Sharing product data within business ecosystems of manufacturers, distributors, retailers and end users has grown dramatically during the last years driven by the increased use of e-commerce and other customer self-service sales approaches.
At Product Data Lake we recently had a survey about how companies shares product data today. The figures were as seen below:
The result shows that there are different approaches out there. Spreadsheets still rules the world though closely, in this survey, followed by external data portals. Direct system to system approaches are also present while supplier portals seems to be not that common.
At the Product Data Lake we aim to embrace those different approaches. Well, regarding use of spreadsheets and digital asset files via eMail our embracement is meant to be that of a constrictor snake. The Product Data Lake is the solution to end the hailstorms of spreadsheets with product data within cross company supply chains.
For external data portals, the Product Data Lake offers the concept of a data reservoir. A data reservoir in the Product Data Lake can be with an industry focus or with a special focus on certain data elements as for example sustainability data as described in the post Sustainability Data in PIM.
Direct systems to system exchange can be orchestrated through the Product Data Lake and supplier portals can served by the Product Data Lake. In that way existing investments in those approaches, that typically are implemented to serve basic data elements shared with your top trading partners, can be supplemented by a method that caters for exchange with all your trading partners and covering all data elements and digital assets.
Liliendahl on Data Quality 