In the race to build a robust digital shelf, Product Information Management (PIM) systems are evolving to meet the growing demands for efficient and effective content generation. Integrating AI into your digital shelf is a significant advancement. This innovation transforms how publishers transform the customer experience with product descriptions and related product information. Let’s delve into how AI is reshaping PIM and your digital shelf with a closer look at the offerings from leading platforms, one designed for high customization and another designed for rapid streamlining of your enrichment process through configuration. 

The Benefits of Generative AI for Your Digital Shelf 

Faster Updates to the Digital Shelf

Creating product content manually can be time-consuming. AI generation saves publishers valuable time by automating the creation process. This allows publishers to focus on other critical tasks, improving overall productivity.  Consider a case where you need to quickly fix issues with a customer’s ability to search your products; you’ll have high velocity on those product changes. 

Creative Springboard for Publishers

AI generation provides a fresh perspective on product information, offering descriptions and insights that publishers might not have considered. This can serve as a creative springboard, enhancing the overall quality and appeal of your digital shelf. 

Enhanced Accuracy

AI generation is less likely to have grammar or spelling issues, ensuring high-quality, error-free product descriptions on your digital shelf. This enhances professionalism and reliability. Many website search engines and customer perception can be sensitive to issues here. 

Expanded Publisher Pool

With AI generation, the pool of potential publishers expands beyond those with exceptional marketing writing skills. It includes individuals who may excel in product knowledge, search, customer experience, and efficient enrichment workflows, thus democratizing enrichment. 

 Multilingual Capabilities

AI can translate into multiple languages, reducing the effort required to expand a product’s reach into new markets. This opens up more customers for your digital shelf with minimal additional workload. 

Digital Shelf Stewardship

AI Generation is robust and efficient, but product managers can still have the final say, allowing a human touch where appropriate. They can review how a customer would search for that product and create a final revision. 

Generative AI Platform Features for Your Digital Shelf

 Highly Customizable PIM

 We provide strategic implementations on a platform that specializes in extensive customization (customizable PIM). To learn more about this specific platform please reach out to us.  It’s AI-generative feature introduces several capabilities to manage your digital shelf: 

Content Generation Tab: This tab is available on any data element (products, categories, etc) page, including custom-created record types, allowing for versatile application across various entities. For example, it could be used for a category description as well as for products. This will enable you to apply AI generation to more facets of your digital shelf. 

Tone Selection: Publishers can tailor the tone for the AI generation to match the brand’s voice to the customer. 

AI Engine Selection: It currently offers two AI engines and gives them the flexibility to integrate additional AI platforms in the future. 

Digital Relevance: It generates based on existing product information, ensuring relevance and accuracy on your digital shelf. 

Custom Terms: Users can include specific terms for the AI engine, enhancing the results in a targeted way. This improves the specificity of your digital shelf improving the relevance to the customer. 

Batch Generation: Users can create work areas for products, apply AI generation to those products, and then review them systematically before approval. 

Choices: You can control how many versions of the descriptions you want.  It will create many variations, and you can pick the best one. 

Images as Input: You can ask it to look at an image and generate a product description. 

Configurable PIM

 We also provide strategic implementations on a platform that is designed to be a turnkey solution where it’s functionality is driven by adjusting natively available settings (configurable PIM). To learn more about this specific platform please reach out to us. The configurable PIM also brings a robust set of features for managing your digital shelf: 

AI-Generated Attributes: Users can define specific product attributes to be generated by AI. A new tab for attributes, “Generative AI,” is available to configure this feature. 

Verbosity Levels: The platform allows users to select verbosity levels for descriptions, providing control over detail and length. 

Mass Digital Shelf Updates: It supports rules that apply en masse to all products, streamlining large-scale AI generation. 

Extensive Product Library: Trained on a library of 50 million products, It can generate content even with minimal initial data, such as a manufacturer number. Of course, a robust digital shelf needs products with much more than minimal information. 

Suppliers Can Use It: If you use the supplier portal feature, your suppliers can use the generative AI to enrich their product data and empower them to contribute effectively to your digital shelf. 

Control Over AI Instructions: Since it responds to instructions (prompts), it allows you to select from a list of prompt templates to request a short description that is SEO-friendly or even targeted for Amazon if that’s one of your marketing channels. You are creating an adaptive digital shelf. 

Comparative Analysis 

When comparing the customizable PIM and configurable PIM for your digital shelf, several key differences and similarities emerge: 

Data Utilization: Both platforms build on your existing product data, but the configurable PIM also uses extensive product training data to enrich product descriptions. 

Entity Support: The customizable PIM supports AI generation for any entity type, whereas configurable PIM is limited to product information. Some retailers have a high volume of categories on their digital shelf, which could be crucial. 

Shelf Optimization: Both support applying rules to products en masse, which can be more efficient for a digital shelf with many products. 

Feature Scope: The configurable allows your suppliers to leverage its AI generation if you are using the supplier portal. 

Image Input: The configurable PIM can leverage your existing assets to help create descriptions. 

Client Use Case: Real-World Application 

Consider a client that pulls product information from multiple sources to create comprehensive product descriptions. Their customers search shortened descriptions from the ERP, leading to search issues (e.g., “BLK” for “Black”). This client faces challenges balancing the ERP with other sources to create robust descriptions. AI-generated content could be part of the solution here, as it can merge ERP descriptions with other product data to be complete and accurate, seamlessly incorporating terms like “BLK” and “Black.” 

In cases like this, AI content generation could reduce the infrastructure and development costs of pulling and merging from multiple sources. It can also significantly reduce the time to market for your product content. 

Conclusion 

Integrating AI generation into PIM systems represents a significant leap forward in product enrichment. By leveraging AI, businesses can save time, enhance creativity, ensure accuracy, improve customer search, and expand their reach into new markets. Platforms like these lead the way, offering unique features to meet diverse business needs. As AI technology continues to evolve, the potential for innovative applications in PIM will only grow, driving efficiency and effectiveness in product information management.   

It is vital to ensure that humans review the content created since they apply experience from search. It’s also essential to include as much product information as possible as part of the source for AI. AI generation will create compelling product descriptions but cannot add attributes, specifications, or images.  

If you don’t have a PIM yet, I don’t recommend using AI generation as a specific selection criterion. Instead, the foundations of a PIM and how it meets your needs regarding data governance, source of truth, quality of product data, syndicating across channels, measuring success, and integrability are paramount. There are commonly understood best practices you probably need to adopt before diving deeper into these features. 

You may need professional consulting to ensure your move solves the right problem. We have subject matter expertise in PIM strategy, solution architecture, best practices, and feature guidance, as well as the deep technical experience to make your vision a reality.  Contact our experts today for other inquiries and information.

Imagine running a business where you offer subscription-based products. As your customer base grows, you begin to notice something slipping—renewal deadlines, contract complexities, and your sales team being bogged down with manual updates. Enter Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), a powerful tool designed to help businesses streamline the often-complex process of managing quotes, pricing, and contracts. But that’s not all—Salesforce CPQ’s renewal and amend functionalities are here to make your contract management process seamless and automatic.

Let’s dive into how CPQ works, how it simplifies renewals and amendments, and why it’s a game-changer for any business using subscription models.

What is Salesforce CPQ?

At its core, Salesforce CPQ helps businesses configure their products, set pricing, and generate quotes quickly and accurately. Whether your product comes in different sizes, packages, or configurations, CPQ automates the process of calculating pricing based on your business rules, ensuring everything stays consistent. It also handles complex contracts, helping your sales team focus on selling rather than getting lost in the weeds of paperwork.

Now, imagine adding automation to this process, especially when it comes to renewing contracts or amending existing ones. This is where CPQ truly shines, offering standard functionality that reduces the workload while improving accuracy and customer satisfaction.

The Challenge of Renewals

Picture this: It’s the start of the week, and your inbox is overflowing with reminders—expiring contracts, upcoming renewals, and customer requests for service changes. Each contract has unique pricing, terms, and configurations. Manually tracking them is time-consuming and prone to human error. Missing a renewal date could lead to a loss of revenue or, worse, a dissatisfied customer.

Managing renewals manually can be overwhelming. But with Salesforce CPQ’s renewal functionality, this process is automated. Contracts are renewed at the right time, with minimal intervention from your team. No more worrying about missed deadlines or scrambling to send out renewal quotes. The system handles it for you, transforming what was once a cumbersome task into a smooth, efficient process.

How Renewal Functionality Works

Let’s say you have a loyal customer, Sara, whose subscription is nearing its end. In the past, you might have had to manually track her contract, reconfigure the terms, and send her a quote. But now, thanks to Salesforce CPQ’s renewal feature, the system automatically generates a renewal quote in advance, accounting for any updated pricing or discounts.

Your sales team receives a notification and can review the quote before sending it out. Sara, impressed with the efficiency, signs off on the renewal without delay. The entire process is handled smoothly, saving your team hours of manual work and ensuring customer satisfaction. Renewals become a way to strengthen your customer relationships, all while keeping your operations running efficiently.

Tackling Contract Amendments with Ease

But what happens when a customer wants to make changes mid-contract? Perhaps Sara reaches out midway through the year, wanting to upgrade her service package. In the past, you’d have to manually adjust the contract, update pricing, and notify the billing team. The whole process was time-consuming and left room for mistakes.

That’s where Salesforce CPQ’s amend functionality comes into play. Instead of starting from scratch, the system pulls up the existing contract, applies the requested changes, and automatically updates the quote. Whether Sara wants to add more users to her service or change the scope of her subscription, the amend functionality ensures everything is handled efficiently.

The amend feature also updates billing automatically, preventing errors that could arise from manual adjustments. Your team saves time, reduces the risk of miscommunication, and ensures that your customer is getting exactly what they need—without the hassle.

Automation Transforms Business Operations

Let’s face it—managing contracts manually is inefficient. Every contract expiration requires revisiting the original terms, configuring renewal details, and generating quotes. The more complex the contract, the higher the chances of errors. Handling amendments mid-term also introduces challenges, often leading to confusion or customer dissatisfaction.

But with Salesforce CPQ’s automated renewal and amend functionalities, the pressure is off. These features allow you to focus on what matters most: growing your business and building relationships with your customers. Automation increases accuracy, reduces manual effort, and ensures no details slip through the cracks.

Conclusion: A New Era of Contract Management

If your business is still managing renewals and amendments manually, now is the time to embrace the future with Salesforce CPQ. By automating these critical processes, you not only save time but also improve customer experience and protect your revenue streams.

Think about Sara—her smooth, seamless contract renewal and service upgrade are just one example of how CPQ’s renewal and amend features make a real difference. Your team can now focus on closing new deals, knowing that contract management is handled automatically.

Say goodbye to manual management and welcome the efficiency of Salesforce CPQ. It’s time to streamline your operations and let automation pave the way to a more successful, customer-focused future.

If you are part of an organization that utilizes an Enterprise Resourcing Planning (ERP) system, then you probably already know the many reasons why it serves as such an essential component for your business. There are more ERP platform options today than ever before, and each system has its own collection of features and capabilities. Generally speaking, they are the work horses for managing and streamlining day-to-day business operations. This typically includes activities such as managing procurement processes, financing, supply chain and logistics, administrative services, among many other critical business orientated functions. However, when it comes specifically to the management of your product data, it’s likely your ERP is lacking in some key capabilities and not providing you with everything your organization really needs.

Sure, your ERP most likely stores some general product information like a unique Identifier, or some sort of SKU. Perhaps it even stores dimensions, pricing, or some barely discernable internal description for your products. These are all valid product data points and would typically be managed in your ERP, but have you considered all the other data that is associated with your product catalog that your ERP does not manage? Data such as product variants and colors, product attributes, long and short customer friendly marketing descriptions, SEO and search friendly content, compliance information, various product relationships, product images and assets, not to mention your customer facing taxonomy structures.

By offering only the basic product attributes from your ERP, you are severely limiting the information your customers have to make an educated and informed buying decision. This ultimately reduces the effectiveness of the overall experience they have while interacting with the products you sell and how they engage with your brand. In todays’ environment customers are increasingly looking for more and more information and want to be confident and educated before purchasing a product. They want an experience that is meaningful, accurate and trustworthy. A well thought out and deliberate product data strategy can be a true differenciator in that regard.

PIM (Product Information Management) systems are built specifically to help you achieve exceptional customer product experiences and enable you to manage many facets of your customers’ product data journey.  Unlike an ERP, a PIM can and should serve as the one true source of product data within your organization that can be easily accessible to multiple groups within your organization. This allows for collaboration with consistency, accuracy and governance established through defined user roles and workflows.  No more managing data in scattered spreadsheets or in separate systems or in areas where only your IT team should roam.

A quality PIM solution (like the ones offered by Perficient’s PIM vendor partners) come loaded with built in features and functionalities which address key components that help solve organizational product data challenges. Some such features include bulk product data loads and updates, vendor data onboarding and management, the ability to easily and efficiently restructure data for specific outbound channels (ie. Syndication), digital shelf analytics and of course the ability to enrich data collaboratively across multiple groups without the need to worry about overwrites or repeated processes. A PIM system is also ideal for managing the localization of your data and for managing translated product data.

In summary, while an ERP is a key component to your technology stack and plays a vital role within your organization it is typically used to handle the big picture organizational functions, whereas a PIM exists to specialize specifically in the product data journey and management of processes related to your product content. Both can be complimentary to each other and when used in tandem can produce optimal results and great customer experiences.

Perficient’s dedicated PIM practice has well over a decade of experience implementing complex enterprise PIM solutions with experience in industries such as Manufacturing, Warehouse and Distribution, Automotive, Home Goods, Retail & CPG, Healthcare, Outdoor Landscape & Equipment and many more. With our extensive expertise in leading technologies and our ability to offer tailored engagement options, Perficient is an excellent partner choice for helping achieve your digital objectives. If you have questions or if you want to learn more about how PIM can be an asset to your organization, please reach out to our team of friendly experts.

Many organizations often question the reasons for investing in a Product Information Management (PIM) system as part of their data strategy. There are certainly more than just 5 reasons to consider an investment in a PIM system, but we’ve provided five of the most prevalent and commonly realized reasons.  This perspective is grounded in extensive experience within the product data space, encompassing both the implementation of Product Information Management Systems and the valuable insights gained directly from our customers.

5. It Pays for Itself – Return On Investment

When considering the selection of any modern technology or platform, a primary factor for making the investment will typically include the value it can provide. Return on Investment (ROI) might not be the first thing you associate with a Product Information Management (PIM) system. However, when properly implemented you can realize the ROI of your investment, sometimes quickly, through various means. These benefits encompass both qualitative, non-numerical aspects and quantitative, data-driven metrics.

Removing frustrating barriers to productivity and improving employee morale, creating memorable and valuable customer experiences which builds loyalty as they interact with product data through their journey, adopting a digitally mature approach to your data strategy and remaining competitive in your sector of the market are all qualitative benefits that can be realized by properly leveraging a PIM.

Implementing a PIM system can lead to significant quantitative improvements, such as enhanced SEO and search capabilities, higher conversion rates, faster time to market, fewer product returns, reduced reliance on your customer service team, and a greater ability to scale quickly. However you decide to measure the benefits, a PIM can be a game changer for your organization.

4. Efficient processes and Workflows – Faster Time to Market

Product Information Management systems play a crucial role in enhancing organizational efficiency and streamlining workflows. Undefined processes and lack of clear strategic goals can create challenging work environments and an inability to enrich and share product data confidently and accurately. Mature PIM systems can define, enhance, and automate enrichment processes while also enabling collaboration among different departments, suppliers, and partners. This centralized location for collaboration can bring significant efficiencies among all users by establishing a set of rules and governance, reducing errors and adding consistency to your organizational processes. PIM systems can also provide simultaneous distribution and publication of product information across various channels (such as your website, social media, and online marketplaces) allowing you to quickly go to market.

Enabling your team with well-defined PIM processes and workflows related to your product data is a crucial component when establishing a mature product data strategy that can supports rapid scalability. These principles can guide your organization into being more collaborative with partners and vendors, more competitive in the market and lead to greater profits.

3. Produce Great Experiences for your Customers (Enhanced CX)

The way customers interact with your product content—and by extension, your brand—can evoke an emotional response. These are opportunities for you to create lasting impressions. Customers want to feel confident in knowing they have all the information they are looking for and that what they are ordering is coming from a trustworthy source. If you are providing robust and accurate information that they find valuable, they will feel good about their visit and more likely to complete their purchasing journey. That is why it is paramount that the data you share is detailed, accurate, and as complete as possible. The product content you provide is key in making that connection, and the more comprehensive and feature-rich, the better impression you will make and stronger connection you can establish consistently across all your channels.

Rich product content including detailed descriptions, high-resolution images, guides and spec sheets, videos, and other multimedia content all help customers make informed purchasing decisions and enhances their overall experience which translates into additional sales, larger order sizes and unmatched loyalty from your customers.

2. Ensuring Data Governance and Product Quality

PIM systems play a crucial role in ensuring data governance and product quality across organizations by centralizing and standardizing that data holistically across all teams within the organization. PIM systems enforce data governance by establishing clear policies and procedures for data management, ensuring all product information is accurate, consistent, and compliant with industry standards. Having a centralized approach minimizes errors and discrepancies. Quality PIM systems can flag inconsistencies and missing information, which helps to serve as a checkpoint for monitoring data accuracy and completeness allowing for businesses to quickly define and address issues.

Publish data with confidence by maintaining a high standard for data governance and product quality. With the utilization of a good data governance strategy, PIM systems can help build trust and confidence with your customers which ultimately leads to better experiences for them and increased engagement and sales for you.

1. Single Source of Truth for Product Data

The number one reason for investing in a PIM System is so your organization can have an easily accessible, centralized location to serve as your single source of truth for managing product data. No more having to manage data through disparate systems or having to sort through dozens of messy spreadsheets. No longer will you have to mine for data from different servers or having to search through complicated queries and databases. Say goodbye to having to hunt down different team members from opposite parts of the organization to collect the data they have. With PIM you will be able to find all your product data structured and organized in one location, with supporting documentation, images, attributes, relationships, and all other related assets. This centralization ensures that everyone in your organization has access to the most up-to-data and accurate information.

Implementing a PIM system can transform the way you manage product information, leading to increased efficiencies, improved product content quality, faster time-to-market, enhanced customer experiences, and scalability. By centralizing your product data and leveraging the powerful features of a PIM system, you can stay ahead of the competition and drive business growth.

Perficient’s dedicated PIM practice has well over a decade of experience implementing complex enterprise PIM solutions with experience in industries such as Manufacturing, Warehouse and Distribution, Automotive, Home Goods, Retail & CPG, Healthcare, Outdoor Landscape & Equipment and many more. With our extensive expertise in leading technologies and our ability to offer tailored engagement options, Perficient is an excellent partner choice for helping achieve your digital objectives. If you have questions or if you want to learn more about how PIM can be an asset to your organization, please reach out to our team of friendly experts.