Is product information slowing down your business?
Evaluate a product information management (PIM) system when catalogue complexity, publishing channels and approval needs make product updates difficult to control.
By HashMicro editorial team
For Malaysian retailers, distributors and manufacturers, the buying decision should begin with a familiar task. Getting accurate product information to the people and channels that need it. Perhaps descriptions differ between a dealer catalogue and your website. Perhaps dimensions are missing, or the approved specification sits in an email while the team publishes from an older spreadsheet.
These are useful reasons to investigate your content workflow. Disconnected spreadsheets, unclear approvals and repeated channel updates deserve attention, but they do not automatically justify new software. Establish where the work breaks down before deciding what to buy.
Separate product content from neighbouring problems. Incorrect stock balances need an inventory investigation; missed customer calls need a follow-up process; unclear opportunities need sales pipeline management. A cleaner description will not establish how much stock is physically available or who should contact a prospect next.
Language requirements also deserve a practical assessment. If your customers or channels need English and Bahasa Malaysia descriptions, include both in the evaluation. If they do not, avoid adding translation work merely because the business operates in Malaysia.
The strongest case for evaluating PIM is recurring effort. The same products need enrichment, checking, approval and publication across changing destinations. Your shortlist should reflect that work, rather than the length of a supplier's feature list.
Turn your catalogue problems into evaluation criteria
Translate each recurring problem into a task the vendor must demonstrate using your records. Describe what must happen, who approves it and what evidence will count as a pass.
Begin with a recent catalogue update. Trace the supplier file, internal edits, image selection, approvals and destination uploads. Include the time spent chasing missing information and correcting rejected submissions; these activities belong in the buying case even when they happen outside the main spreadsheet.
Use the following requirements table as a starting point. These are evaluation criteria, not promises that every PIM system provides the same functionality.
| Business problem | Required capability to test | Demonstration task | Acceptance evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Variants have inconsistent specifications | Attribute and variant modelling | Model a product family with shared attributes and variant-specific values. | The agreed structure preserves shared values and legitimate variant differences. |
| Supplier files require repetitive copying | Bulk imports and mapping | Import your sample file, then submit an updated version. | Mappings, rejected rows and changed values are visible; duplicates are addressed. |
| Incomplete records reach customers | Validation rules | Submit products with missing dimensions and unsuitable values. | The agreed rules identify failures before the relevant publication step. |
| Descriptions remain unfinished | Enrichment workflow | Move a supplier description through editing and review. | Editors can identify outstanding work and distinguish drafts from approved content. |
| Images and documents become mismatched | Asset associations | Associate product images and a technical document with the correct variants. | Reviewers can verify the product, asset version and intended destination. |
| Unauthorised edits bypass review | Permissions and approval workflows | Attempt a restricted edit, then submit an authorised change for approval. | Access follows the agreed roles, and approval evidence identifies the responsible people. |
| Language versions drift apart | Localisation controls | Edit an English description and review the related Bahasa Malaysia version. | The team can identify which version needs review without losing approved text. |
| Channel requirements differ | Channel-specific publishing | Prepare the same product for destinations with different field requirements. | Outputs meet the agreed destination rules, with publication results available for inspection. |
Write acceptance conditions before the demonstration. “Easy to use” is difficult to assess consistently; “the merchandiser can identify rejected records and correct them without reimporting unrelated records” gives the evaluator something concrete to observe. Ask the vendor to explain any manual steps, configuration or additional services needed.
Run a sample catalogue test
Choose sample records from your own catalogue that represent ordinary work as well as awkward exceptions, such as similar variants with different measurements. Agree the demonstration scope with the vendor before the session.
Ask the vendor to import the sample, expose the missing information, route the corrected content for approval and publish the agreed output. Inspect validation, approval and publication results separately. A successful import alone does not demonstrate that the complete workflow meets your requirements.
Then change the specification after approval and repeat the relevant steps. Check whether the team can identify affected records and destinations, and establish whether the change requires another approval. Record what happened rather than accepting a verbal assurance that it can be configured later.
Choose the right type of intervention
| Your situation | Buying direction | Evidence to gather first |
|---|---|---|
| A simple, controlled catalogue with limited changes | Improve spreadsheet governance before adding software. | Named ownership, a shared template, clear permissions and an approval routine. |
| Repeated enrichment, review and publication across destinations | Evaluate PIM against the recurring workload. | Rework records, channel requirements and results from the sample catalogue test. |
| Missed enquiries, unclear opportunities or neglected quotations | Assess CRM separately. | Lead ownership, opportunity stages and the process for creating follow-up activities. |
Avoid using catalogue size as the deciding factor. The variety of attributes, frequency of changes, approval responsibilities and publishing requirements can explain the workload more clearly than the number of products alone.
Map PIM, ERP, DAM and CRM responsibilities before integration
Agree which system owns each field before discussing connectors. An integration should move approved information to its intended destination while protecting fields owned elsewhere.
The responsibility map below is a planning model, not a fixed architecture. Exact ownership varies by implementation, existing systems and the way your business works.
| System or discipline | Typical responsibility to agree | Boundary to test |
|---|---|---|
| PIM | Product enrichment and channel content, including approved descriptions and descriptive attributes. | Which approved fields leave the content workflow, and which destination receives them? |
| Enterprise resource planning (ERP) | Operational product records used in purchasing, stock and order processes. | Which operational identifiers and fields must remain authoritative? |
| Digital asset management (DAM) | Digital assets, their versions and associated usage information. | Where are files maintained, and how are their product associations checked? |
| Customer relationship management (CRM) | Customer opportunities and related sales activities. | How does approved product content reach the quotation process, if required? |
Document the product identifiers used across systems, including how variants are recognised. Agree field ownership, synchronisation direction and update frequency. Also define what happens when validation fails, when a destination is unavailable and when competing edits create a conflict.
For example, your team might nominate the content workflow as authoritative for an approved marketing description while keeping an operational product identifier under ERP ownership. This is an illustrative design choice, not an established integration. The vendor must show how your chosen arrangement would work.
Use a changed product specification as the acceptance test. Follow it from approval to the intended destination and inspect the resulting record. Confirm that another system's authoritative fields were not overwritten, and ask how the team would detect and recover from a failed transfer.
Check the quotation handoff explicitly
HashMicro's documentation describes creating a quotation from an opportunity using its customer and products, then confirming the quotation into a sales order. That sequence provides a useful boundary for testing where approved product content would need to enter the sales workflow.
Ask where the quotation description originates. The operational product record, a separate description field or a manual edit. Then ask how a newly approved specification would reach that description.
Ask the proposed supplier to demonstrate any required PIM connector, content synchronisation and quotation-description mapping. Record the demonstrated behaviour and obtain written confirmation of the implementation scope.
Keep forecast requirements separate
HashMicro's documentation describes pipeline visibility but no probability-weighted or commit/best-case forecast screen. If forecasting is part of your wider software review, make those calculations and views a separate acceptance test.
Ask the supplier to identify which figures are open opportunity totals, demonstrate any required forecast calculations and explain their assumptions. Record the results separately from the PIM acceptance tests.
Measure data quality and build a realistic MYR business case
Measure content quality and publishing effort before estimating financial value. Compare suppliers using the same sample records, definitions and measurement period, then request a full cost breakdown in MYR.
Start with a baseline covering a representative publishing cycle. Record who performs each task, when approved inputs become available and when the destination accepts the content. Keep waiting time visible, because a quick editing step can still sit inside a slow approval process.
| Evaluation measure | Evidence to collect | Measurement rule to agree |
|---|---|---|
| Attribute completeness | Ask for counts of populated and missing required fields. | Fix the required fields for each product category and destination before assessment. Check validity separately from whether a field is populated. |
| First-pass publication | Ask for counts of submissions accepted immediately and submissions returned for correction. | Define a submission consistently and count all relevant attempts during the agreed period. |
| Rework | Ask for the reviewed records and a list of those requiring correction. | Define what constitutes a correction and count each affected record consistently within the review batch. |
| Publishing time | Ask for timestamps showing approved input and successful publication. | Use the same start and finish events, and specify whether elapsed time includes non-working hours. |
Keep the denominators visible in supplier reports. A completeness result means little if a supplier excludes difficult attributes, and publication results are hard to compare if failed submissions disappear from the sample. Record exclusions and exceptions alongside the outcome.
Compare like with like when reviewing progress. A batch of straightforward descriptions is different from a catalogue update involving technical documents, language review and several destination formats. Where the workload changes, explain that difference before attributing an improvement to the system.
Value released time carefully
In an explicitly hypothetical example, saving 30 staff hours monthly at MYR 35 per hour produces MYR 1,050 in monthly labour capacity value.
Ask your finance team to assess how the proposed time reduction would affect expenditure. Document whether the intended use is completing overdue enrichment, handling more catalogue changes or reducing overtime, and request supporting evidence for any proposed cash-saving estimate.
Compare that value with subscription charges, implementation, data cleansing, connectors, training, support and ongoing administration. Ask vendors to identify which costs are recurring, which are tied to delivery milestones and which depend on additional work. Request MYR quotations rather than relying on unsourced market prices.
Include your own team's effort as well. Preparing attributes, resolving conflicting records, approving mappings and maintaining destination rules require ownership even when an external partner handles technical implementation.
Keep sales outcomes in context
Win rate = won / (won + lost) × 100. Define the reporting period and deal population consistently, and review pricing, lead quality and salesperson activity separately.
Use product-content measures to evaluate the content project. Keep the sales review separate, and request evidence for any proposed connection between catalogue changes and commercial results.
How HashMicro handles the related CRM-to-sales workflow
This section covers an adjacent CRM and sales workflow. Evaluate the described process separately from your catalogue enrichment and publishing requirements.
HashMicro's documentation distinguishes CRM's pre-order work—leads, qualification, opportunities, activities and visits—from Sales, which begins at the quotation. For background on that adjacent scope, see HashMicro CRM software for lead and quotation management.
The documented opportunity-to-order sequence is:
- Work the opportunity in the kanban pipeline.
- Create a quotation from the opportunity using its customer and products.
- Edit and send the quotation.
- Record the opportunity as Won or Lost.
- Confirm the quotation into a sales order for fulfilment and invoicing.
Use this sequence to organise the handoff demonstration. Ask the product owner to identify the source of the quotation's product description, show the intended approval boundary and explain how changes would be handled after sending. Request a separate demonstration of any proposed PIM integration.
HashMicro's documentation describes Sales Intelligence's Quote Pipeline and Quote Follow-up dashboards as read-only. They show open quotations by stage and quotations waiting on the customer, but do not create tasks or reminders. Salespeople perform follow-up using CRM activities.
That distinction matters during evaluation. Seeing a quotation that needs attention is different from assigning the next action. Ask the demonstrator to show who creates the follow-up activity, who owns it and how the salesperson uses it, rather than ending the demonstration at the dashboard.
Keep the same discipline when discussing catalogue work. A visible status is useful evidence, but buyers should also establish who acts on it and which process moves the record forward. Confirm the documented CRM workflow with the product owner before relying on it in a purchasing decision.
Prepare your shortlist and test the workflow before committing
Prepare representative records, named owners and written acceptance conditions before arranging demonstrations. Shortlist suppliers against the workflow they can demonstrate and the implementation responsibilities they are prepared to document.
Your preparation pack should include:
- Sample products and variants: Include ordinary records, difficult attributes and examples of recurring errors.
- Required attributes: Define category-specific fields, acceptable values, measurement units and validation expectations.
- Assets: Gather representative images, technical documents and the information needed to associate them correctly.
- Language versions: Identify actual audience requirements and who reviews each version.
- Destination channels: Document required fields, formats, approval points and publication evidence.
- Data owners and approval roles: Name who supplies, edits, validates, approves and publishes content.
- Baseline performance: Bring current error records, rework examples and publishing timings.
- Budget: Include external costs and the internal effort needed to prepare and maintain the catalogue.
Attach a field-ownership map and a list of required connectors. For each proposed connector, request evidence of supported versions, implementation responsibilities, failure handling and data export. Clarify who maintains it when either connected system changes.
Ask for an export demonstration using your sample records. Check whether the output preserves identifiers, variant relationships, language versions and the information your team would need to move elsewhere. Agree the export scope and any associated services in writing.
Use the same demonstration script for shortlisted suppliers and record exceptions against each requirement. Distinguish functionality shown during the session from configuration still to be completed, manual workarounds and proposed development. An unresolved requirement should remain visible in the decision record.
Avoid predictable buying mistakes
Importing unclean data can carry existing disagreements into a new system. Resolve duplicate identifiers, conflicting specifications and unclear attribute meanings before treating an import as complete. Assign an owner to exceptions rather than leaving them in a shared queue indefinitely.
Unclear ownership can also undermine a technically successful integration. State who approves corrections, who handles failed transfers and who decides when systems disagree. Treat an integration claim as a question to test until the connector works with the agreed records and destinations.
Finally, test visibility and action separately. Repeat the quotation follow-up test with the responsible salesperson so the next action has a clear owner. Evaluate any claimed commercial improvement separately from the content acceptance results.
If you also need lead, opportunity and quotation management, discuss your CRM workflow with HashMicro.
Sources
Product references: HashMicro product documentation covering CRM opportunities, quotations, Sales boundaries, pipeline limitations, win rate and read-only quotation dashboards. Evaluation tables are buyer test criteria; the MYR calculation is hypothetical.
