When you’re working in any company large enough to have distinct product and sales/marketing teams, chances are good that you’re painfully familiar with the siloes that impede collaboration between these teams.
Research conducted by Propel Software found that 75% of respondents said product teams (engineering/research and development) don’t effectively collaborate with sales and marketing. And 79% said they don’t arm commercial teams with adequate product knowledge.
Those disconnects create what Propel calls a product value gap, and it’s that gap that the company aims to close with new product information management (PIM) capabilities that are being added to its product value management (PVM) platform.
Being able to establish connections through what Propel positions as a single, trusted product record should help companies capitalize on new product launches sooner and capture market opportunities faster. “It’s a clear competitive advantage when product and marketing teams work together using a continuous thread to simultaneously create products and engaging content,” said Ray Hein, CEO of Propel.
More Customer-Facing Content
With the addition of PIM functionality, Propel is looking to work with brands and manufacturers across industries, with a particular focus on fast-paced growth companies that are aiming to outpace the market through product or channel innovations, explained Tom Shoemaker, vice president of product marketing at Propel. That innovation focus could take the form of new products, new delivery methods such as subscription products, and more.
Broadly, Propel refers to its new software in the context of “seamlessly connecting product creators with customers.” Propel’s new PIM technology is designed to help companies transform technical product data into compelling, customer-facing content on the strength of the unified product record.
The software is designed to manage these functions:
- Aggregate product data: centralizing product data from disparate sources to create an accurate, trusted system of record. This includes direct connections to Propel’s PLM software and that of its ecosystem partners. Governance and related controls ensure data integrity.
- Develop classified product assortments to help customers focus on the most relevant information through robust search, attribute filtering, and list-saved views. They can also add and edit content across large groups of SKUs (stock keeping units) without duplicate entries and errors.
- Enrich product content through a scalable, flexible data model that has configurable attributes to adapt to changing product lines and channel requirements. Content can be authored and digital assets can be connected to product records with a straightforward user interface. Cross-functional workflow and content scorecards streamline launches, updates, and approvals.
- Activate product experiences in sales channels, letting users export selected categories or records for omnichannel distribution.
“We are connecting product and marketing teams in a central area where they can build up customer-facing content,” Shoemaker said.
The PIM technology is available this month from Propel.
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