DATA DEVELOPMENT NBG PROMOTES PIM


Data is everything and NBG’s Rex Nye talks about why the group is looking into developing a Product Information Management model


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n the understanding that successful data management begins with quality data, NBG is developing a system that will bring standardised data from all its Suppliers into the back offices of all its Partners. It’s called PIM: Product Information Management.


NBG Board Member Rex Nye announced the development to Suppliers and Partners at the Supplier Summit. “PIM is software. It’s Excel sheets. It’s the collaboration of everything to do with products. It’s about getting the data that we need in the format we need it in so that everyone has the same information.” Nye explains that looking up the same product on the websites of two different merchants often yields completely different information, because the data that is given to one merchant can be completely different to what is given to another, even though it is the same product.


“We always try to get product information as up to date as possible and then six months later you find that the data has changed and the product has changed but no-one has got the updated information. Or some people have and some people haven’t. It creates confusion, extra work and, more importantly, lack of sales.


“As merchants and NBG Partners we are having this issue on a day to day basis and it is a complete waste of our time that could be more productively spent selling,” he says. “We are losing these hours by working with imagery and price information and product details that are not consistent.


“That’s why NBG is launching an initiative to compile a data system that’s compatibe with everyone because it’s all in the same format. Our NBG PIM is going to be the one place that a Partner can go to get the right information about a product. The PIM will provide every piece of information you need as a merchant and every piece of information that you as a manufacturer need your merchant customers to have.”


Nye explains that the PIM is a two way interaction leading to a streamlined approach to everything they will need without having to ask for it all over again. “This is what we are trying to set up. But


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we do need the suppliers to help. We need to know the names of all the systems people and the marketing people in all of the suppliers’ organisations so that we can target the right people to get the right information. “In essence, in its most simplistic form, this is the cultivation of all aspects of data between suppliers and merchants, making for a streamlined approach to keeping product data updated, relevant and easy to access for people who need it in order to sell that product.” .


Supply chain optimisation Nye says that data management systems like the PIM are important because this is the 21st


it. We need them to understand the gains they will get from working with us on it. It’s quite obvious the gains that the merchants will get but it’s the advantages for suppliers that are important. We will have access to Suppliers’ data and their products. We need that information to be able to sell properly and profitably. We can’t sell it if we don’t know about it.”


We need help from


Suppliers to get this started. We need them to be invested in this product. We need them to understand the gains they get from this system.


century and data is vital. The speed at which trading in the merchant sector now operates is what makes accurate data so vital, he adds. “To be able to access that correct data we need more and more of it. But it has to be in the right format, in the same format as everyone else. These days you phone one person up to get some information about a product and they tell you one thing. You ring that office 10 minutes later and someone else tells you something different, simply because you have asked the question in a different way.”


Supplier support


NBG cannot set up the system alone, Nye continues. It needs the help and support of suppliers. “We need our Suppliers to be invested in this product. and where we want to go with


Suppliers have rich digital assets but it is hard to get that across to all the merchants in the same format that all Partners can access and read. That, Nye says, is what the PIM will do: create the correct format for everyone across the group.


“It becomes the standard, the translator if you like, of the data. PIM operates as a one- to-many process. The Supplier will update their product information and, rather than 86 NBG members each ringing up and asking for the latest changes and then each going away and inputting that in a different way, that information will be immediately accessible to the merchants who can download it and manipulate it how they want. Suppliers are saving time because they are no longer getting those 86 phone calls. Merchants are saving time and maximising their sales opportunities because each of them at their point of sale will have as many SKUs available that are on the PIM rather than what is in their store. The merchant can sell extra products and it opens up what a merchant is offering.


“They can sell their customers products or variations on products that they have never sold before because the information is there, accessible and accurate. It really has to be the way forward and at NBG we are really excited about what it could mean for our Partners and Suppliers and how we work together in the future.”


January 2020


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