a PIM, because it enriches the data and then manages to generate and show a good customer experience for the user across all channels. Whether it's the online store or, let's say, another digital channel, we create the opportunity to simply have a unified approach and answer all questions. And when these questions are answered, we also create a higher conversion rate, so the customer buys more. We have a lower bounce rate and create added value. What's also great, of course, is that there are fewer returns. This is because the customer doesn't buy a pig in a poke, but knows exactly what they are buying and therefore returns less.

Then we come to the higher range and why this is a major advantage of the PIM. Anyone who has ever manually uploaded 500 or 1000 products knows how complex it is, knows what the Excel structures look like. Knows how difficult it actually is when you don't have any help in that sense. And with a PIM, you manage to pull all product data together as smoothly as possible. And then to have it available at the touch of a button on every platform, to connect to every possibility, to do it very quickly. In the same way, if you have retailer structures that also have new product inquiries for you from time to time, which you naturally also have to forward, you can implement the whole thing super-fast. All you have to do is map the whole thing, because the most important thing is that all the information is there. And so we quickly generate a higher reach there. If you are concerned about costs, as Markus already mentioned, it is of course about the process.

Lieschen Müller, who has always been in charge of product maintenance, writes 1000 e-mails with her boss to get something approved. At the same time, she still has the translation agency on the line. It's an incredible lack of transparency, because Excel and other ways of storing the data mean that the approval process is not transparent, and the boss doesn't know where we are or when the new products will be uploaded. And here, with the increased transparency and reduced process costs that we then simply have, we quickly create great added value and, I would say, generate good value not only for the users, but also for the people who naturally maintain the system and have therefore also made things easier for you.

We already have an optimized product data interface. Markus has already discussed this. But I would like to give you another example. If, for example, a DIY store has 100 different blue colors, then this is stored in the ERP as blue colors. But we manage to create a structure with a PIM so that a light blue, a dark blue, a matt, a glossy, of course then help to prepare the whole thing better for the front end, to make it better available here, so that the customer can then also find the exact shade of blue here.

Now we come to the general process of a PIM project. PIM is complex, but it's not complicated. What we have really learned from our many experiences is that you really have to approach the whole thing in a very structured way and in a certain order. It's not like many e-commerce projects that we have, which are very agile. We have learned that it is really important to proceed with a certain project plan and to structure the various workshops. We started with the scoping workshop, where we first sounded out the general and business requirements. What is planned for the future? What growth in KPIs is on the agenda? What kind of new marketplaces, for example? Where else do they want to go? Are there also changes, perhaps in other markets? To understand the business in general before we dive into the more in-depth workshops on the subject of architecture, requirements, for example, and of course first look at what is already there, where does the data come from, what are all kinds of things there.

And here we would always like to point out that it is also essential to talk to all stakeholders. So right down to Lieschen Müller, who does the product maintenance. It is extremely important to talk to everyone here, to get everyone around the table to really understand the processes, how they are now, how we will shape them in the future and which translation agencies will be involved. Simply to really get everyone on board so that we can build a successful PIM later on.

And if we then want to analyze the general catalog structures, the data sources as far as possible, then have connected the media things or have passed them, have distributed the roles and rights, or have understood how they exist and then also defined how we have them in the implementation, then of course we come to the interfaces that have to be defined, have then passed the data flow at this point. And once we have collected all this information and really understood these requirements, we then move on to implementation. It's very clear that everything we have learned will ultimately be implemented. And we always like to go into a test phase at an early stage, do training with the key users, i.e. the people who will later fill the system, do training, because you generate a lot of knowledge from the people here. You can then see changes with this wow effect or this happiness among the key users and not just among the customers, who can buy better with it. And once we have implemented the whole thing and gone live, we usually always go into a hyper care phase.

This means, of course, that we accompany the customer for quite a while, take care of any further changes, but at the same time also plan what else might be needed in the future, for example a kind of hot topic, but nowadays, of course, translation things that happen automatically. That's also something we always see with our customers.

Great, then at this point I'm looking forward to Max. We have invited Max today to give us in-depth practical insights into questions that we are repeatedly asked by customers, either about Akeneo or about PIM. And we will now discuss these with him. (5 sec.) So, my first question would be Max,

Who is Akeneo and what makes Akeneo special

Maximilian Hasenkamp: Thank you, Guido. So Akeneo is purely a software manufacturer and offers technologies for companies that have problems with their product data. This technology is called PIM, as you have just introduced it. Now it would be a bit surprising if we were doing something else. And about Akeneo, we've been around since 2013. We have our roots in the north, in France, in Brittany, I'm sitting here in Düsseldorf myself, and we have a branch for the D-A-CH region nearby. But we are now also spread around the world, including in Paris, Denmark, Sydney, Boston and Amsterdam, so we can also help companies and customers worldwide. The Akeneo PIM is integrated via a partner network of over 130 solution partners worldwide. And of course I am all the more pleased to have been invited here by one of our best partners, diva-e, thank you again at this point. To come back briefly to the question of what sets us apart, Akeneo is an open source PIM. This means that it can be individually customized to meet the requirements of any company. And Akeneo is committed to customer benefit. In other words, we want to enable the user to offer the customer a unique shopping experience through an optimal, great product experience.

Guido Juchert: Then we now come to the second question:

What function does Akeneo bring out-of-the-box and how can this be optimized in my daily care process?

Maximilian Hasenkamp: In general, Akeneo has all the functions you need for a product experience management strategy. The PIM serves as a tool for the business. And one part of this tool is the flexible data model. This means that attributes can be added quickly and on the fly, for example. In other words, the data model can be expanded on the fly, allowing it to be quickly adapted to market requirements and customer needs. It doesn't matter whether it's an SME or a global player, because Akeneo and the software itself grows with the company. And by creating this single source of truth, where all product data is located, you have the opportunity to internationalize and penetrate new markets. Please move on to the next slide, great, thank you. A few features, so Akeneo has over eight features.

The features of Akeneo

I would just like to go into three of them. So features that support internationalization, for example, is the granular role and rights management. This means that you can give users access to user-relevant or department-relevant content in the PIM. This means that you can onboard individual departments one by one, as well as entire foreign branches, giving each branch access only to the area for which it is responsible in the branch.

Another feature is entities, for example. Entities can be used to manage a very large volume of information. It acts like a kind of mini MDM. There is information that is stored in these entities and this is then linked to the product via an attribute. For example, this could be information about colors, machine components, batteries, international sizes. A size, what size is it in the USA, for example? The degree of hardness according to Rockville, i.e. also complex table data. And by simply linking the data to the respective product, you can easily map this complexity and manage it highly efficiently.

And one last feature I would like to mention is our Rules Engine. Rules Engine enables the user to completely automate manual work steps. It works a bit like an if-then function in Excel, but much, much more comprehensive, much, much more powerful. And this allows you to achieve a very, very high level of automation and therefore a faster time-to-market. Of course, it is important that the PIM has the appropriate scalability. I have prepared a few examples of this. Can you please skip to the next slide? Great, thank you.

Examples from practice

Firstly, we have SLV. SLV is a medium-sized luminaire and lighting manufacturer that came from a print-only approach, developed into a digitalization pioneer in its industry within just one year and was also able to bring the PIM live within three months. And SLV currently has up to 500 or 600 new products a year, which are of course all maintained in the PIM. And SLV now sells in over 38 countries in 31 different languages. And mapping all of this in Excel is virtually impossible. Another example is Rexel. You may know Rexel. It's a giant corporation from France, also active worldwide. And Rexel sells electrical installation materials and electrical components. And all this technical data for these many, many products can be highly complex and simply require an incredible level of detail. And with the PIM, they can now map all this complexity and sometimes have over 2000 attributes on the product. And also thanks to these time savings and productivity gains, Rexel can simply manage many, many more products and has managed to increase the number of products tenfold within ten months. This means that you can simply serve completely new customer segments better and offer the customer a completely different service. The last example I have brought along is Midland Scientific. Midland Scientific comes from Texas in the USA and they are a distributor of laboratory products. And before the PIM, they were able to enrich 200 products a week. And now, thanks to Akeneo, it's 2000, so here too the rate has increased tenfold. And this has also freed up capacity to expand the catalog, for example. And Midland Scientific now trades over 400,000 products with the Akeneo PIM.

Guido Juchert: Great. Now we come to the third question, Max.

Why does a company need high-quality product information?

Maximilian Hasenkamp: I have to say that I am often asked this question. I would like to start by looking at the impact that incorrect product data has on the purchase decision or simply on the person who is dealing with the product. For example, we have a screenshot here that I saw on Sunday. I was doing a bit of online shopping, who hasn't done that, Black Friday, Black Week. And that's when I came across this example. On the one hand, the product description is missing and it's an HTML text on the homepage. And of course, if I don't have the information I need to decide whether the product is right for me and whether I'll be satisfied afterwards, I can't include that in my rating and I'll lose out on sales. Yes, it may not be so tragic for one person, but if there are 10, 100, 1000 interested parties who simply have incorrect data and who simply cannot be used for evaluation, this also has a major impact on sales. Please go one slide further.

Another example of a poor product experience is when, for example, the image is different from the name of the product. One picture shows dryers that are loaded from the front. But the name of the product says that they are loaded from the top. As a decision-maker, I don't know which is correct at first. And the likelihood is that if I order it anyway, I'm very likely to return the product. And especially with dryers and such large products, there is of course a shipping company behind it with several people delivering the product. Processing the whole thing as a return is simply associated with high costs. And of course the rating in the store suffers afterwards, which is probably the worst evil, so to speak, because many, many decisions are made afterwards. And so a poor product experience simply has an enormous impact on costs, returns and also on the ratings in the store. Then normal one slide further, exactly.

And then here's another example. This is about dog food. The text says that the dog food is for puppies. And on the right in the table it says that the dog food is for adult dogs. If I now give a dog or child or whoever the wrong food and this results in any long-term damage, retailers naturally also run the risk of being legally prosecuted. I have a dog at home myself. I don't want him to be given the wrong food just because of incorrect information. And so even a bad product experience can have a real rat's tail behind it and also ensure that you have legal consequences. Exactly, and that's why we need the optimal, the best product experience. Because the customer sees the product online. They have certain expectations. And we have to meet these expectations in a way that suits the customer individually.

But since they can't touch the product, we have to bridge the gap between expectations and the product by giving the customer information. In other words, when we sell products, we have to provide product information. And the better and more consistent this information is, the more willing the customer is to buy from us and to stay with us. And customers want to be wooed. Customers want to have a great experience. And they also want the time they have invested in the store to be worthwhile. And so, in the competition for customers, companies are forced to deliver unique product experiences across all touchpoints. Yes, it doesn't matter which medium the customer uses to get in touch with me. The customer information must be embedded accordingly in the respective front end. Just as I need different data for the marketplace than for the digital display board, print catalog and so on.

And customer information also has a direct impact on a company's KPIs. On the one hand, as Guido has already said, the conversion rate is increased because the customer finds exactly the products they are looking for. Secondly, you have or can achieve a higher shopping basket value because you can always provide the customer with the right cross-sell, up-sell and accessory products at the right time. And that, in turn, naturally generates more sales. And the right product also reduces returns and costs and, in general, the PIM, from which all the data comes, makes it possible to collaborate perfectly with each other and thus also create synergies, because you don't always have to touch the individual attributes, the individual information about the products individually, because you can also use data, let's say, again and again and can also enrich it automatically. And this also allows you to achieve a much, much faster time-to-market. One more slide, please.

So now it's not just customers who benefit from better data, but also the company itself. For example, in B2B, if I pass on the best data and the correct data to my dealers, the dealer can reuse it to pass it on to their customers, who in turn benefit from the fact that it is correct and that the experience is great. I also have a direct influence on what happens at the very end of the process. At the same time, of course, this also reduces the volume of emails and calls. This means that customer service is also relieved by receiving fewer queries and, of course, customer service always has access to the latest data. They don't have to spend a lot of time looking or wondering whether the data is correct or not. The same applies to sales. Sales can access the PIM while on the move, but can also deliver the best product experience to the customer on site immediately. It is also important that the tool, the PIM, has the right usability.

And that's where we get very, very good feedback, good feedback from our customers. We are told that it is really fun to work with Akeneo and that it is used automatically and with pleasure. For example, SLV can onboard new employees extremely quickly and all within just 1.5 hours. And we simply have the mindset that only if the user and everyone who has to work with the PIM have fun dealing with the product data will the product experience and the customer experience be right at the end of the day.

Guido Juchert: Great, Max. Thank you very much for your insights here. We'll now hand over to Angela again for the second survey and start it now.

Angela Meyer: Exactly. We would like to know which KPIs you would like to improve. Max has now presented a few, Guido. And we could choose from productivity, internal process costs, the conversion rate, returns or turnover. Feel free to vote for your favorites here. And then Guido will go into the results again. There's a lot going on here now. Voting is going strong.

Guido Juchert: Well, I think we always have some internal favorites that customers always ask for, and I'm curious to see if they match up with the questions we always get.

Angela Meyer: So, here are the results. What do you think?

Guido Juchert: The classic turnover is of course always one of the highest. And that is of course the first thing that is always asked about. Internal process costs too, of course, because in the end they are close to the bottom line. It's also good that the employees find other ways. So we know this very well, we have often been able to find it in the questions there and it is of course also nice to see that the webinar also fits in with this and that we can show you which solution Akeneo and we can also tackle these topics very well here.

Maximilian Hasenkamp: Great.

Angela Meyer: Yes, then we'll continue with the last question here.

Guido Juchert: Right, let's move on to the last question for you, Max, before we start the Q&A session.

Where is the trend in product data heading

Maximilian Hasenkamp: Yes, that's also a very interesting question. And this is exactly what we, Akeneo, started a survey on at the beginning of the year, which I would like to refer to here. We asked 1,600 professionals worldwide about the product, i.e. about PIM, why they invest in a PIM and what they expect from product information. And one trend that emerged is quite clear, namely that a PIM is used to improve the customer experience. So a full 97 percent said that this is the main factor why they want to use a PIM. And so the customer's shopping experience is clearly one of the most important trends. Then please turn to the second slide, great, thank you. Exactly, the customer experience, which means that companies need to ask themselves the question: how can I best reach my customers, or through which channels? Be it virtual reality, a vocal assistant, the screen in the car, an app. And how can I convey a consistent brand identity across every touchpoint? And that brings me to the next trend.

Namely, brand values. Customers are now simply paying more and more attention to topics such as sustainability, fair trade, raw material information, ingredients, social compatibility, CO2 footprint, and so on. Now they pay even more attention to this than before Corona. And companies simply have to ask themselves the question: how can I communicate the values that I represent and stand for to my customers in a way that is easy to understand? For example, where do I use a text, where an icon, where an asset, and then manage these accordingly and to adapt the information to the front end accordingly, you need a PIM in the background. And it is only after these brand values that the specialists and managers have said that efficiency and localized information per region, etc. are important. To summarize this briefly, the customer experience is a trend and the brand values.

Guido Juchert: Great, thanks for that Max. Then we'll move on to our Q&A session. Angela, have we received any questions yet? Is there anything for us yet?