Mens Et Opera - Reloaded

For readers who might be interested, I thought it would be useful to gather together in one place links to various posts on Omnichannel and customer-centricity. On to the posts. It's the customer, stupid! The "relational gap" in the Australian Retail sector  The misleading Omnichannel...thing Business as a Calling: How Catchoftheday and Tinyme fulfill their call Omnichannel doesn't necessarily mean customer happiness Does Product-Centricity conflic with Customer-Centricity? Drop Shipping: the competitive advantage of pure players over bricks and mortar What's customer experience, anyway? "The Company is like a verb whose subject is the customer" Enjoy!

In a recent post  (one of my most popular), I gave a very short answer to the question of whether PDM and PIM are the same thing. The answer was a resounding "NO". Let's elaborate on this a bit further. Historically, product management (PM) meant mostly engineering data. In fact, PM was seen as a common layer shared across engineers and manufacturers to translate data from one domain to another. Engineers would provide classifications and attributes for components and materials to support the growing need of manufacturers to standardization by identifying similar components/materials, eliminating redundancy, and establishing a preferred parts list. The data would also be available to R&D and QA, for example. These particular processes along with version control are part of Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) discipline which includes PDM. More specifically, PDM is a capability to "reliably capture and maintain the definition of a product and related data throu

Over my LinkedIn blog , I posted my point of view on the recent " Technology and Growth " round table held by The Australian Financial Review and KMPG . One of the things that I tried to illustrate was the transformational nature of business initiatives that put customer outcomes at the heart of every process. I lamented the excessive focus on data and technologies as if they were the silver bullets to cure the current sluggishness of the digital growth in Australia. The rational of identifying the core processes lies in their strategic contribution in achieving the organization's mission and vision by focusing on the critical business drivers.  Data and information are paramount in relevantly serving customers and stakeholders and they play a pivotal role in discovering and executing key business process. It's often said that data is a strategic asset of any organization. True. Very true. Similarly, and I believe more fundamentally, processes are a strategic as

I thought it would be good to separate the Product Information Management (PIM) topics from the rest. The "rest" is on LinkedIn .

For readers who might be interested, I thought it would be useful to gather together in one place links to various posts on what PIM is. Like much of what you'll find on this blog, these posts focused on PIM as a strategic business application to help retailers and manufactures take control of all the individual data points and business processes that support their product information across the value chain. On to the posts. Why PIM is disruptive Top reasons for PIM investment .  The right PIM within an organization . PIM: silos breaker ! Consider PIM when (re)defining your Direct-to-Consumer model  Heavy Meta. The role of PIM in turning data in information. MDM and PIM demystified Guest interview with CEO of Actualog Guest interview with Jorij Abraham Capgemini on Product Information Management .  Enjoy!

The last few months have been hectic and very rewarding. PIM's word :-) is spreading in APJ region at a very good pace. It is thrilling to be part of it. While deservedly taking some rest with my family in Italy, I diligently planned out my publications in the lead-up to Christmas. There are few things that I learned about PIM in the manufacturing industry that I am keen to share once I will be able to articulate them :-( Stay tuned! - this is what on the roster for the next couple of months: PLM, PDM, and PIM.  Challenges in Fashion supply chain (probably a series of 3 installments) Photo shooting  - a smart streamlined process underpinned by PIM and DAM Gartner, Ventana, and The Information Difference take on PIM and MDM (3 installments) How PIM helps manufacturers to boost their revenue Catch you soon. P.S. For those who love Italy, that's a picture of Sorrento. 

This is a second round of a series of posts regarding the difference between PIM and MDM. In the first installment , I briefly highlighted the “functional” differences by emphasizing the consolidation of data (e.g. create the golden record, identity resolution, data quality, etc.) across the enterprise to feed transactional systems with “good” data as the primary target of MDM initiatives while PIM fills the need to author product-related commercial data to feed customer touch-points  such as catalogs, web shops, and so forth. Granted, very high level strokes but I reckon a good beginning for a marketing-free conversation about PIM and MDM. In fact, I want to start this second round with a note of appreciation. I really like Michele Goetz’s MDM and PIM insights over her blog at Forrester (great name, no relation and much better looking!) Now, the same Michele Goetz recently posted a brief piece to introduce the new Forrester report about PIM . Michele aptly points out that “

I recently came across an interesting executive summary of a report conducted by Capgemini involving 62 global leading online retail and consumer products (CP) companies in the grocery category (it’s a bit dated but I think still pertinent). The aim of the research was to “evaluate how visible and consumer driven the product data is in retailers’ and CP companies’ digital channels.” The research finds that in many cases the “digital product information provided to shoppers is inaccurate, incomplete or missing entirely” which doesn’t perfectly square with the need for rich consumer-oriented product data, driven by the explosion of digital channels. According to the report, the key step to provide better information and enhance the dialogue with shoppers is to “improve the visibility of product data in digital channels.” This resonates with me greatly. However, the question is “how?” That is: How to make product content relevant and consistent* across all channels?   The folks b

According to the authors, convergence is the key to reaching customers in the new world of digital communication. If you are like me interested in how digital innovation is transforming businesses at their core, this book is for you.    Convergence is all about breaking down silos to build a more cohesive organisation to respond to the exigencies of the new and empowered customer. The authors make a strong argument against the traditional way of structuring marketing, technology, and creativity.  They no longer must be separate worlds, speaking different languages, using different kinds of talent. For businesses to succeed today, this has to change. Their argument revolves around five fundamental principles: 1.   Customer centricity. Instead of paying lip service to it, the authors actually point out that customer-centricity inevitably lead to disruption. Most organizations are beholden to some age-old organizational chart and not structured around the customer journey (see

OK there is a big difference between MDM and PIM. Apparently not everyone agrees.  Regardless, things can become even more confusing when analysts, vendors, consultants, and academics all give you their perspective on what MDM and/or PIM really is. I know it’s hard to sort through it. But let’s try to keep it very simple. Note 1 : my apology to the experts to leave out important aspects Note 2 : I took inspiration for the example below by reading "Master Data Management", written by the well-respected David Loshin. Now, take the following transaction from a generic order fulfillment system: I am sure you have identified the three master data domains in this transaction: Customer: Michele M. Arpaia Product: Seat 15B (what about Flight 238?) Location: Sydney, SYD, Melbourne, MEL Can you see the beauty of MDM? Ideally, every transaction (occurring everywhere in your organization) relies on accurate, consistent, fresh, and complete master d

Jorij Abraham is the founder of the E-commerce Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping organizations and industries improve their e-commerce activities. He advises companies on e-commerce strategy, Omnichannel development and product information management. He also works as Director Research & Advise for Ecommerce Europe. He's written a fine book about PIM but don't expect a technical book at all! This is what marketing teams, merchandisers, product category teams, digital strategist, should be reading. Like him or not, when he talks you’d better listen! Michele: Let's start with a view on the PIM market. Where are we globally? Jorij: We are just starting. Most retailers still do not realize how important product information is to sell digital. In some countries the expectation is that in 2020 30 - 50% of all consumer goods are bought online. PIM no longer is an option. It is essential to be successful in 2020. M.: What was the main

This is a guest post by Chris Jobse of Eperium Business Solution ( http://www.eperium.com/ ). He is a senior PIM architect advising customers to organize their data in the most efficient way to serve their eCommerce goals . The management of correct and detailed product information is becoming increasingly important for many companies. The volume of information is growing, the number of products increasing, the products are sold in more countries and laws and legislation impose demands on the product information. Implementing a PIM (Product Information Management) system is more frequently becoming a strategic choice. Why one PIM system is more expensive than the other is a question that is frequently raised. Understandably, after all suppliers state that they manage product information and this is certainly so in all cases. There are big differences among the various PIM systems. The differences are mainly in the underlying technology, the functionality set and last, but not le

I recently had a chance to briefly speak with Adam Jacobs, MD and founder of The Iconic .  He’s a young and bullish entrepreneur who is doing a great job at cracking the serfdom of Australian shoppers created by the likes of David Jones and Myer. I asked him how he manages his “free three-hour same day delivery” service for those products that are on demand, i.e. not physically stored in the warehouse but still available on the website. I admit the question was thought-provoking because it brings up one of the challenges retailers face when they have a drop shipping program in place. But what's drop-shipping anyway? Imagine the possibilities for retailers to display a product on their digital channels without having it in their inventory. Exciting? Welcome to drop shipping! What has it got to do with The Long Tail? For those who have missed out the debate on ‘the long tail’, this is my capsule summary: retailers can grow sales in two ways, a) selling fewer popul

How to help senior management understand the Web and adapt the business, culture, teams and workflows accordingly? No fluff, no theory — just techniques and strategies that worked in practice, and showed results.  This is the brilliance of Boag’s book. I normally find myself skimming business and marketing books, gleaning what I need. But I couldn't just glance at this one. Paul’s book  comes at a great time for me. I am staggered by the number of times I come across extremely obvious cases where a better digital adaptation would bring about superior customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. You see companies still battle with Omni-channel, in-store wi-fi, personalized product information, poor mobile presence, etc. One can think of these issues as just technical inefficiencies that will soon or later be overcome. Here is where Paul hits hard. He argues, that the Digital is fundamentally a cultural change. The hierarchical structure of (large) organisations doesn't sit

The newsletter I publish every month is actually a 4-page flyer with unique content to subscribers. I would like to invite you to subscribe. Or at least try it for few months and see whether it aligns with the world you are in now. Coming soon for all subscribers: White Paper -   Speaking to the C-suite about PIM What’s at the top of the C-level agenda and how PIM added value aligns to strategic vision. The form is on your right. Thank you. Michele

Hunter Valley, Australia Back from a fantastic 3-day event about online retail here in Australia. I wish I had the time to write an account of what I've learned, people I've met, and more importantly the great wine I tasted :-) One keynote session that I attended to was presented by a PIM vendor. I found it fine and informative. I also very much welcomed the effort of not mentioning the capabilities of their product and all the fluffy spin that you generally hear from vendors. Chapeau! However, in a split second she deftly found the opportunity to recommend retailers to forget the long tail and focus on the ‘head’. It is this focus on the head, the argument goes, that gives you a solid foundation to sell more. I have two problems with this argument but first of all, I'd encourage you to read what I wrote about the long tail here and here . In addition to that, I also have some reservations about the long tail strategy but they are of a completely different nature