Industrial manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers are facing increasing pressure to go digital, as B2B buyers are looking for more D2C-like experiences while researching and buying products. Digitizing the way product content is created and shared is top of the digital transformation agenda.
But how do you achieve content syndication that’s quick, easy, accurate, and compliant with all of your partners’ and channels’ requirements. Automated product content syndication is the answer.
Alexandra “Sasha” Maximova is Productsup’s product evangelist for our product content syndication solution. We caught up with Sasha to talk about the importance of modern, automated product content syndication for industrial manufacturers and distributors.
Q: Why is industrial product content in higher demand than ever at the moment?
Sasha: “Industry is going digital. The words “digital transformation” have been with us for a long time now, but the global pandemic injected new urgency into such projects and made it very clear why companies need to go digital quickly. Digitization of information flows, order flows, and intra-industry communication is a matter of survival now.
“At the same time, it’s not just that things have moved online for the most part, it’s also that the trade landscape is getting more and more complex. It’s no longer enough to sell via five large distributors. The route to market is now very much omnichannel, which means that a manufacturer has to manage relationships with lots of wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and more and more digital channels such as Amazon, Mercateo, and so on.”
“The market’s growing complexity means that the demand for product data is growing very fast, and there are tons of different requirements to comply with that are also changing all the time."
Q: Why did product content syndication need to evolve from the traditional methods to what is now possible?
Sasha: “Increasingly, business is done online, so product content has to be easily available online as well, so companies using your products can plan their projects and figure out what they need to buy.
“The market’s growing complexity means that the demand for product data is growing very fast, and there are tons of different requirements to comply with that are also changing all the time. Traditional processes of distributing product content can’t support this complexity anymore, that’s why modern product content syndication tools such as Productsup are required. The goal is to make the product content syndication process much faster, easier, and more forgiving to constant change.”
Q: What are the main things PIM executives and data managers should look for from their product content syndication tool?
Sasha: “Individual business needs vary, but these are the main must-haves for convenient, agile product content syndication:
“Your tool should cover all, or a vast majority, of the data exports and channels you require globally, so you can centralize capabilities and simplify the go-to-market process for product data.
“It should be a business-user focused self-service tool, that’s easy and flexible enough to allow you to create your own simple data exports on the fly within minutes.
“It should be able to meet the demands of future data exports that can’t be predicted yet. In other words, it should offer basic building blocks to enable you to build any kind of data exports you’ll need going forward.
“It should also offer good connectivity options to all the systems that hold your organization’s product data, such as your PIM and ERP.
"Productsup helps organizations centralize and govern their data, while giving local teams the tools they need - and are actually able to use - to create data exports quickly for any recipient.”
Q: And finally, why is Productsup so powerful as a product syndication platform?
Sasha: “The most important advantage of Productsup is that it’s a solution that covers the entirety of product content go-to-market needs of an organization and can support all the routes, from wholesaler and distributor data needs, to BMEcat, digital channels like Amazon, and marketing channels like Google. This means organizations can centralize and govern their data, while giving local teams the tools they need - and are actually able to use - to create data exports quickly for any recipient.”
There are certain considerations that are essential if you want efficient, reliable, and agile product content syndication. Download our checklist 7 things to consider when choosing product content syndication software.