This is a second round of a series of posts regarding the difference between PIM and MDM. In the first installment, I briefly highlighted the “functional” differences by emphasizing the consolidation of data (e.g. create the golden record, identity resolution, data quality, etc.) across the enterprise to feed transactional systems with “good” data as the primary target of MDM initiatives while PIM fills the need to author product-related commercial data to feed customer touch-points such as catalogs, web shops, and so forth.
Granted, very high level strokes but I reckon a good beginning for a marketing-free conversation about PIM and MDM. In fact, I want to start this second round with a note of appreciation. I really like Michele Goetz’s MDM and PIM insights over her blog at Forrester (great name, no relation and much better looking!)
Now, the same Michele Goetz recently posted a brief piece to introduce the new Forrester report about PIM.
Michele aptly points out that “PIM is not always a well understood master data solution option” and warns us that “[q]uestions arise about, do I need PIM or MDM or do both? Aren't PIM and Product MDM the same? How does this fit in my architecture?” She finally reassures us that the report “takes away the confusion, answers these questions.”
The other important aspect covered by the report is the difference in target audience. MDM and PIM are recognized to be two different solutions with the former targeting business and the latter technology management teams.
Target Audience
Let’s start analyzing the latter aspect first, namely, the differences in target audience. Generally, MDM solutions are the concern of data management professionals, given that they are the “obvious extensions of their data management tools, such as extract-transform-load (ETL), data quality, and metadata management, and help them with data integration demands.” In other words, IT teams tend to be the typical user of MDM although, as the report singles out, “data professionals in business operations are also common users.”, which basically means that MDM works within IT infrastructure but – ideally – supporting business units as well. I agree wholeheartedly here – just wants to add that most MDM programs budget comes from IT, which is very telling.
On the other hand, “PIM addresses the dynamic nature of constructing and reconstructing compelling packages and offers in an environment that nontechnical user can work in.” This naturally positions PIM with business where many business roles are involved with product information, from marketing, sales, operations and finance to manufacturing and distribution. Each has reasons to ensure the consistency of product information across strategic customer touch-points. Actually, a Ventana benchmark research finds that 57% of organisations are willing to make a business case for PIM in order to improve customer satisfaction, a typical concern of business units. Again, I wholeheartedly agree with Forrester perspective here.
Functional Differences
In the previous installment, I provided a brief overview of the functional role of MDM and PIM. The Forrester report helps us digging into it further. The report doesn’t give a robust capability definition of MDM, though. After all it’s a report about PIM. However, the crux of the matter lies in this quote:
Critical [MDM] capabilities are data integration, multidomain data modeling, data quality and matching, data governance, metadata management, and multiplatform support (i.e., RDBMS, Hadoop/NoSQL, applications, etc.).
End quote. It also provides a more specific definition of Product MDM (or MDM for Product), supposedly the source of much confusion around these solutions. Here it is:
[Product MDM is] A business capability specifically focused on identifying trusted product data and then leveraging that data to improve product-data dependent business processes and decisions.
End quote. Finally, there's a statement which I found a little muddled because it doesn't perfectly align with the overall point that the report is trying to make:
Yes, you can model products in an MDM solution, but the tool set is not well suited for business users (brand marketers, product managers), plus PIM solutions have a niche set of capabilities tailored to the specifics of managing products...
End quote. Let’s turn to PIM now.
The report informs us that the critical PIM capabilities are “product visualization, workflow management, discrete and mass product updates and refreshes, and seamless integration with content tools (content management, digital asset management, print, eCommerce, etc.) for product definitions/bundles and workflow.”
By no means an exhaustive list. More importantly, though, I’d suggest looking at PIM not as a set of functionality but rather as a discipline to manage, streamline, and implement product-related business processes.
From this perspective, a more meaningful way to “functionally” define PIM would be by providing the product-related processes that PIM encapsulate. Granted, not all the incarnations of PIM will manifest the same degree of emphasis on all the processes but that’s the point of having a robust definition of what PIM is in the first place!
Here are the top processes that I see as inherent in any respectable PIM implementation (not in a particular order):
- Category Management
- Classification and attribute management
- Product assortment management
- Publication management
- Product data on-boarding
- Product enrichment and releantionships
- Asset management
The point of all this, however, is that the war on functionality is fruitless. PIM was born to solve business problems and business problems are multifaceted.
For example, a retailer’s strategy may encompass the need to increase the product range across all sales channels, others may be interested in optimizing the feed to transactional systems, or plainly increase time to market. These are just few amongst many business problems that PIM solves. However, not all the PIM are created equals! And this is where analysts’ rankings e.g. Quadrants, Waves, etc. fail to capture. Their assessment emphasizes and ranks the functionality as opposed to evaluate the fit against real business scenarios.
Conclusion
The Forrester report is great when it singles out the difference in audience for MDM and PIM. It does also a fantastic job in emphasizing the value of PIM and MDM. Where it is a bit wanting is in the breadth of processes that PIM encapsulates and in showing real business scenarios where different PIM solutions would fit. It is my conviction that combining these two dimensions, processes and business scenarios, would give a better indication of which PIM platform is the most suitable in given circumstances.
Further reading: Don’t Miss the Trees for the Forrest(er).
Further reading: Don’t Miss the Trees for the Forrest(er).
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