For manufacturers, customer experience is no longer a differentiator, but a growth strategy. We’re proud to share that Perficient was selected as a company interviewed for Forrester’s May 2025 report, “Transform Your Manufacturing Extended Enterprise For Maximum Business Impact.”  We believe being interviewed for this report underscores our leadership in helping manufacturers modernize their digital ecosystems to deliver seamless, scalable, and personalized experiences across the value chain. 

Access the report here. 

Partnering With Manufacturing Companies As They Digitally Mature 

At Perficient, we have a proven track record in integrating complex systems like PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), PIM (Product Information Management), and OMS (Order Management Systems) to streamline product content and availability. 

As Forrester notes in the report, “As B2C digital experiences become more convenient and more B2B buying groups include younger members, manufacturers must curate, enrich, and distribute product content that supports compelling customer experiences at every touchpoint in the product buying group’s journey.” 

Our client-centric approach addresses these real-world challenges in manufacturing CX — from abandoned carts due to inaccurate lead times to inconsistent product content across channels. We also regularly publish thought leadership on leveraging AI and generative AI to scale personalization and automate product data management. 

“We’ve seen firsthand how aligning product data, systems, and customer expectations can unlock real business value, and we’re proud to contribute to the broader industry conversation on what it takes to lead in this space.” – Kevin Espinosa, Director of Digital Strategy and Manufacturing Industry Lead 

Perficient’s Vision for the Manufacturing Extended Enterprise 

Key insights the Perficient team provided in their interview for the Forrester report included the critical role content plays in customer experience, the responsible use of AI, strategies for overcoming organizational silos, the importance of inventory accuracy, and the path to digital maturity. 

Perficient’s position is that these changes should be addressed with urgency, and we are well-positioned to offer expert guidance. Below are some brief perspectives on each of these topics. 

Content is the Cornerstone of CX 

Accurate, timely, and localized product content is essential to building trust and driving conversions. This is especially true in B2B and D2C manufacturing, where buying decisions hinge on technical accuracy and availability.  

According to a recent Perficient survey of multiple manufacturers, commercial customers, and consumers of connected products, trust in a manufacturer is critical for the end consumers in making a buying decision. Providing consistent, accurate and up to date information about the products is a crucial first step in establishing this trust factor. 

AI is a Game-Changer — But Only When Used Responsibly 

Generative AI is transforming areas like product design, search, product descriptions and recommendations, virtual agents, agent assistance, coding, content creation, narrative reporting, and process automation, but human oversight remains critical. Our vision for the future of genAI includes agentic architectures where AI agents validate each other’s outputs and flag for human review, ensuring quality and compliance before content reaches the customer. 

System Integration is the Secret to Speed and Scale 

Manufacturers often struggle with siloed systems and disconnected teams. We’ve helped clients overcome these barriers by integrating PLM and PIM systems, establishing clear ownership models and creating enterprise-wide catalogs that reduce friction and accelerate time-to-market. 

Syndication and Availability Drive Revenue 

A number of our clients have experienced abandoned carts and dissatisfied customers when ATP (available-to-promise) and lead times are not available or inaccurate. Further, if the ordering experience is different online than the information received when calling an agent, the credibility of the brand is at risk. From ATP data to local inventory visibility, we help manufacturers ensure that what’s promised online matches what’s available in reality.  

Maturity Matters 

We help manufacturers assess and evolve their digital maturity, from foundational capabilities like centralized content management to advanced practices like AI-powered hyper-personalization and dynamic UI generation based on user personas. 

Invest in End-to-End Digital Transformation for Manufacturing 

We believe that Perficient being interviewed for the Forrester report is a validation of our commitment to helping manufacturers transform their extended enterprise for a differentiated customer experience. Whether you’re looking to modernize your product content strategy, integrate complex systems, or harness the power of AI, Perficient is the partner to help you lead with confidence. 

Explore our manufacturing industry expertise and our portfolio of commerce and contact center capabilities that make an excellent customer experience a reality. 

Our trusted Unified Commerce Platform partner, Kibo, is gearing up to host the Kibo Connect Client Summit from May 7th to 9th at the Loews Downtown Chicago Hotel. Since the start of our partnership in 2021, Kibo has consistently delivered success through innovative commerce and delivery models, a dynamic omnichannel pricing and promotions engine, and robust delivery options seamlessly integrated into its user-friendly interface. This upcoming summit promises to bring together industry leaders, innovators, and experts to exchange valuable insights, strategies, and success stories from the world of commerce.

What to Expect at the Summit

The event offers plenty of networking opportunities, with more than 200 executives and industry experts in attendance. Key figures like CTOs and SVPs from renowned businesses such as Total Wine & More, Forrester, and Ace Hardware will be among those contributing thought leadership on stage. Adding to the lineup, our very own Zach Zalowitz, Principal of Order Management and Product Information Management, and Kim Glasscock, Director of Order Management, will represent us at the summit.

Expect a wealth of strategic discussions on the latest practices in commerce, order management, and customer experience. One must-attend session is the panel ‘The Future of Commerce: Navigating Disruption and Driving Innovation,’ featuring Zach Zalowitz alongside prominent leaders from ODP and Proactiv. The panel discussion takes place on Thursday, May 8th, at 2:00 PM.

Additionally, attendees will have the chance to gain actionable insights by participating in various workshops and sessions led by global brands and technology providers.

Join Us at Kibo Connect 2025!

We’re thrilled to be part of the Kibo Connect Client Summit and look forward to seeing you there. Attendees can expect some exciting surprises from us at the event, whether it’s inspiration from the main stage or insightful conversations at our partner table. As we countdown to May, stay tuned for more updates and information.

Explore our commerce expertise in and in your industry as we prepare to connect, and contact us if you’re ready to schedule time for a discussion at the event.

Anurag Sahu is a dedicated senior project manager who has spent the last five years making a difference for his team and clients. With a passion for client service, Anurag embodies the spirit of collaboration that defines our culture at Perficient.  

In this People of Perficient profile, we’ll learn more about his role, explore his proudest achievements, and uncover what motivates him to shatter boundaries.

Can you describe a typical day in the life at Perficient? 

I’m a senior project manager, and my work involves multiple activities like handling our HCL Commerce and Product Information Management (PIM) practices. We have around 55 team members involved. I also help manage 12 accounts with delivery from India and roughly 30 colleagues. 

My job involves delivering excellent work and providing significant value for our clients. This strengthens the partnership between our clients and the Perficient team. 

Whether big or small, how do you make a difference for our clients, colleagues, communities, or teams? 

I proactively focus on critical areas such as improving communication, identifying new opportunities, addressing concerns, and planning and execution. I strive to understand the big picture and overall business objectives related to our work for each client and how we can enhance the business value we provide. Additionally, I motivate my team and ensure we recognize the collective power everyone has to make a difference. 

Read More: Perficient Colleague’s Make a Difference 

What has your experience at Perficient taught you? 

Take risks, be decisive, and believe in your decisions. I’ve learned that it’s important to be confident and humble at the same time. My experience has also taught me to listen more, talk less, and be open to different opinions and ideas. 

What advice would you give to colleagues who are starting their career with Perficient? 

Express yourself freely, share your ideas and suggestions, and speak confidently in front of clients and your team. Confidence is key and should be reflected in your body language. 

Why are you #ProudlyPerficient? 

Perficient is a good place to work because it has a supportive and nurturing environment that promotes professional growth. The leadership team truly cares about colleagues and their career development. The collaborative culture is why I decided to join Perficient, and it has kept me here for more than five years now. 

Learn More: Perficient’s Award-Winning Culture 

What motivates you in your daily work? 

I am motivated by the idea that our work makes a difference in our clients’ businesses and adds value for them. Everything I do is aimed at helping our clients achieve their goals. 

How have you grown your career with Perficient? 

I have grown my career at Perficient by constantly learning new things, taking on increased responsibilities, and efficiently delivering results. I shatter boundaries by managing multiple different roles and responsibilities simultaneously. 

See More: Perficient Prioritizes Growth for Everyone 

What are you passionate about outside of work? 

I like reading, spending time with family, visiting new places, and watching movies and TV shows with my family. 

What’s one thing you wish your colleagues knew about you? 

I am a very family-oriented person. I will never compromise on spending quality time with my family. 

SEE MORE PEOPLE OF PERFICIENT  

It’s no secret our success is because of our people. No matter the technology or time zone, our colleagues are committed to delivering innovative, end-to-end digital solutions for the world’s biggest brands, and we bring a collaborative spirit to every interaction. We’re always seeking the best and brightest to work with us. Join our team and experience a culture that challenges, champions, and celebrates our people.  

Visit our Careers page to see career opportunities and more!  

Go inside Life at Perficient and connect with us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

A strong and successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is essential in the extremely competitive world of e-commerce today. You can increase the visibility, draw in more visitors, and raise conversion rates with the correct tools and strategies. Product information management (PIM) is a crucial tool for accomplishing these objectives.

What is PIM?

PIM provides a central repository for product information, ensuring that information is accurate, consistent, and up-to-date. This allows businesses to streamline the management of product data, such as descriptions, images, specifications, and other key information related to their products. Having this organized and easily accessible information can be extremely beneficial to businesses looking to improve their customer service, increase sales, and ultimately enhance their SEO performance.

By using PIM, businesses can save time and resources by reducing manual work, increasing accuracy, and eliminating redundant data entry. A PIM system can also help with managing different versions of product descriptions, images, and other data fields in different languages and currencies. This allows businesses to quickly launch products into new markets and keep them updated across multiple channels.

How can PIM help improve your SEO?

Product Information Management (PIM) systems are designed to help businesses store, manage, and distribute product information in an efficient and organized manner. It has become a popular tool for businesses looking to improve their SEO rankings.

PIM can help improve your SEO rankings in several ways:

1. High-quality Content: PIM can help ensure that product information is accurate, complete, and consistent, which can lead to better on-page optimization and search engine visibility.
2. Enhanced Product Descriptions: PIM enables the creation of detailed and optimized product descriptions, which can help improve the relevance and quality of content for search engines.
3. Better Keyword Targeting: PIM can provide insights into which keywords are most relevant for each product, enabling e-commerce websites to better target those keywords in their product pages and other content.
4. Improved Taxonomy: Taxonomy helps to improve the customer experience by making it easier for customers to find what they are looking for, and to compare products based on relevant attributes. In addition, a well-structured taxonomy can also help to improve search engine optimization (SEO) by increasing the relevance of search results, which can drive more traffic to a company’s website.
5. Cross-Channel Distribution – PIM systems also make it easy to distribute your product information across multiple channels. This helps increase the visibility of your product pages and will help improve your SEO rankings.
6. Faster and More Efficient SEO Updates – PIM can also help make SEO updates faster and more efficient. With PIM, you can quickly and easily make changes to your product information, which can then be automatically updated across all of your sales channels. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors, making it easier to optimize your product pages for search engines. With PIM, you can keep your website up-to-date with the latest product information and take advantage of new SEO opportunities as they arise.
7. Asset Management – Asset management in a Product Information Management (PIM) system refers to the process of organizing and managing digital assets, such as images, videos, and other multimedia files, associated with a product. This includes storing, categorizing, and versioning these assets to ensure that they are easily accessible and up-to-date. We can also attach metadata to digital assets to help improve the search.

This can lead to improved organic search traffic and more conversions for your business but business always questions how do I know the optimization we were doing in PIM is helping us, One way to identify is utilizing Digital Self analytics.

inriver’s digital self-analytics tool, Evaluate, significantly enhances SEO optimization in several ways:

1. Content Compliance: Evaluate ensures that your product information is accurate and consistent across all channels, which is crucial for SEO. Accurate data helps search engines understand your products better, improving visibility.
2. Keyword Optimization: The tool tracks keyword performance and helps you optimize product listings for better search rankings. This includes monitoring keyword search and share-of-shelf.
3. Real-Time Insights: Evaluate provides real-time insights into how your products are performing on the digital shelf. This includes monitoring product search rankings, competitor pricing, and stock levels, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve SEO.
4. Engagement Intelligence: By analyzing customer interactions and engagement with your product listings, Evaluate helps you understand what works and what doesn’t. This information is vital for refining your SEO strategy to attract more traffic and improve conversions.
5. Automated Monitoring: The tool uses smart automation to constantly monitor your products, providing actionable insights that help you stay ahead of the competition and ensure your product information is always optimized for search engines.

Using inriver Evaluate, you can take control of your digital shelf, drive revenue growth, and enhance your SEO efforts with precise, actionable data.

By following these recommendations, you can make sure that you get the most out of your PIM system and improve your SEO performance. PIM can help you stay ahead of the competition in the e-commerce space. So if you’re looking to improve your SEO performance and reach more customers, it’s time to invest in PIM. For more information on this, contact our experts today.

For organizations to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced digital environment, product information management (PIM) needs to be precise and effective. inriver latest innovation, the Expression Engine, aims to transform how consumers manage and manipulate product data. It allows users to configure rules that automatically apply to product data, similar to using formulas in a spreadsheet. If you’re an inriver PIM user and haven’t yet enabled this powerful feature, here’s what you’re missing out on:

1. Enhanced Data Transformation Capabilities

The Expression Engine allows users to configure enrichment rules, enabling the automation of complex calculations, data string generation, and logical rule application. This significantly reduces manual effort and boosts efficiency. For example, you can create SEO friendly description by concatenating key attributes. This automation significantly reduces the time and effort required to prepare data for various channels.

2. Improved Speed to Market

By automating data transformations, the Expression Engine helps businesses accelerate their time to market. As product information is processed and updated automatically, you can quickly adapt to new market demands and ensure that your product data is always current and accurate. This is particularly beneficial for companies managing large product catalogs across multiple channels.

3. Increased Data Quality and Visibility

The dynamic functionality of the Expression Engine guarantees that any updates to your PIM data are instantly mirrored across all connected fields. This minimizes the likelihood of human error and helps maintain consistent and dependable data. Furthermore, users can view the formulas used in each field, enhancing transparency and simplifying the process of troubleshooting any issues.

4. Cost and Resource Efficiency

Traditionally, businesses often turned to custom code or manual processes to manage complex data transformations. However, the Expression Engine streamlines this process by eliminating the need for these costly and time-consuming methods. With its intuitive interface for configuring expressions, businesses can reduce their reliance on IT support, resulting in lower costs and a more efficient way to maintain their PIM systems.

5. Seamless Integration and Extensibility

The Expression Engine utilizes familiar tools and interfaces, like Microsoft IntelliSense for code completion and color coding, making it simple for users to create and manage expressions. This smooth integration allows you to fully leverage the PIM’s features without requiring advanced technical expertise.

6. Future-Proofing Your PIM Strategy

The Expression Engine’s adaptable and scalable architecture ensures that your PIM system can evolve alongside your business needs. By enabling this feature, you’re investing in a future-proof solution that will keep providing value as your product information requirements evolve.

Achieving PIM Efficiency with Expression Engine

A few example use cases of Expression Engine in PIM –

• Retail: In the retail industry, the Expression Engine can automatically calculate and populate fields like product attributes (e.g., size, color, and material) based on predefined rules. For example, if a retailer defines a rule that certain product types should always include specific care instructions or packaging details, the Expression Engine can automate the inclusion of these values, ensuring consistency across all product listings.
• Manufacturing: For manufacturers using PIM, the Expression Engine can generate and manage product codes and specifications dynamically, based on product attributes such as part numbers, materials, or dimensions. This ensures that each product is accurately categorized and described without needing to manually update multiple fields for every new product variation, reducing errors and enhancing efficiency.
• E-commerce: In the e-commerce sector, the Expression Engine can help create SEO-optimized product descriptions by automatically combining product attributes such as category, key features, size, and material. This automated approach ensures that every product page is consistent, relevant, and keyword-rich without requiring manual entry, thereby saving time and improving search engine visibility.

Conclusion

Activating the Expression Engine in your inriver PIM system offers numerous benefits that can greatly improve your product information management. You’ll see enhancements in data quality, quicker time to market, cost savings, and increased efficiency. Don’t miss the chance to optimize your PIM strategy—enable the Expression Engine today and witness the positive impact on your business.

If you’re ready to get started, contact us to discover how we can assist you on your PIM implementation journey and learn more about how enabling the Expression Engine can streamline your enrichment process.

In today’s digital landscape, efficiently managing product information is vital for businesses to enhance customer satisfaction and drive sales growth. A robust Product Information Management (PIM) system with excellent integration features, like inriver, will streamline your PIM strategy. By utilizing the integration frameworks and APIs provided by inriver, businesses can ensure relevant, accurate, and consistent product information across all channels. This article explores key inriver integration techniques that have the potential to transform your PIM approach.

The importance of PIM Integration –

Automating PIM processes leads to significant improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. By eliminating manual data entry, automated integration reduces errors and ensures that information remains consistent and current across all systems. This not only saves time and cuts labor costs but also enhances business agility and customer satisfaction. With automated integration, companies can swiftly adapt to market changes, make informed decisions, and provide timely, personalized information to their customers.

Exploring inriver Integration Options –

There are several ways to automate the integration between systems that are used to send or receive data –

Leveraging APIs (application programming interface)-

• inriver REST APIs – These can be utilized to build integrations in any programming language and customize interfaces within inriver, including creating enriched PDF/Preview templates.
• inriver Remoting APIs – These require C# programming knowledge and are used with hosted solutions. The Remoting API services consist of six major components:
  • Channel Service – Methods related to channels. e.g. Channel Structure, Publish/Unpublish a channel, Retrieve entities and links from a channel etc.
  • Data Service – One of the most widely used Service for creating, updating, deleting and finding entities and links in the system.
  • Model Service – Contains methods for building and maintaining PIM data model.
  • Print Service – Used for developing the inriver print plugin.
  • User Service – Provide methods for maintaining uses, role, permissions and restrictions.
  • Utility Service – Contains various method including Connector states, HTML Templates, Languages, and Notifications.

Remoting Services

• Content API  – A set of APIs designed to facilitate the onboarding and distribution of large volume of product data.
  • Content Onboarding API – help standardize the data onboarding process by dividing them into five key steps – Landing Area, Field Mapping, Staging area, PIM validations and Import.
  • Content Delivery API – used for distribution of product data to various channels and platforms, ensures that product data is uniform across all channels.

Integration Framework (IIF) – The Integration Framework is a foundation for building adapters and outbound integrations in inriver. It transforms customer’s unique data model into a standard integration model. It supports custom entity types, delta functionality and provide standard functions to deliver product data.

High level integration framework flow

The following table highlights the key aspects when considering integration within inriver –

These integration techniques can significantly enhance your PIM strategy, ensuring your product data remains accurate, consistent, and up to date across all channels. At Perficient, we engage in comprehensive discussions throughout our elaboration process and continue to validate during implementation phase. We help finalize best practices tailored to each customer’s unique needs, recognizing that one approach may work better for one client than another. Get in touch to explore how we can support you on your PIM implementation journey, whether you’re starting fresh or facing challenges with an existing system.

For most businesses, the holiday season is a critical time that often accounts for a significant portion of annual sales.  To properly capitalize on this opportunity, companies must ensure their product information is accurate, consistent, and compelling across all channels.  This is where Product Information Management (PIM) systems come into play. A best of class PIM system streamlines the management of product data, enabling businesses to enhance their marketing efforts, improve customer experiences, and ultimately increase sales. Here are some key areas which PIM can help boost your business during the holiday season.

Provides Product Data Accuracy and Consistency

During the holiday rush, customers expect accurate and up-to-date product information. Inaccurate or inconsistent data can lead to customer dissatisfaction, returns, and lost sales. PIM systems centralize product information, ensuring that all data is accurate and consistent across all sales channels. This includes product descriptions, prices (MSRP), images, and specifications. By maintaining high-quality product data, businesses can build trust with customers, reduce errors, and enhance the overall shopping experience.

Improved Time-to-Market

The holiday season is characterized by rapidly changing trends and high demand for new products. PIM systems streamline the process of rapidly updating and launching new products, significantly reducing time-to-market. With a PIM system, businesses can quickly update product information and distribute it across all channels simultaneously. This agility allows companies to respond swiftly to market trends and customer demands, ensuring they have the right products available at the right time.

Enhanced Customer Experiences

A seamless and enjoyable shopping experience is crucial during the holiday season when competition is fierce. PIM systems enable businesses to provide rich, detailed, and engaging product information that enhances the customer experience. High-quality images, detailed descriptions, and accurate specifications help customers make informed purchasing decisions. Additionally, PIM systems can support personalized markeitng efforts by providing tailored product recommendations based on customer preferences and behavior.

Streamlined Omnichannel Marketing

In today’s digital age, customers interact with brands across multiple channels, including websites, social media, mobile apps, and physical stores. PIM systems ensure that product information is consistent and up to date across all channels. This consistency is crucial for omnichannel marketing strategies, as it provides a unified brand experience and prevents customer confusion. By delivering a seamless shopping experience across all touchpoints, businesses can increase customer satisfaction and drive sales.

Efficient Inventory Management

Effective inventory management is essential during the holiday season to meet high demand and avoid stockouts or overstock situations. PIM systems can integrate with inventory management systems to provide real-time updates on product availability. This integration ensures that customers have accurate information about stock levels, reducing the risk of overselling or disappointing customers with out-of-stock products. Efficient inventory management also helps businesses optimize their stock levels, reducing carrying costs and maximizing profitability.

Enhanced SEO and Digital Marketing

Accurately targeting and attracting customers by effectively visualizing your products online is crucial, especially during the holiday season. Properly implemented, PIM systems can significantly boost search engine optimization (SEO) efforts by ensuring that product information is optimized for search engines. This includes the use of relevant keywords, high-quality images, and detailed descriptions. Improved SEO can increase organic traffic to your website, driving more potential customers to your online store. Additionally, PIM systems can support digital markeitng campaigns by providing accurate and consistent product information for ads, emails, and social media.

Better Analytics and Data-Driven Decision Making

Visibility into the performance of your products online is crucial for attracting customers and for maintaining profitability. Most modern PIM systems offer mechanisms to help track product performance, customer tendencies, and market trends.  By taking advantage of data from features like digital shelf analytics, businesses can make informed decisions around their product data and offerings, pricing strategies, and marketing campaigns. During the holiday season, data-driven decision-making is crucial for maximizing sales and profitability. PIM systems enable businesses to identify top-performing products, optimize pricing and tailor marketing efforts.

Scalability and Flexibility

In preparation for the holiday season, it’s not uncommon for new products and product lines to be added or for categories and taxonomies to be adjusted. Perhaps you are looking to spin up a separate boutique website or affiliate program. Today’s best of breed PIM systems have flexibility and functionality that is designed to handle large volumes of product data allowing them the abilty to easily scale for your seasonal demands. Whether you are adding new products, expanding to new markets, or launching holiday specific promotions, a PIM system can support your business growth and ensure that your product data is managed efficiently and with confidence.

Enhanced Team Collaboration and Workflow Efficiencies

Managing your product catalog along with all the associated product information, attributes, and assets involves a large amount of collaboration between multiple departments within your organization. These can typically include IT, marketing, customer support, sales, and supply chain. The workflows within a PIM system can streamline and enhance your team’s collaboration by providing a centralized platform for the management of all your product data and related assets.  Having a well thought out centralized approach reduces silos, improves communication, and ensures that all team members have access to accurate and up-to-date information. Enhanced collaboration and workflow efficiency can lead to faster product launches, more relevant and effective marketing campaigns and ultimately, increases in sales leading to greater revenue.

In conclusion, a robust PIM system is not just a valuable asset for businesses that are looking to maximize sales during the holiday season but essential to establishing digital maturity. By ensuring accurate and consistent product information, improving time-to-market, enhancing customer experience and supporting omnichannel marketing efforts. PIM systems can drive significant sales growth. Additionally, ensuring efficient inventory management, enhanced SEO and in-site search capabilities, data-driven decision making, easy scalability and improved collaboration will all further help to contribute to a successful holiday season. Investing in a PIM system can help businesses stay competitive, meet customer expectations, and achieve their sales goals during this critical time.

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 goals. If you have questions or if you want to learn more about how PIM can be an asset to your organization for this or futures seasons, reach out to our team of experts. 

PIM is no longer simply an operational tool that holds the product record. That’s why we’re excited to bring our expertise to PIMPoint in Chicago on April 27. This year’s conference is dedicated to helping organizations drive more business across the entire product journey while sharing industry trends, learning from PIM experts, and finding supportive new relationships to help spur growth!

Perficient will be on-site ready to chat on the conference floor, or you can join Perficient’s Director of PIM, Keith Ryals, and Perficient client, Mindy Born with J.J. Keller and Associates, as they discuss how J.J. Keller adopted PIM and the benefits they have seen during their session “How to transform product information into a powerful business driver that cuts costs, boosts profits and keeps customers coming back!”

PIM

A PIM solution is an application that provides a singular place to collect, store, manage, and enrich product information and easily distribute it to sales and eCommerce channels.

Product information is a brand’s most important asset when it comes to meeting and exceeding buyer expectations across multiple channels. With accurate and compelling product information, organizations can build buyer confidence, drive conversion, enhance customer experience, reduce returns, release to the market more quickly, and help enhance the number of repeat purchases.​

Since PIM is so integral to a seamless buyer journey, be sure to stop by our booth and session at PIMPoint and connect with our PIM and  commerce experts!

Content and commerce – it’s no longer just a trend that you hear in the industry where only a few far between may understand what it is. Now, it’s so much more than a buzzword, especially in today’s evolving digital landscape. It’s an approach, a mindset, and most importantly, an organizational strategy that takes your manufacturing business to the next level of maturity.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how content & commerce can be leveraged across your organization to not only build better relationships with your customers, but improve processes, people, and technology from within your organization for now and the future.

What is a Content & Commerce Approach?

From our perspective, and in the simplest of terms, content & commerce occurs when companies align the information that people need and want to make informed decisions to know if they’re purchasing the right product. Meaning, that as a manufacturer, you understand what your buyers want and need throughout their buying journey and can align on certain objectives to deliver on these two expectations.

But to do that effectively, your organization must pause and look inward. It is one thing to know what your customers need and want, but you must start building the solution from within, and I don’t just mean so you can reach the goal of helping your customers. In fact, this approach has much more impact on the entire structure of your company, including how you formulate your goals, strategy, and competencies.

To begin, you might consider doing the following for your organization:

• Grasping and honing in on a level of business support and buy-in
• Evaluating which technology, you should leverage as your first step in this initiative
• Deciding how you’re going to implement the first two decisions in your go-to-market strategy

These are the first steps that you and everyone across your business must understand and prepare for, as they will shift your organization to act in a way that’s much more agile, seamless, and most importantly – successful.

Why Digital Commerce is the First Step to Your Content & Commerce Approach

To help elevate and mature your business, you must ask yourself, “What are we doing that makes it hard for our customers to do business with us?” To answer this, you’ve got to ensure that everyone at your company is looking at content & commerce, thinking of the buying journey, and making sure that marketing, sales, and technology are working together on your strategy. Often, that strategy has everything to do with how your company looks at and leverages digital commerce, especially as a manufacturer.

This sounds like it might be a heavy task to complete – and it could be – but before you worry, let’s look at how content & commerce has evolved over time, and why it’s not as intimidating as it might be.

The Evolution of the Content & Commerce Approach

This approach once was regarded as simply bringing your Content Management System (CMS) and commerce platforms together to create a singular experience for customers. In other words, leverage headless commerce and the concept of microservices to connect two separate technologies.

The purpose of this approach is to present the ability to buy a product at the moment of interest regardless of where that is in the buyer’s journey. This concept still holds true, but what is also required is a broader consideration of how sales and marketing interact and how the product teams fit into the decision process. It is important for organizations to know that a certain level of maturity is required to really be successful with content and commerce. With today’s digital environment, the approach has become more intricate to meet both business and customer expectations.

The focus is now on creating a personalized experience that provides content in the right setting and moment to impact conversion. This establishes the need for businesses to create individual roles and processes to accomplish this demand. It very much sounds like a tall order, and you’ll have to address data and operational challenges, such as:

• Breaking down departmental silos
• Addressing disconnected processes
• Effectively maintaining systems, shared resources, and processes implemented
• Aligning efforts among several teams within your organization
• Implementing new tools, resources, and strategy

And most importantly – you must know and maintain the goal you’d like to achieve for your organization and as a manufacturer, analyze and determine if your current internal resources can help you in your content and commerce approach, and ensure your IT, marketing, and C-Level leadership bought into the approach.

Solutions that Enable Content and Commerce

By now, you already know that to have an effective content and commerce approach to your organization, your company must break down silos from within to not just deliver a great customer experience but also align your teams, processes, and technologies to overcome obstacles as you respond to real-time business demands.

Thankfully, our team of experts at Perficient put together a 10-part video series that highlights six different solutions to focus on with your content and commerce approach, and they’re the following:

• Product information and enrichment, and customer data
• Search
• Strategy
• Digital Marketing
• Customer journeys
• Organizational change management (OCM)

Let’s go over each of these.

Product Enrichment and Information, and Customer Data

Companies must think and act upon data with a mature effort – which is not something that any organization, not just manufacturers, can become overnight. There are many steps to becoming digitally mature, especially when it comes to product enrichment and managing customer and product data.

Product data is insufficient or structured correctly if it is only managed through an enterprise resource system (ERP). You cannot effectively sell your products this way, especially from an ecommerce perspective. Mature organizations that utilize a content & commerce approach identify multiple distinctive characteristics when it comes to their products, such as product name that a customer will understand, description, key attributes of the product, and product image. Not only that but they are also dedicated to growing and thinking of methods that will enhance their product data further as they continue to grow.

It is important to note that it’s not something you plan to do one time only from a customer and product perspective, it’s going to extend through multiple phases and growing data sets. Committed, mature manufacturers draw strong conclusions to build their next steps to provide the right information to their customers at the right time.

Site Search

Take a step back and think about this question, what is the most personalized website you go to when you want to search for something? Yes, it’s Google. Everything is directly attributed or targeted towards you as an individual when you conduct that search online. But search is used in several different ways – and site search specifically determines what is most relevant to the user and how we present it to them.

Site search is not just an add-on item, it is a high-level initiative that can drive conversions and revenue. Site search can get so nitty gritty that systems can determine if certain products and users are alike. When we talk about commerce, we are doing the exact same thing. If we make it about you as an individual, then you are more likely to buy more because the messaging and content seems to speak to you directly. Not only does this give your user the best result, but it also optimizes your business in a way that ensures you display the right choice – every time.

Strategy

The reality is that strategy must be established from the jump, though often time, it’s not. The strategy has often received a bad reputation when it is really the strongest asset to your content and commerce approach. It is true, and we often say that strategy without execution is a daydream, but execution without strategy is a nightmare.

Strategy defines how your company is going to meet the expectations of your customer and determine what resources are available to your organization to operate successfully. And it plays an even more significant role when your organization decides to pursue digital commerce, as it is much different from the traditional, physical sales channel that most companies are used to. Selling in the physical channel has become siloed and outdated, with little diversity in sharing products. With a digital channel, you have a greater chance of meeting your customer goal due to the variety of ways you can show and promote your products online.

Digital Marketing

Personalized content is a key driver behind the commerce experience and is a strong combination of search (which we spoke briefly about earlier) and digital marketing. It’s important for both marketing and business leaders to have these aligned with one another to deliver the perfect online experience that customers are looking for. And with this comes understanding your audience and where they are on their buying journeys. When your business can review your current customer’s buying experience, take it. You might find hidden gaps or opportunities that could drastically improve the customer experience.

Customer Journeys

With your content & commerce approach, it’s important you remain customer obsessed. To become customer-obsessed, you must put the customer at the center and understand their needs, wants, and expectations. You must also understand the actions they take to engage with your business. What matters most to your customer is what you need to deliver – being customer obsessed is a business principle.

Your content and commerce approach will allow you to break down the barriers that make it difficult for customers to work with your business. Not only will that make your customers happy, but your organization will grow from it in a positive way by becoming more agile to adapt to quick-shifting events, greater at creating and maintaining customer relationships, and improving your go-to-market strategy.

OCM

Think about what you need to have in place to make everything work at all. It’s a lot to consider, and it can become overwhelming if you do not know where to start. Your organizational change management strategy (OCM) will assist you with putting a plan in place for various parts of your business, such as customer research and evaluation, requirements gathering, or technology implementation, and will later help these subjects feed into each other more naturally.

You have got to have your internal experiences aligned with each other around a strategy for any client engagement to be effectively executed. You want to create a work culture where your people feel readily prepared to accept change in a company to meet the expectations of the digital-first customer.

How Perficient Can Help You With Content & Commerce

Our content & commerce experts at Perficient have the knowledge and experience regarding implementation specifics of this very approach. Though it might vary by manufacturer, we know how to efficiently help you through this evolution incrementally through our 10-part video series.

Our content & commerce video series discusses the business and technology impacts of the approach, what steps you’ll need to take to be successful, how you can make informed decisions in your digital journey, and overall, strengthen internal processes and relationships with your customers.

Visit our content & commerce content hub for more information on the series and the concept of the approach. If you’re feeling ready to take the next steps in your content & commerce approach, then contact our experts today to set up a meeting.

We’re excited to announce that inRiver named us its North American Partner of the Year for 2020 at PIMpoint Digital on Thursday, October 7, 2021. This is an incredible recognition of our team and the hard work and collaboration they contribute each day.

Our Relationship with inRiver

Prior to this award, we were named inRiver’s 2014 Partner of the Year and 2018 Emerging Partner of the Year. Our team of product information management (PIM) experts provides consultation, architecture recommendations, and the development of integrations. Many of our PIM team members are inRiver certified.

We have partnered with inRiver to provide manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to provide a variety of services to clients such as strategic guidance, platform integration, application support, technical development, consulting, and hosting services.

Learn more about our partnership with inRiver today.

From 2020 to 2021, the global automotive aftermarket size grew from $380 to $408 billion in revenue.

It’s expected to grow at the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8% and reach a forecast revenue of $529 billion by 2028.

There are two primary segments in this market, automotive replacement part suppliers and service enablers. With the digitization of these segments and the enablement of ecommerce stores (distributor portals), it’s expected that global expansion and investment in this sector will continue to rise.

The COVID-19 lockdown has impacted the product demand within this industry. The demand for commercial vehicle parts has started to decline whereas the demand for used vehicles and aftermarket auto parts has increased. It’s projected that the recovery of the automotive parts supply and demand will not be a typical V-shape as in the previous financial crisis, but rather a gradual recovery until 2025. This pandemic has brought some new factors that are the cause for this slow recovery, such as:

• Less vehicles on the road
• Less collisions
• Low use of public transport
• Significant increase of digital channels and ecommerce sales

With that said, let’s review one of the ways in which your company can ensure that your digital channels have the information and functionality it needs to stay ahead of the competition and support revenue goals. More specifically, does your business adopt the data formats set forth by Auto Care Association (ACA), and are there systems in place that allow cost-effective ways to aggregate and distribute rich product content to your ecommerce store and other channels? Let’s find out.

Understanding the ACA Data Standards

ACA serves the entire supply chain of the automotive aftermarket (manufacturers, distributors, and sellers). It provides advocacy, educational, networking, technology, market intelligence, and communications resources to serve the collective interests of its members. They possess expertise in each of the areas listed.

Within the ecommerce and technology space, ACA provides access to the most used standards in North America and best practices around its usage to help lower costs and increase efficiency. ACA provides the following data standards that help companies globally to communicate effectively between trading partners across the world:

• ACES – Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard
• PIES – Product Information Exchange Standard
• IPO – Internet Parts Ordering
• iShop – Integrated Shop Standard
• Super Spec

More specifically, regarding the ACES and PIES data standards, any company that wishes to do business in the Americas is required to adopt them, as well as their best practices. For this, the standard communication method adopted by all trading partners is a machine-readable XML. The benefits of using these standards are:

• Removal of duplicate communication and distribution efforts
• Saving time and cost
• Lower supply chain cost
• Increase product introduction and speed to market
• Contributes to increased sales, operational efficiencies and reduce returns

These benefits are similar to those that come with a Product Information Management (PIM) system in place. Let’s discover why.

The Importance of Utilizing a PIM to Support Data Standards

A PIM is a collection of processes supported by best practices that allow product managers, marketers, digital artists, and other key stakeholders to create, aggregate, manage, and distribute rich product content to multiple distribution channels. A PIM solution is a software application that allows users to configure workflows and perform activities such as create, aggregate, enrich, and distribute product content. It’s a collective mix of people, processes, and technology that provides the following benefits within the organization:

• Single source of truth to manage product information
• Improve data integrity and streamlined product enrichment workflows
• Improve conversions & reduce returns via integration to ecommerce channels
• Faster time to market the new and updated products
• Replacement of manual process with automated workflows and notifications

Since companies within the auto industry have to adopt the ACA data standards, it’s an extensive process to stay current and maintain data integrity. The industry is constantly updating vehicles, manufacturers, assemblies, and fitment, and coverage. Every time the data format or the rules/best practices change, the companies have to make sure to modify their internal templates and mappings to make sure they are in compliance.

Having a PIM system in place helps in managing data and costs much more efficiently and effectively. Workflows can help define tasks, accountability, and dependencies. Templates and mapping can quickly be updated within the tool and reduce exhaustive manual steps. Underlying data won’t need to get updated all the time since the field level mappings and the file formats will take care of the source to destination data accuracy.

It’s highly beneficial for companies managing the automotive aftermarket product content to leverage the power of a PIM system to bring operational efficiency, increase accuracy, and achieve faster time to market the product information onto the distribution channels. For more information about the benefits of leveraging a PIM system and your commerce strategy, download our guide, The Power of PIM: Achieve Experience-Driven Commerce With Product Information Management, and contact our PIM experts for more information.

Our product information management (PIM) experts at Perficient are dedicated to enhancing your commerce strategy by leveraging your data to produce quality product content for your users. To continuously deliver on this promise, we’re excited to announce not one, but two resources to assist your PIM strategy, our State of Product Information Analysis Assessment, and our guide, The Power of PIM: Achieve Experience-Driven Commerce With Product Information Management.

The Guide to PIM Excellency

Your customers deserve accurate product information through each step of their buying journey, making the need for an interconnected omnichannel experience that influences purchasing decisions more prevalent than ever. This means your business must shift towards an experience-driven commerce approach to successfully compete in the digital world. To support this approach, you should invest in a PIM system to enhances productivity, improves sales and marketing, manages product data, and create a better purchasing experience for your customers.

This guide touches on:

• Defining experience-driven commerce and what it means for your customers and your business
• Examining how PIM is a key pillar in your strategy to elevate your customer experience
• Exploring the value of PIM when creating experience-driven commerce throughout each stage of the buying journey
• Outlining the advantages PIM provides in not only creating that first-class customer experience, but also how it benefits your business goals

The Assessment to Analyze Your Product Data

Quality product information is an important piece to your customers’ buying journey, and if you’re lacking it, then your buyers may look elsewhere to purchase what they want or need.

That’s why we created the State of Product Information Analysis jumpstart assessment. This assessment will help you determine and understand the state of your organization’s product information and its impact on the commerce journey, as well as identify the current state of your data quality, provide recommendations on next steps, and more. This four-week engagement will help you provide up-to-date product information for all your users.

After four weeks, you’ll receive:

• An audit analysis
• A data scorecard
• Options to move forward with assistance in correcting issues
  • Data cleansing
  • System or process improvements
  • Product content prioritization and necessary resources
• Conversion lift and cross-sell
• Better commerce experience for your end consumer

Enhance Your Commerce Strategy, Invest in PIM

At Perficient, our PIM experts are passionate about helping you create a commerce strategy that benefits your buyers by leveraging the power of PIM. You can learn more about the value of PIM and how it supports an experience-driven commerce approach by downloading our guide, or contacting our experts for more information on getting started with our PIM jumpstart.