Content is key.  Businesses today are struggling keeping up with their own content requirements with all the new demands for higher quality data emerging. PIM is a necessary tool in content development, but there is another side to the equation – supplier catalogues. And although PIM can help enhance data, the quality of data starts from the suppliers.  As I dig deeper into the process of supplier adoption, I am realizing that it is not a fun game. I am amazed at the challenges organizations face. Companies exert efforts to acquire data from suppliers and often manpower lacks in this area resulting in sub-standard product data.

Here are the fun facts:

 Supplier catalog creation and delivery

§  Suppliers are creating catalogs in excel and are using a combination of manual techniques and automated feeds from ERPs.

§  Classification and attribute data is not stored anywhere that it can be leveraged

§  Average supplier catalog contains 75 quality errors

§  Average supplier takes 6 weeks to provide a first catalog and 4 weeks for updates

§  Suppliers deliver the catalog via email (not secure and fails audits) or regular mail

§  Average catalog gets rejected on average 3 times

Buyer Review

§  Traditionally, companies have been approving catalogs in excel

§  Purchasing managers have made very few catalog quality checks, only price checks

§  Price checks have been sporadic (often approving only 3%-5% of the catalog)

§  Purchasing managers have complained that they don’t have time to review catalogs and take on average 3 weeks to approve a new catalog

§  Buyers transform catalog from excel into required catalog purchasing format

Estimated cost per catalog is $2000

§  Buyers time

§  Delays in getting price updates

§  IT support

§  Piece price (as suppliers charge more because of their cost to manage the catalog)

§  Etc…

Luckily, there are services out there that provide end-to-end adoption of supplier catalogues. This includes contacting supplier, receiving catalogue, validating data, and formatting it for company’s requirements. Some benefits seen are:

§  Access to the latest product information

§  Better Cost accounting

§  Flexible workflow configuration

§  Unlimited Users

§  Reduce Transaction Cost by 80%

§  Reduce Process time 70-80%

§  Purchasing Audit Trails

§  Budgets and Reporting

§  Access to the latest contract pricing

This is neat stuff. Consider whether it’s worth hiring more bodies or tapping into a professional supplier network service.