Introduction
SAP's recent acquisition of the former catalog management vendor A2i and IBM's acquisition of the former product information management (PIM) vendor Trigo might indicate some enterprise-wide product content management (PCM) approaches of the mainstream enterprise platform and enterprise applications or enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors, as their responses to the need for an effective master data management (MDM) system to the widespread challenges of sprinkled data integration from multiple systems, physical locations, and diverse trading partners. Thus, PCM and PIM would be the core parts of MDM solutions that will manage any kind of master data and be seamlessly integrated into a customer's existing enterprise architecture, ideally eliminating all data duplication and making centralized customer, supplier, or product information available to other applications across the organization.
SAP, IBM, and like mainstream enterprise vendors need to solve the problems inherent to data residing in disparate systems, as enterprises are becoming painfully aware of the need to clean up their structured data and unstructured content acts to capitalize on more important efforts like regulatory compliance, globalization, demand aggregation, and supply chain streamlining, to name some. To that end, these enterprise vendors have to provide the ability to also integrate emerging radio frequency identification (RFID) data into their software, as well as full support for web services-based provisioning and consumption of data and processes.
Yet, the all-encompassing content management solution is still in the ever-evolving design stage, as vendors try to piece together comprehensive systems. Therefore, there seems to be a proliferation (and subsequent confusion about) of the pertinent terms and acronyms like enterprise content management (ECM), product content management (PCM), catalog management, product information management (PIM), records management (RM), product data management (PDM), enterprise data repositories (EDR), document management (DM), knowledge management (KM), web content management (WCM), digital asset management (DAM), enterprise information management (EIM), digital rights management (DRM), document imaging, workflow management (WM) or business process management (BPM), and many more.
Generally speaking, PCM (sometimes also called PIM) refers to a system for managing all types of information about finished products, and it is a further evolutionary step of catalog content management backed up with a workflow management. This is however different from ECM, which focuses more on document management and other unstructured editorial and web content, whereas PCM is more granular around individual data elements and focuses on highly structured product content. ECM encompasses many of the above-cited technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. In other words, it allows the management of an organization's unstructured information (e.g., e-mails, photos, spreadsheets, documents, etc.), wherever that information exists—stored in repositories, shuttled across networks, and managed over the course of its existence or life cycle.
This is part one of a three-part note.
Part two will present background information and lessons learned.
Part Three will address challenges.
Definition of PCM Systems
Coming back to managing structured, alphanumeric information, a PIM or PCM solution would include the ability to organize a company's product information, regardless of location, into a consolidated system of record, and be able to synchronize or distribute that information to any business partners that require it. Yet, true PCM should mean more than just the centralized repository to eliminate data duplication with a limited nugget of functionality; rather, this repository must be capable of storing all product information, while the system must be more than a point solution or an island, since it must also offer high-performance access to that information, and it must include tightly integrated functionality that can be used to drive all crucial enterprise initiatives.
First and foremost, the PCM should revolve around a single centralized repository of product information. It should be the "system of record" for all non-transactional product information and organizational intelligence about products, and eliminate data duplication and system redundancy across the enterprise. In effect, it should be the "ERP for product information" containing not only "rich product content", but also other types of related information, such as supplier information, as well as one or more supplier-specific sub-records of sourcing information for each product that allows the PCM to simultaneously drive both sell-side and buy-side initiatives. In other words, the rich product content managed by the PCM must be much more than simply transactional data about each product from the ERP or product master file (e.g., a part number, a description, and a price).
This brings us to the notion of enterprise publishing (where some PCM systems will overlap with ECM), which aims at reducing costs to create and speed deployment of all the product-related information, including user manuals, sales collateral, and web sites, that make up the complete product offering. In fact, rich product content must comprise all of the non-transactional product information within an organization, such as detailed parametric data on product specifications; merchandising text, high resolution images, drawings, diagrams, and portable data formats (PDF) for various marketing and publishing requirements; a classification scheme for organizing the products into a searchable taxonomy of categories and subcategories with category-specific attributes; product relationships to represent selling relationships (such as up-sells, cross-sells, and accessories) and structural relationships (such as assemblies, kits, and bundles); parts usage information; and finally, various product-specific services for leveraging the rich product content such as hotspots information for illustrated parts catalogs without the need for a separate system.
The term PIM has appeared more frequently lately in the discussion of global data synchronization (GDS) and syndication because of a number of market initiatives that act as catalysts for change. For example, many large retailers, including Wal-Mart, Office Depot, The Home Depot, Target, Albertsons, and Safeway have mandated their suppliers to synchronize product data via European article number (EAN)/UCCnet registry and data synchronization services. Other catalysts would include the Sunrise 2005 initiative that seeks to standardize on a format for global product identification via a new 14-digit code, and the RFID initiatives in place to bring about the rapid adoption of new radio frequency tags on all products, so that they may be more easily tracked through manufacturing and retail environments.
A full-fledged PCM system should additionally have no predetermined notion of the repository structure itself, but rather offer a fully flexible schema that can be tailored to meet the specific requirements of each enterprise and each vertical industry, and that can change over time. The PCM must be more than just a simple database application or end-user application, and more than just a standalone point solution that addresses a single functional requirement (such as UCCnet synchronization, paper print or web-based publishing, or illustrated parts catalogs). Rather, it must be a completely open system with both graphical user interface (GUI) tools for end users and multi-platform application programming interfaces (API) for programmatic access (e.g., Java 2 Enterprise Edition [J2EE], Microsoft .NET, eXtensible Markup Language [XML], web services, and simple object access protocol [SOAP]), supporting both content authoring and runtime searching, and providing a horizontal platform for building best-of-breed vertical solutions.
The like PCM system must also support all the leading middleware application stacks so that it can leverage and integrate with web application servers (WAS), enterprise application integration (EAI) and portal servers. Also, rather than a fixed web-based user interface, it should provide a flexible presentation layer that can be completely customized and tailored to particular organizational requirements and various vertical markets needs.
Finally, the PCM should be able to unify and harmonize product information stored within repositories across the enterprise, creating "a single copy of the truth" regardless of where the data resides. That is to say, the PCM must act as a centralized "hub" that plugs PCM functionality and high-performance access to highly-structured product information into all enterprise initiatives, not only at the user level but also at the enterprise integration level, for plug-and-play coordination with other extended-ERP solutions, such as customer relationship management (CRM), product lifecycle management (PLM), supplier relationship management (SRM) and supply chain management (SCM), where the vendors with broad offering like SAP or Oracle should be glad to oblige their users.
SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/mainstream-enterprise-vendors-begin-to-grasp-content-management-part-one-pcm-system-attributes-17611/
SAP's recent acquisition of the former catalog management vendor A2i and IBM's acquisition of the former product information management (PIM) vendor Trigo might indicate some enterprise-wide product content management (PCM) approaches of the mainstream enterprise platform and enterprise applications or enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors, as their responses to the need for an effective master data management (MDM) system to the widespread challenges of sprinkled data integration from multiple systems, physical locations, and diverse trading partners. Thus, PCM and PIM would be the core parts of MDM solutions that will manage any kind of master data and be seamlessly integrated into a customer's existing enterprise architecture, ideally eliminating all data duplication and making centralized customer, supplier, or product information available to other applications across the organization.
SAP, IBM, and like mainstream enterprise vendors need to solve the problems inherent to data residing in disparate systems, as enterprises are becoming painfully aware of the need to clean up their structured data and unstructured content acts to capitalize on more important efforts like regulatory compliance, globalization, demand aggregation, and supply chain streamlining, to name some. To that end, these enterprise vendors have to provide the ability to also integrate emerging radio frequency identification (RFID) data into their software, as well as full support for web services-based provisioning and consumption of data and processes.
Yet, the all-encompassing content management solution is still in the ever-evolving design stage, as vendors try to piece together comprehensive systems. Therefore, there seems to be a proliferation (and subsequent confusion about) of the pertinent terms and acronyms like enterprise content management (ECM), product content management (PCM), catalog management, product information management (PIM), records management (RM), product data management (PDM), enterprise data repositories (EDR), document management (DM), knowledge management (KM), web content management (WCM), digital asset management (DAM), enterprise information management (EIM), digital rights management (DRM), document imaging, workflow management (WM) or business process management (BPM), and many more.
Generally speaking, PCM (sometimes also called PIM) refers to a system for managing all types of information about finished products, and it is a further evolutionary step of catalog content management backed up with a workflow management. This is however different from ECM, which focuses more on document management and other unstructured editorial and web content, whereas PCM is more granular around individual data elements and focuses on highly structured product content. ECM encompasses many of the above-cited technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. In other words, it allows the management of an organization's unstructured information (e.g., e-mails, photos, spreadsheets, documents, etc.), wherever that information exists—stored in repositories, shuttled across networks, and managed over the course of its existence or life cycle.
This is part one of a three-part note.
Part two will present background information and lessons learned.
Part Three will address challenges.
Definition of PCM Systems
Coming back to managing structured, alphanumeric information, a PIM or PCM solution would include the ability to organize a company's product information, regardless of location, into a consolidated system of record, and be able to synchronize or distribute that information to any business partners that require it. Yet, true PCM should mean more than just the centralized repository to eliminate data duplication with a limited nugget of functionality; rather, this repository must be capable of storing all product information, while the system must be more than a point solution or an island, since it must also offer high-performance access to that information, and it must include tightly integrated functionality that can be used to drive all crucial enterprise initiatives.
First and foremost, the PCM should revolve around a single centralized repository of product information. It should be the "system of record" for all non-transactional product information and organizational intelligence about products, and eliminate data duplication and system redundancy across the enterprise. In effect, it should be the "ERP for product information" containing not only "rich product content", but also other types of related information, such as supplier information, as well as one or more supplier-specific sub-records of sourcing information for each product that allows the PCM to simultaneously drive both sell-side and buy-side initiatives. In other words, the rich product content managed by the PCM must be much more than simply transactional data about each product from the ERP or product master file (e.g., a part number, a description, and a price).
This brings us to the notion of enterprise publishing (where some PCM systems will overlap with ECM), which aims at reducing costs to create and speed deployment of all the product-related information, including user manuals, sales collateral, and web sites, that make up the complete product offering. In fact, rich product content must comprise all of the non-transactional product information within an organization, such as detailed parametric data on product specifications; merchandising text, high resolution images, drawings, diagrams, and portable data formats (PDF) for various marketing and publishing requirements; a classification scheme for organizing the products into a searchable taxonomy of categories and subcategories with category-specific attributes; product relationships to represent selling relationships (such as up-sells, cross-sells, and accessories) and structural relationships (such as assemblies, kits, and bundles); parts usage information; and finally, various product-specific services for leveraging the rich product content such as hotspots information for illustrated parts catalogs without the need for a separate system.
The term PIM has appeared more frequently lately in the discussion of global data synchronization (GDS) and syndication because of a number of market initiatives that act as catalysts for change. For example, many large retailers, including Wal-Mart, Office Depot, The Home Depot, Target, Albertsons, and Safeway have mandated their suppliers to synchronize product data via European article number (EAN)/UCCnet registry and data synchronization services. Other catalysts would include the Sunrise 2005 initiative that seeks to standardize on a format for global product identification via a new 14-digit code, and the RFID initiatives in place to bring about the rapid adoption of new radio frequency tags on all products, so that they may be more easily tracked through manufacturing and retail environments.
A full-fledged PCM system should additionally have no predetermined notion of the repository structure itself, but rather offer a fully flexible schema that can be tailored to meet the specific requirements of each enterprise and each vertical industry, and that can change over time. The PCM must be more than just a simple database application or end-user application, and more than just a standalone point solution that addresses a single functional requirement (such as UCCnet synchronization, paper print or web-based publishing, or illustrated parts catalogs). Rather, it must be a completely open system with both graphical user interface (GUI) tools for end users and multi-platform application programming interfaces (API) for programmatic access (e.g., Java 2 Enterprise Edition [J2EE], Microsoft .NET, eXtensible Markup Language [XML], web services, and simple object access protocol [SOAP]), supporting both content authoring and runtime searching, and providing a horizontal platform for building best-of-breed vertical solutions.
The like PCM system must also support all the leading middleware application stacks so that it can leverage and integrate with web application servers (WAS), enterprise application integration (EAI) and portal servers. Also, rather than a fixed web-based user interface, it should provide a flexible presentation layer that can be completely customized and tailored to particular organizational requirements and various vertical markets needs.
Finally, the PCM should be able to unify and harmonize product information stored within repositories across the enterprise, creating "a single copy of the truth" regardless of where the data resides. That is to say, the PCM must act as a centralized "hub" that plugs PCM functionality and high-performance access to highly-structured product information into all enterprise initiatives, not only at the user level but also at the enterprise integration level, for plug-and-play coordination with other extended-ERP solutions, such as customer relationship management (CRM), product lifecycle management (PLM), supplier relationship management (SRM) and supply chain management (SCM), where the vendors with broad offering like SAP or Oracle should be glad to oblige their users.
SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/mainstream-enterprise-vendors-begin-to-grasp-content-management-part-one-pcm-system-attributes-17611/
No comments:
Post a Comment