ETIM Meet-Up: Kick-Off PIM and ETIM

Last Thursday was the Kick-Off of the series of interactive ETIM Knowledge Sessions organized by Squadra and Ketenstandaard. The goal of these knowledge sessions is to share knowledge, and the plan is to do this on a regular basis to form a community of parties in the construction and installation industry. Kyra Hubert-Blankenstein, manager Education and Events at Ketenstandaard, moderated this first knowledge session in which the speakers told attendees about market developments and the relationship to standards, such as ETIM, and the challenges around Product Information Management (PIM). The session was primarily intended for people who actually deal with data, classify ETIM data, or work with PIM systems. This is also why these sessions are most interesting for manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. However, it appears that there is also a need for such knowledge exchange among software parties. Therefore, a separate session for this target group will be organized soon.

Introduction of Chain Standard and Squadra  

Jeroen van der Holst, Manager ETIM at Ketenstandaard, started the session with an introduction about Ketenstandaard. Ketenstandaard Bouw en Techniek is the organization within the construction and engineering sector that aims to promote digitization in the construction and installation chain through the management and development of standards. Jeroen stated that a standard is only a standard if everyone accepts it and it is therefore widely supported. Chain Standard tries to promote the process at every stage of the construction process, from initiative to demolition and reuse, somewhere with a standard.

Jos Schreurs, co-founder and partner at Squadra, took over from Jeroen, and first gave a brief introduction about Squadra. Squadra is a group of about 50 professionals divided into several knowledge-oriented units, two of which focus on Master Data Management (MDM) and PIM. Squadra MDM is in fact the management consultancy branch, supporting other companies in drawing up and executing a PIM and MDM strategy, in choosing the right systems, and in implementing these systems. MDM Factory are more the “doers” and really focus on setting up the systems, and they do that for a wide variety of PIM systems.

Developments in the Market  

After introducing both companies, it was time to delve deeper into market developments. Jos and Jeroen talked more about some of the changes in the world, with (product) data being the foundation of the developments.

Disruptive Developments are Changing the Economy  

Think of disruptive companies such as Uber, Airbnb, or marketplaces such as Amazon, Alibaba or Bol.com  . These companies and their new business models and new techniques, such as machine learning, are changing the market. Due to the fact that these companies offer a huge assortment, product data can no longer be entered manually. In fact, these types of online companies are no longer limited by store or shelf space, and can offer an infinite assortment, so to speak. New techniques support these companies in data analysis, unlocking product data through the chain, intelligently receiving data, automatically enriching data, automatically performing quality checks, and ensuring that even when using data standards, uniqueness is still maintained.

Digitization Goes Beyond eCommerce  

Digitization in the past was often about a web shop, but today it goes throughout the entire company. From data coming in to companies to the PIM processes and the disclosure to customers and the market.

Digitization is irreversible and it has become clear that leaders and followers are currently differentiating themselves from each other. Leaders are showing that the growth of a business is largely driven by digitalization. So, do you want to be successful in your business as a manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer or contractor? Then you will have to start embracing digitizations. In doing so, it is not bad to be a follower, as there are now a lot of predecessors you can learn from.

Customer is More and More Central  

The customer is becoming more and more central, even with suppliers, for example. Previously, people thought in terms of a set of products and how to sell them. Nowadays, more and more parties are thinking from the customer perspective. What do our customers need? How can we approach them? Which channels are available for this?

There is no longer one channel where you communicate with your customer. There are more and more channels where you need product data, think of product data on your web platform, in your catalogs, or promotional processes. This data must be the same everywhere, otherwise customers will consider you unreliable.

Sustainability and Circularity  

Sustainability and circularity have now become business success factors. There is a huge growing demand for (product) data that focuses on product characteristics such as a product’s impact on the environment. Products, and thus product characteristics are changing, think for example of the sustainability characteristics of a refrigerator. It must be possible to filter on these kinds of product characteristics by buyers, and so providers must have this data in good order.

Building Information Modeling (BIM).  

BIM has to do with design drawings and associated data in the construction and installation industry. The idea is to provide all designs from all contractors in one place. Indeed, this can provide a huge error reduction and efficiency in the construction process. Implementing this is difficult, but standards such as ETIM can play an important role here.

Laws and Regulations  

There are actually two important issues for this topic, namely the European Parliament and the Building Quality Assurance Act. According to the European Parliament, a company must have an energy label for a number of products, for example, and the requirements for this have been tightened. At ETIM, this means that companies are asking for data linked to new directives requested by the European Parliament. The Building Quality Assurance Act ensures that contractors will soon be responsible for the quality of the construction work. The contractor must therefore be able to demonstrate the quality and have it tested, and files will have to be supplied full of product data.

The Challenges of PIM  

Later, Jos Schreurs talked more about the challenges with product data. More and more product data has to go through the chain. For about 25 years now, a lot of attention has been paid to the flow of goods, the order flow and the financial flow, i.e. the world of ERP. This means that there are often already clear agreements between manufacturers and distributors and between distributors and retailers about these flows. However, since about 10 years there is actually a new flow, that of product data, and it actually moves through the same value chain.

Data exchange in the value chain is challenging. This is because different data languages arise because different parties deliver their data in different formats. This creates a certain data chaos in the chain. So there is a great need for standardization and more structure in this chaos. Standards such as ETIM and GS1 play an important role in this because they ensure that only one data language is spoken, so to speak. So, data standards and data pools are hugely important as a foundation for digitization, however, these often do not have all the data you might need as a retailer. Further, this data also needs to be stored, and one finds that ERP systems are often not adequate enough for rich product data. This creates the need for a PIM system in many companies.

ETIM can help to unlock the data in the chain, but what data are we talking about? All data from your entire assortment must be stored in your PIM system, including: product master data, logistics data, structure data, rich product information, digital assets, product references, marketing information, eCommerce, and price information. PIM systems support the effective collection, management, and distribution of complete, quality product information. This enables a company to move from a fragmented landscape of data on desktops, shared drives, ERP systems, and CRM systems to a 360-degree PIM solution, or a “single version of the truth.” Want to know more about PIM? In cooperation with Thuiswinkel, Squadra has developed an e-learning where you will learn what PIM is, what PIM can mean for your organization, what you should pay attention to when implementing PIM, and whether PIM is a good choice for your company!

Questions for Attendees  

Peter Pottinga, associate at Squadra, created a survey prior to the session to find out what issues and questions were on the minds of the attendees.

The first question was about the biggest PIM challenges at play among attendees, and it turns out that the biggest challenge is that product information must be correct and the same everywhere in the company. Another challenge for many was meeting the wide variety of product information needs of customers.

The second question was about what ETIM currently means to attendees, and it turns out that for over a quarter for attendees, ETIM is not that important now but will be in the (near) future. Furthermore, many used the ETIM standard at the request of our customers, or it was one of the many standards the company is dealing with.

Finally, there was a question where attendees could indicate what topics they would like to cover in the follow-up Meet-Ups. So we are going to fill in the topics for the next Meet-Ups with the input of the attendees. The dates of these follow-up meet-ups are already known, namely: July 8, September 9, October 14, November 11 and December 9 at 4:00 pm.