An impending reality of big data poses an imperative question that organizations must answer: how do I relate and centralize disparate sources of data (such as product, customer, and location data) that require massively different data modeling approaches?
Gartner and Forrester have stated that Product Information Management is considered a foundational technology to driving an e-commerce experience. But in the rapidly evolving digital space, foundational is not enough: how can organizations engage with and sell to customers in a completely personalized approach by leveraging disparate and diverse data?
This technology exists now in the form of Master Data Management solutions.
MDM platforms are geared towards taking different data points and creating “realms” that can be correlated. By doing so, you can take the data points, model them, and create powerful, persistent relationships for products, customers and locations.
This enables one of the biggest advantages of digital transformation: to allow for diverse data to be grouped and processed in a centralized location.
With analytics capabilities evolving dramatically, being able to correlate cost functions to product, location and customer can provide businesses invaluable insights to how each of these realms can affect the overall customer experience.
The transition from the knowledge needed to effectively model product content taxonomies and attribution design to other realms is not as daunting as it seems. The core of data relies on the key parameters (attributes) that describe what we are looking at.
Being able to then transition these modeling activities to customers is a function of understanding what key values are required to inform a business decision.
Take smart bulbs as an example. The information we gather from usage and customer type become supplemental and integral to the product itself, informing how and when a bulb is expected to expire and providing the customer insight into when it would be best for them to replace it.
We are then able to link that data point to the location, whether digital or physical, to provide a further point of contact in simplifying where the product can be found.
Henry Pezzo, Account Executive - Technology Solutions at CodifydTwenty years ago, most of us would have never thought that digital product content would be as essential as it is now. The truth is that as we move into blurring the line of the real world and digital touch points, successful organizations are going to be those that, like Amazon, understand the direction and technology that will be foundational in 10 years. In my mind, Master Data Management is the birth of such an endeavor.
As an Account Executive (Technology Solutions), Henry Pezzo helps clients understand the complex product information management ecosystem. With his in-depth knowledge of product content and e-commerce processes, he works closely with the PIM/MDM team at Codifyd to ensure clients' business and technical needs are met through the appropriate solutions.
