PIM Accelerator

The Great Product Information Management Challenge

Enterprises implement Product Information Management (PIM) systems in order to create and maintain an accurate, timely and complete view of the product – across multiple sources of product data in multiple applications, systems and databases – and to publish it in a variety of formats and media. Usually, the challenge to maintain this "single version of the truth" is very great because these product "information silos" are located in multiple offices, channels, and enterprises. Within and between systems, there are multiple naming conventions and classifications, along with redundancies, inconsistencies, errors, and omissions.

While PIM software solves many of the data integration and management issues, sharing information between systems in a reliable, useful way is still very problematic due to a host of issues. Even when using a PIM system, sales channel difficulties, operational failures, and unreliable reporting are typical. Why is this?

Connecting these disparate systems and sharing data between them is only part of the challenge. Understanding the underlying meaning of the product information and then synchronizing the record- and field-level data between systems to obtain a correct, complete and synchronized "single version of the truth" useful for all business purposes is the key to a successful PIM implementation effort. This is where Zoomix comes in.

Without a comprehensive solution to data content problems within the PIM, the following problems are likely to occur:

• New online selling initiatives are hampered by the inability to define and maintain a single product catalog that can be sold across regions.
• Price variances between invoices and purchase orders will creep in, leading to costly reworks in the form of protracted renegotiations.
• Delays due to manual processes that slow down new item introductions.
• Inefficiencies in settling prices, trading funds and settling promotions.
• Reduced service levels and in-store availability because of poor integration between applications and companies, resulting in increased costs as definitions among systems differ.
• A company sells products under different names in different regions.
• Brand managers are unable to get information about the performance of the products they manage.
• Financial managers are unable to measure and analyze profitability across products.
• The situation worsens as new acquisitions expand the product portfolio.

Zoomix Accelerator™ — A Faster, Smarter Approach

Zoomix Accelerator offers enterprises a fast and highly-automated track to achieving PIM data excellence and its resulting business benefits. The product combines advanced semantic and linguistic analysis with machine learning to automatically and accurately classify, match and standardize complex and highly-variable product data. Patent-pending Self-Learning Technology allows the software to learn, understand, and correct any type of complex product data on the fly.

The technology, easily integrated into existing applications and workflows, begins delivering business benefits immediately while obviating the need for large-scale pre-deployment projects. No manual rules development is required, and the software continues to learn and improve its accuracy in the background, by "observing" decisions made by business users as they go about their routine work.

Zoomix Accelerator dramatically enhances any PIM system by providing advanced data correction functionality lacking from these systems, such as:

• Auto-classification to any standard taxonomy (UNSPSC, e-Class, GS1, ETIM or custom)
• Matching and de-duplication within and between different applications and systems, even with wildly varying formats and terminologies
• Accurate attribute extraction from free-text product descriptions
• Consistent and standardized product records from structured and semi-structured data
• Automatic identification of functional equivalents

Sample In-line Application: Consolidation of Supplier Data