PIM or MDM: which system is better for retail?

Effective data management is a critical aspect in retail. You have to manage information about customers, products, services, staff, materials, and so on. You should have a source that you will trust. And you need to store, process, moderate, and administer data in this system. 

Until recently, retailers only knew MDM - Master Data Management. A traditional MDM system is a system that knows about different data sources. It contains the “golden standard” of data. 

Imagine that your stores have one customer information, your online store has another, and your marketing services have third data. MDM system collects all these types of information in a single source. The system can find the same clients, spelled differently, and eliminate errors in the data based on different algorithms.

The evolution of MDM systems has led to the emergence of highly specialized master systems. Modern business does not need to implement a heavy MDM to manage only product data. There are PIM systems for this task.

When communicating with our clients, we see that choosing one of these systems is an issue. Therefore, my colleagues have formulated 3 questions to help you choose between PIM and MDM.

Question 1. Product catalog or corporate data?

Structuring, updating, and time-to-market a product catalog through MDM will be a time-consuming process. PIM is focused on collecting, enriching, publishing content; that’s why PIM technology is a key tool in multi-channel retail strategy.

On the other hand, MDM standardizes information related to sales, production, and partly catalogs: customers, warehouses, points of sale, distributors, wholesalers, employees. But the goal of MDM is to centralize all the data, not improve the quality of product information.

Question 2. External or internal data?

We can say that PIM manages data for transferring it to external sites and channels — where the end-user will see this information. MDM manages data for internal use.

This is a conditional difference because a good PIM also makes it easier to manage product data internally. On the other hand, MDM could be configured to work with a catalog, but this solution would be quite time-consuming.

Question 3. Flexibility or Universality?

Most often, MDM is needed by large corporations with many points of sale, a large number of offices, and a multi-market strategy.

By contrast, PIM systems are accessible to any size company. Customizable and straightforward implementation lets you get started with data quickly and enrich it almost instantly.