Business today depends on information. As a result information management, and product information management in particular, have become as important as people management and cash management. In all three cases, poor controls and poor management lead directly to lost revenue.
For example, many organizations have implemented eProcurement and have not seen the intended return on investment.
Simply stated, product content is the fuel that drives the eProcurement engine. The engine can be as powerful and efficient as you could want. But if it's out of gas, it serves no purpose.
The Need For Good Content
In the supply chain world, product information management sits squarely between buyers and sellers. Both depend on good product content for efficient eCommerce.
Why? Without good content, eProcurement users can't find what they need either because the data doesn't exist or it can't be found when descriptions are bad or incomplete. Either way, if searches turn up no result, the user makes an off-catalog buy at a higher price for something that was or should have been available at a preferred price. This creates lost revenue in the form of higher costs.
Poor content also affects suppliers and manufacturers who sell their products online. If their catalog content is bad and buyers go elsewhere to find what they need, they lose the entire sale. If not corrected or managed, this leads to not just lost revenues, but eventually to loss of market share.
