The online market has basically duplicated its volume in two years, and forecasts expect it to keep growing. There’s no doubt for both B2B and B2C customers: the digital experience is more convenient and has accelerated the exchange of data and the access to catalogues and products. But has the digital leap accelerated manufacturers' growth too?
Not likely: lots of B2B and manufacturing companies still face complex problems that affect their performance. Manufacturers heavily rely on their supply chain and third party network (wholesalers, distributors, retailers), and most of the time they have not implemented new and more secure ways to improve communications and data exchange.
This topic is becoming more and more delicate and difficult to keep updated in real time, as the global commercial landscape faces lots of uncertainty and volatile changes due to international conflicts and the pandemic that affect worldwide stocks, resources availability, and transports.
No one can prevent these obstacles, but manufacturers can protect themselves, and their customers, with systems that secure the best way to communicate accurate information, and facilitate forecasting product availability and commercial moves.
Technology like PIM (Product Information Management) systems are leading the way in this digital disruption. PIM platforms are the first-choice software for manufacturers that want to implement a more solid and reliable communication strategy with their customers and supply chain.
As the product information stored on the PIM can easily be updated in a few minutes, everybody shares and has access to the same, accurate data in real time, everywhere in the world. This technology supports manufacturers when keeping an international strategy and increasingly complex relationships with lots of clients and regions that might have different products or stock availability.
Manufacturers that manage perishable goods, or products that depend on scarce or expensive raw materials at the moment, like paper, some chemical components or metals, confront a twice as hard job. Product information is even more difficult to keep up to date in those cases, and it affects stock and the plans for releasing new catalogues or collections. A PIM system supports manufacturers in this challenge, as it makes it easier to sustain a highly reliable and enriched database, which reinforces the brand image and strengthens supply chain relationships during hard times.
It doesn’t matter how volatile product availability is becoming, or if product data needs lots of twitching for different customers, channels, or geographical regions. A PIM platform keeps everything in place, as it makes it super fast to update data, in all channels or resources that one may need, and manufacturers are seeing immediate positive results, like shopping processes accelerated 9 times, IT costs reduced 6 times, and big orders fulfilled in practically half the time.
This doesn’t seem like the best time to spend on new strategies, tools and resources. But according to Deloitte, 68% of businesses deployed automation tech during the last two years, and one-third accelerated their investment in cloud-hosted automation platforms like PIM, and plan to further expand their digital and automated resources to keep ensuring success. Which side of the future is your company on?
