Implementation of inriver PIM

The challenges of EK Group

Because EK Group deals with a large number of different fashion brands, it is a big challenge to manage product information accurately. Over the past few years, it has become increasingly clear to EK Group that the more complete the information around a product is, the greater the chance of selling it. When product data is not complete, timely available, or irrelevant to a consumer, this can be a reason to disengage. Time to review the process around product information management.

Different systems

Up until that point, the product information was stored in various systems and files: ERP, e-commerce platforms, and Excel files. This made it difficult to identify essential data and it was unclear which product information was correct, most up-to-date, and complete. Additionally, introducing new products, along with associated marketing content, was a lengthy process consisting largely of manual tasks. Plenty of reasons to look for a Product Information Management (PIM) solution.

Requirements

In the search for a suitable PIM system for EK Group, several requirements were set out:

• It must be a SAAS solution;
• It must be scalable;
• It must be easily accessible;
• The investment should not be larger than other solutions;
• The system must always have the latest version;
• It must be an international solution.

Inriver PIM

EK Group quickly arrived at the solution from the Swedish company inriver: the inriver Product Marketing Cloud. A multi-tenant SaaS solution known for, among other things, its user-friendliness, retail focus, and attention to conversion-driven product marketing. Combine this with good references, international orientation, relatively low investment costs, and the option for elastic scaling, and the choice for inriver is quickly made.

Thanks to the recommendation from inriver, the largest number of inriver implementations in the Benelux, the good references, and the detailed scope description, XSARUS was chosen to implement inriver PIM at EK Group.

The implementation

Prior to the implementation, there were some concerns about migrating the existing data to the new PIM solution. Data had to be transferred from the ERP system, from various types of e-commerce platforms, and from a large number of Excel files into the new system. Fortunately, a good data model was established in advance through workshops, making the entire process increasingly transparent. The final migration of all data went very well. With automated links to various systems, migrating new information now goes entirely automatically.

Results

The introduction of the inriver Product Marketing Cloud saves EK Group a considerable amount of time. Thanks to connections with, among others, the datapools of GS1 Fashion Base, Stockbase, and Fashion Cloud, product information is automatically sent to the PIM. As a result, an employee now has to perform significantly fewer actions to complete product data. This also enables EK Group to offer a wider range of products and make them ready for sale more quickly. Products sent from inriver to the EK Group e-commerce platform are also immediately published on many different webshops of EK Group members. This means that all product information on the various webshops is now uniform and even more complete.

There is also no need to search for the most up-to-date data anymore. There's only one central source that contains the truth about product information. This has made the quality control of data much simpler.

GS1 data model

EK Group is part of the leading group of GS1 Fashion Base. In this role, it contributes to shaping and accepting the GS1 Fashion data standard.

EK Group supplies data for its own brands to Fashion Base in the GS1 standard. As a purchasing organisation, EK Group consumes data in the GS1 standard from GS1 Fashion Base, Stockbase, and Fashion Cloud. Both processes now run through inriver Product Marketing Cloud.