In our blog, we already covered POS (Point of Sale) systems and all the nuances related to the specifics of working with such software in full detail. However, this is not the only option that may drive your sales growth and improve customer satisfaction. There are other systems that can help with the management of business products, assets, and sales more efficiently and effectively. PIM (Product Information Management) and DAM (Digital Asset Management) software are some of those systems.
Therefore, in today’s article, we want to talk more about those two and compare them a bit with POS to make sure you understand the differences between all three and have better strategic business planning. So, let’s dive into the depths of Product Information Management, Digital Asset Management, and Point-of-Sale systems.
What Drives Sales Growth?
Before exploring the special aspects of each software solution, let’s get to an understanding why even these systems matter. It is worth noting that each company strives to build a solid strategy of growing and promoting its business by including different factors, which need to be covered. Thus, the following points can be derived as the key ones:
- Investment in outsourcing teams. If your company doesn’t specialize in software development but simply provides customers with products or other services, your team won’t have time and technical expertise to develop a CRM system or other software that can improve your business processes. In this case, an IT outsourcing software development company can help and create an application with required features or modernize the one you already have;
- Ensuring your team doesn’t lack experts. Having a full team of various experts always wins over one person that is doing all the job. The more different views, experiences, and skills the team has, the better. Thus, it is possible to cover the bigger amount of tasks and spend company resources wiser;
- Content creation. High-quality content that provides value to your target audience and showcases your expertise and authority is another key factor. Make sure that the content is optimized for search engines and the keywords match your customers’ intent and pain points. It greatly helps in promoting your products;
- Establishing partnership and collaboration. It is a powerful way to drive sales growth for your business, because it can improve the process of reaching new customers, expanding your network, enhancing your reputation, and creating value for both parties. Building successful partnerships requires careful planning, communication, and execution;
- Leveraging tech and data. This factor can help you to optimize your sales processes, understand your customers better, personalize your offerings, and measure your performance. For example, you can implement a data-driven culture in your organization and utilize predictive analytics for forecasting. Adopting personalized selling based on customer data and integrating data across multiple platforms also highly impacts the sales growth.
It is clear that more than two thirds and sometimes even a half of your team’s tasks will depend on the tools and systems that are used. That is why, as a company that has a broad experience in developing software solutions, we decided to take 3 most popular systems used by companies for the growth of sales and compare them to let you better understand all their nuances.
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Finding Similarities and Differences Between All Three
PIM, DAM, and POS are systems that encourage the management of businesses’ different aspects. Depending on the type and size of a business, one or more of these systems may be beneficial to improve its performance and profitability.
PIM (Product Information Management) System
Let’s start with the PIM systems. The main goal of this type of software is to store, manage, and distribute all the information and content related to a product. The data may include the product’s attributes, description, SKUs, images and videos, prices, specifications, and so on. With the aid from such an application, it is possible to collect, enrich, and distribute this data across multiple channels, including e-commerce platforms, marketplaces, websites, internal company systems, etc. Product Information Management system is mostly ideal for businesses that have a large and dynamic product range, such as retailers, manufacturers, or e-commerce platforms.
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The system ensures data consistency and accuracy across all channels, because it is processed in real time, and optimizes the product lifecycle management. As a result, these processes ensure better cooperation between company departments and enhance the customer experience and satisfaction. So, if you need to manage a large product catalog across multiple sales channels and want to make the process more automated, PIM can be of great help.
DAM (Digital Asset Management) System
The next tool in our list is DAM software, which is able to handle all the digital assets that are not directly related to a product. They include logos, documents, images and videos, presentations, marketing materials, and more. The processes of the Digital Asset Management systems are basically centered around the digital marketing materials required for a company’s marketing campaigns. The application lends a hand in organizing, securing, and sharing these digital assets as well as to maintain brand identity. Usually, DAM is used by those businesses that have a lot of digital assets to manage and distribute, such as media companies, agencies, or educational institutions.
What differs it from PIM is that while both systems can improve the quality and consistency of the information that business shares across different channels and platforms, they have different purposes and features:
- DAM includes all digital assets of the company, while PIM covers only those that are related to the company’s product;
- Besides that, DAM is mainly used by marketing teams, while PIM fits better the tasks that the sales team or product team performs;
- Also, the key goal of DAM is to ensure brand consistency and protection. PIM, on the other hand, ensures product’s data consistency and accuracy.
POS (Point of Sale) System
Considering that we already covered this type of system earlier in our blog, let’s just look at the differences between this software and the other two. PIM, DAM, and POS are three separate tools that enhance businesses in their procedures and growth of sales:
- While PIM handles the product data that customers see before they buy and DAM deals with digital brand assets, POS helps with the transaction data management;
- PIM is mainly used by product or sales teams to optimize product information and distribution, and DAM is the tool that a marketing team uses. As for the POS system, it is mainly used by sales teams to facilitate customer service and payment;
- PIM focuses on the product information before the purchase, DAM centers around the brand content before and after the purchase, and the goal of POS is to provide customer service and deal with the payment during the purchase.
Businesses That Can Benefit From Implementing PIM, DAM, and POS
Frankly speaking, there are many business niches that can benefit from using the PIM, DAM, and POS systems. Therefore, let’s look at some examples.
Logistics
Despite the diversity in logistics software, those three tools are able to change the process to the best. Thus, a Product Information Management software supports the management and update of product data (weight, availability, location, etc.) or the creation of product labels and barcodes. DAM is able to store and manage all the digital assets related to the products (documents, invoices, receipts, contracts, or non-confidential assets) in order to use some of them in the brand campaigns later. As for POS, it can help to process sales transactions, manage deliveries, and collect customer data at physical locations or online platforms.
Electronics and gadgets
This niche involves dealing with complex and technical product information, such as specifications, features, compatibility, warranty, and more. This is where PIM is able to shine. It can assist your team in enriching and standardizing product data, creating product comparisons and bundles, and distributing product information to various platforms (e-commerce sites, marketplaces, or comparison engines). A DAM system, for example, can help to store and manage manuals, guides, tutorials, or reviews. And, POS can provide assistance in processing sales transactions, managing inventory, and collecting customer data at physical stores or kiosks.
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Education and learning
While working in this niche, you need to manage a variety of products with different attributes, such as courses, books, videos, quizzes, etc, and any education software or other systems that boost a company’s procedures are priceless. Businesses use PIM for managing and updating the data of book titles, authors, topics, levels, and so on. DAM systems are used to deal with ads campaigns, and POS is ideal when you need to process sales transactions, manage enrollments, and collect customer data.
Health and beauty
Not only booking and scheduling systems but also PIM, DAM, and POS can improve the tasks a company in this niche has to deal with. The first tool is able to manage and update product descriptions, reviews, or ratings, while the second one will be managing photos, videos, tutorials, or other digital assets. And, a POS system can help with the process of organizing sales transactions, inventory management, and collection of customer data at salons or spas.
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The Power of AI in Sales and Product Management
Considering how far the hand of Artificial Intelligence reaches nowadays, we couldn’t go past exploring the possibilities of using this technology in Product Information Management, Digital Asset Management, and POS systems. It is not a surprise that AI is able to empower many software solutions, including those we cover in today’s article. And, we see how fast it evolves offering more and more options that help to automate day-to-day processes.
According to Think with Google, 85% of shoppers stated that seeing that a product they are interested in shows pictures and description helps them better choose a brand or retailer they are ready to buy from.
To make sure that your company will be among the top customer choices, AI technologies can be used. So, let’s see how it can enhance the process and how you can benefit from it.
- AI in Product Information Management. As PIM systems are required to collect and distribute product information across multiple channels, AI can help with these procedures by automatically analyzing customer feedback, optimizing product descriptions if they don’t fit the set criteria, and personalizing product recommendations.
- AI in Digital Asset Management. In order to organize and manage digital assets more effectively, you can implement AI technologies to let it deal with tagging, categorizing, and describing digital assets. It can also greatly improve search and discovery processes by providing predictive analysis.
- AI in POS systems. If your company needs to process a huge amount of transactions daily, Artificial Intelligence is here to lend you its hand. It can also help in tracking and managing your inventory or in generating reports faster and more accurately.
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Integrating PIM, DAM, and POS into CRM or ERP
If you consider using one of these software or implement all three, it is vital to take into account the systems that you already have. In most cases, a company already uses a CRM or ERP platform, which can be the reason for many questions, including “Is it even worth it?” Foreshadowing another question, yes, it is possible to integrate PIM, DAM, and POS into CRM or ERP. It all depends on the type and compatibility of the systems. So, let’s see which benefits and challenges this decision may bring.
Benefits
- Complete and consistent view of the customer journey, from product discovery to purchase;
- Enhanced customer experience and satisfaction (by delivering personalized and relevant content and offers across multiple channels and touchpoints);
- Improved efficiency and productivity of the marketing, sales, and product teams, and streamlined workflows with eliminated data silos and duplication;
- Increased accuracy and reliability of data and reduced errors and inconsistencies.
Challenges
- Technical expertise and resources are required in order to ensure the integration is done correctly and smoothly as well as to maintain further updates;
- The process may be complex and costly if you want to ensure the integration complies with the legal and ethical standards and regulations regarding data privacy and security;
- Potential compatibility and integration issues, depending on the type and version of the systems and the availability and quality of the APIs.
Product development process is not an easy task in general, and anything that needs to be modified in some way may even be more difficult. Therefore, before integrating PIM, DAM, or POS into CRM or ERP, it is important to evaluate the needs and goals of the business, and to choose the best systems and solutions that suit your requirements and budget.
Conclusions
As you can see, Product Information Management, Digital Asset Management, and Point of Sale systems take different roles, however, all three pursue the same goal – to enhance your business processes. So, how you will use them, which of them can turn the tables, or if you are even going to use any of them at all, it is all up to you and your goals. Of course, we recommend making a thorough analysis and involving specialists to your project to be sure that they take the most out of your idea to bring it to life the way you want. Therefore, if you need help, please contact us, and our team will be glad to assist you.
