Step-by-step: How do you organise product content creation for a larger product range?

Who actually gets involved in product content?

The third point is to identify in your organisation who, and in particular what roles or departments, are involved. Who “produces” what product content, or aspects of it? Who is responsible for all product content and its quality?

Once you’ve gone through these three steps, you’ll know what quality standard your product information needs to meet. And you can see what is needed to reach this standard.

Automation can make light work. Look for ways of improving how product content is produced.

Hint: Sketch out the product information development process. That will map out your organisation’s product process, so you can see what source and what department is involved when. You can often make efficiency improvements in this process. The best starting point is to look at what parts of the process can be automated.

A few examples: Can suppliers upload digital price lists? Are there content brokers available? Can suppliers themselves upload and optimise product information?

It may well be that the organisation can already automate a lot of the work that is currently carried out manually. Then look at what content remains to be manually created or that needs to be optimised by your organisation. What departments are still involved, in what order can they best work together? Can departments work in parallel with each other?

Save time. Research how you will carry the improvements

Look to see if you can incorporate this “product process” in your existing product management solution without a lot of customisation. If that’s not possible, it may be worth investigating the market to see if there is a PIM system that can make the process easier. With a larger array, you can quickly make out a conclusive business case. The time you save will naturally give you a shorter time to market.
You can also use the time savings to optimise your product content even more to create great product content. For, example, to increase your Internet “findability”. Potential customers will be persuaded to buy your products on the basis of your product information. Or to deepen/expand the product range.