Managing Complexity

In brief: Complexity increases as product ranges, variants, languages, channels, customer groups and product relationships grow. A PIM system makes this complexity manageable by keeping all information structured in one place and automatically preparing it for each channel.

Where complexity comes from

• More products and variants: broader product ranges, shorter product lifecycles, customisation.
• More channels: your own online shop, marketplaces, retailer portals, print, apps and AI assistants.
• More markets: languages, units of measurement, country-specific approvals.
• More customer segments: dedicated product ranges and pricing for B2B, B2C and key accounts.
• More requirements: sustainability information, Digital Product Passport, packaging data.

How PIM helps

A PIM system separates data from its output. Information is maintained once and prepared for each channel, language and target audience using rules. Inheritance reduces the number of places where data needs to be maintained, workflows distribute the work, and validation rules ensure quality. As a result, the workload grows much more slowly than the product range.

Example

A manufacturer with 2.000 products in 12.000 variants supplies 15 countries, three marketplaces and 400 specialist retailers. Without PIM, this requires dozens of Excel spreadsheets. With PIM, there is a single data set from which all outputs are generated automatically.

See also

• Long tail
• Channels
• Relationships
• Variants, items and SKU
• PIM benefits