Product Information Management (PIM)

Product Information Management (PIM) is the process, techniques and technology of gaining control over a company's product marketing information. The objective of PIM solutions is to remove inefficiency in the marketing supply chain by delivering information to sales channels more quickly and with fewer mistakes. There is a close relationship between Product Information Management and Digital Asset Management, but there are some crucial differences also. In a PIM system, the taxonomy, metadata and user interface will be heavily oriented around the products that the business offers with each asset being directly associated with an SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) or model/part number. PIM systems are evidently most effective in sectors where hundreds of different types of products may be offered, for example: retailers, consumer electronics and certain types of manufacturing or FMCG. A common factor of most PIM systems is their ability to integrate with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as SAP.