IT manager guides the success of your PIM project

Mastering product data is no longer a luxury; it is the key to profitable growth.

As sales channels explode and product data management becomes ever more complex, your success depends largely on the quality of the information system that underpins your business.

And at the heart of this success, there is a strategic player that is too often underestimated: the IT Manager.

This post deciphers why the IT Manager is the keystone of a PIM (Product Information Management) project efficient, the concrete challenges of such an approach, and how to guarantee a sustainable, secure and truly useful deployment with the right methodology.

Understanding the challenge: why product data is at the heart of the competition

With the rise of e-commerce and the multiplication of contact points (website, marketplaces, applications, physical points of sale...), the control of product data has become strategic. Consumers expect accurate, consistent, and up-to-date information across all channels, which requires:

• A rapid marketing of the product offer.
• The ability to ensure consistent and reliable data across every channel.
• Agility in the face of the demand for contextual or personalized information.

But without a well-integrated PIM, businesses quickly end up with fragmented processes, duplicates, or worse: flawed data that hampers sales and damages brand image.

PIM, a real IT challenge (much more than a marketing subject)

The frequent mistake would be to entrust the PIM only to marketing or e-commerce teams. In reality, a successful product information management system is essentially based on technical integration:

• The PIM, a crossroads of information flows : it dialogues with the ERP, the CRM, the e-commerce platform, the DAM, and other building blocks of the IS.
• Robust and automated architecture : to avoid re-entries and ensure safe and rapid exchanges, data flows must be automated.
• Interoperability : the tool must speak the language of all existing jobs and systems.

Here, the IT Manager asserts his leadership by guaranteeing technical consistency, security and overall performance.

The 4 major roles of the IT Manager for a successful PIM project

Conductor of the digital ecosystem

• Information System Mapping : analyze information flows, connections between tools, points of friction.
• Technical choices : preferred API, exchange formats, compliance with internal or sectoral standards.
• Connection with business tools existing, to avoid silos and bottlenecks.

Guarantor of data quality and security

• Structuring the data : modeling, common taxonomy and shared frameworks.
• Data governance : definition of rights, validation process and management of user roles.
• Security and compliance : RGPD compliance, traceability, auditability, access management and protection against data loss or leak.

Facilitator between teams

• Interface between marketing, product, e-commerce and technology : the IT Manager translates functional needs into technical requirements, and vice versa.
• Support for change : popularization, training and active listening to optimize the adoption of new tools.

Implementation and deployment pilot

• Integrations monitoring to ensure the right synchronization between The PIM and the whole IS.
• Management of test phases, recipes and validations before the switch to production.
• Documentation and skills transfer to make the company truly autonomous after the project.

4 key factors for the success of an IT-driven PIM project

• Involve IT from the start : involving the IT Manager in strategic choices from the early stage, to anticipate technical and business challenges.
• Choosing a modular and scalable PIM (for example, SolidPepper), capable of integrating and growing with the company's ambitions.
• Promote transversal collaboration between all stakeholders: IT, marketing, digital, digital, purchasing, product management...
• Manage by data : set up clear KPIs to measure the quality, reliability and performance of the product information system.

Going further: a PIM is not a simple tool, but a strategic lever

A well-managed PIM project fits the company's overall strategy. It is not an end in itself but the essential building block that guarantees agility, compliance and performance over the long term.

The IT Manager is the guarantor:

• It secures and makes data exchanges reliable.
• It ensures that the solution integrates sustainably, without friction or hidden additional costs.
• It helps the company to take full advantage of product data, in the service of growth.

🎯 Are you starting a PIM project?

With SolidPepper, you benefit from an expert team that actively cooperates with your IT Managers to ensure a smooth, secure deployment that is perfectly aligned with your business challenges.

Contact us to find out how to transform your product data management into a competitive advantage.

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