You already know what a Product Information Management (PIM) solution entails. Now let’s unpack the specific set of steps or procedures that make up a successful and scalable PIM implementation.
Getting started on an implementation project can be staggering when you aren’t sure of the steps involved in the process. That’s where we come in! StrikeTru is vested in ensuring their customers truly understand the breath & depth of a future PIM implementation so they can understand the PIM project scope in detail and how it will support their strategic goals.
Implementation methodology:
Our well-rounded service offerings are a full life-cycle iterative process wherein the Solution Build phase is delivered in an agile inspired fashion using the scrum methodology.
Take a look at our best practice based methodology framework below, perfected over years of PIM implementations for businesses of all sizes across various industry verticals:
- Planning: StrikeTru and the client team will jointly finalize a project schedule with key milestones, dates, tasks, dependencies, and resource/team assignments to help manage the project. StrikeTru will setup a shared Google Drive collaboration space for the project, and provide access to all team members.
- Environment Setup: StrikeTru will coordinate the provisioning of PIM environments required for the project. StrikeTru will also specify inter-server connectivity, email connectivity, source control, code deployment, backup, and other requirements and coordinate and test the associated setups. StrikeTru will configure the PIM and other necessary software in the PIM dev, staging, and production environments. StrikeTru will also coordinate the provisioning and configuration of an any ERP dev server environment. Ongoing changes (database, code, and configurations) to ERP production environment will also be deployed by StrikeTru.
- Requirements Gathering: StrikeTru will conduct workshops with the client’s corporate and brand specific teams to complete a detailed review of the client’s project specifications, conduct product demos as needed to facilitate requirements gathering and analysis, and align requirements with PIM software capabilities. StrikeTru will create relevant project documents: Data Model Definition Document, Integration Specifications Document, and UAT Test Cases Document.
- Solution Design: StrikeTru will finalize the product and digital asset data structures, reference data, and product and digital asset management workflows, inbound and outbound system interfaces, data mappings, validations, transformations, business rules, and customizations required to implement the project specifications. StrikeTru will also define the mappings and transformations required for product data and digital asset migration into PIM.
- Solution Build: StrikeTru will configure, customize, and develop the PIM solution for the client. StrikeTru will develop the necessary interfaces to acquire product content into PIM and syndicate it to identified channels and implement any identified customizations. StrikeTru will develop re-usable data migration scripts, and migrate sample data and digital assets into the PIM system. During this and subsequent phases, StrikeTru will work closely with the client IT/Change Control team to assess and absorb the impact of ongoing changes on PIM and its integrations.
Two to three conference room pilots (CRPs) will be conducted during this phase to ensure the configured solution aligns with stated business requirements. StrikeTru will also update relevant project documents. A dev complete solution build will be deployed to the Staging (QA) environment. - QA & End-To-End Testing: StrikeTru will collaborate with the client’s functional and technical team members to align on a proposed approach to UAT Testing Planning and Execution. StrikeTru will perform an end-to-end testing (including functional, integration, and performance testing) of the solution. StrikeTru will update the UAT test plan to account for updated specifications, execute all test cases to uncover any requirement, design, configuration, coding, or interface errors. StrikeTru will document issues in an Issue Tracking tool for prompt triaging and resolution. Relevant project documents will be updated as needed. The final deliverable will be a UAT ready solution build.
- Data Conversion: StrikeTru will aggregate, profile, prepare, and migrate a full set of data, reference data, and digital assets into the PIM Staging server. StrikeTru will identify, analyze, report, and advise on data issues and data errors to facilitate necessary data cleanup decisions by the client and StrikeTru teams. StrikeTru will also fix any functional and performance related issues found in the data conversion routines. Three rounds of data conversion will be performed, one round with sample data and two rounds with full data. A detailed conversion report with relevant data counts will be provided at the end of this phase.
- Deployment, Training, UAT: The UAT ready solution build will be deployed into the PIM UAT environment to enable user training and acceptance testing. Training material will be prepared prior to user training sessions. StrikeTru will train the core client project team members and end users in preparation for UAT. The users from client side will test the PIM solution end-to-end and certify that the solution meets their requirements. If the decision is to go-live, final deliverables include a production ready solution build, a finalized cutover plan, and a list of pending low priority bugs/and/or issues that will be addressed in the next release. StrikeTru will work with the client to develop a detailed cutover plan and associated task list.
- Cutover / Go-Live: After a successful UAT, go-live activities will commence. Deployment to production, full data migration, and other cutover activities will happen during this phase. StrikeTru will profile and report on the latest source data to facilitate any critical data cleanup or configuration changes prior to going live.
- Hypercare: The StrikeTru implementation team will be on standby to support end-users and will engage in user training and issue/bug fixes as needed. StrikeTru will also conduct a handoff to the StrikeTru support team, which will start providing ongoing support and maintenance services for deployment at the end of every phase.
StrikeTru is on a mission to transform the way companies grow their online sales. That’s why we offer a full stack of Product Information Management, Digital Asset Management, & Master Data Management solutions to help businesses put product data at the center of their ecommerce growth – within their budget!
Ready for digital transformation powered by PIM? We’ve got your back! Contact us to get started today!
