Composable PIM

Product Information Management

PIM is essential in composable commerce. However, increasing customer requirements are pushing rigid architectural concepts of monolithic PIM systems to their limits. Time to take a closer look at Composable PIM.

Gartner says: “By 2026 the speed of digital innovation will improve by 60%, relative to 2022, for organizations that have established mechanisms to reuse composable digital commerce modules.”,see “Predicts 2023: Digital sales excellence protects the bottom line in uncertain economic times”. What is meant is that a Composable Architecture enables companies to adopt a best-of-breed strategy to use the best available technology for each process. The resulting flexibility and scalability, in turn, helps companies meet all requirements: Optimize operations, reduce costs, and drive innovation to remain competitive.

Although PIM systems have long not been considered part of a composable architecture, PIM systems are now catching up and are also available as composable PIM. One of the main reasons is that PIM systems form the basis for a successful digital commerce strategy. This is because the need for action to adapt agilely to market trends while continuously delivering the optimal product content will remain in the future. Another driver for Composable PIM is that Gartner predicts that by 2025, compatibility will be one of the main goals or requirements in more than 50% of new digital spending decisions.

What is Composable PIM?

Composable PIM systems provide a flexible selection of core functions or components to map customer-specific PIM use cases. Compared to a traditional PIM, a Composable PIM creates a targeted focus that enables companies to achieve top performance in their respective PIM use cases. Composable PIM gives companies the ability to incorporate best-of-breed applications such as digital asset management, data quality, hierarchy management, and supplier onboarding alongside broader solutions such as order management, pricing, and campaign management. With such applications and solutions, companies can deliver the content, data and functionality they need to meet their unique requirements.

What do I need to consider with Composable PIM?

By choosing a Composable PIM, companies get a forward-looking application that is able to anticipate change, drive innovation, and ensure the best possible product experience. Nevertheless, companies should not underestimate the complexity of a completely decoupled ecosystem. Each tool comes with an implementation time commitment and requires technical skills to properly integrate and use. In addition, the business problems that can be solved with Composable must be identified in advance.

Summary

Of course, the possibilities that can be achieved with a Composable solution are almost unlimited. But just because it’s possible to implement Composable PIM doesn’t necessarily mean it should be implemented. If, on the other hand, we look at the holistic solutions, they have their raison d’être, also for technical reasons. The individual building blocks are coordinated so that they work seamlessly together. Therefore, it is not possible to give a blanket answer as to which approach is the better one. Groups that have an existing, established IT infrastructure or companies with low requirements can certainly also operate product experience management with an all-in-one PIM solution.

Nevertheless, PIM – whether traditional or composable remains the foundation for data and analytics managers’ composable commerce architecture strategy.

Click here for the Gartner article on Composable PIM. In the article published by Gartner, apollon is also among the PIM vendors that support the composable approach. Get to know our OMN PIM.