PIM and DAM Essentials Must Be Combined for True Brand Success

The results are in! Salsify was named a leading product information management (PIM) vendor and a leading digital asset management (DAM) vendor in 2018 based on user reviews on G2 Crowd. We couldn’t be happier to be recognized in both categories. This supports the trend that we've been seeing for many of the brands we work with - your systems are no longer as effective in silo. Successful brands are looking to combine PIM and DAM capabilities that function side-by-side with their syndication and analytics in order to operate quickly in today's rapidly evolving market.

According to G2 Crowd, in order to qualify for inclusion in the PIM category, a product must:

• Collect and unify product information from various, separate files into one source
• Identify and fix problematic or inconsistent data
• Automate data and e-commerce business processes
• Have a working search bar or filtering function
• Have an effective search engine
• Create and manage categories to organize products
• Push products/information out to retail, social media, marketing, or sales channels

We’ve covered additional questions you should ask a PIM vendor before making an investment. Traditional product information management (PIMs) are no longer sufficient to compete. These technologies, though better than the Excel sheets of yore, merely manage data. Product experience management is needed to support to keep pace with the constantly changing requirements of your ecommerce ecosystem. We believe it is the only way your brand will compete at scale going forward.

Similarly, G2 Crowd lists the must-have features for any vendor in the Digital Asset Management category, they are:

• Provide storage for company-wide rich media files, such as photos, sound files, and videos, as well as presentations and graphics, specifically related to company branding
• Allow users to tag assets and search for and access files as needed
• Offer tools for managing rights and permissions of media content for external use and embedding on internal or external websites 

We’ve covered how digital assets are a critical component to your ecommerce success and have made the case for combining your product information and digital asset management in the past. Now more than ever, it’s clear that your technology platforms must must enable speed and agility. The retail space today is fiercely competitive and rapidly innovating, rendering older tools and technology approaches ineffective on a continual basis.