There are three kinds of solutions for handling product master data and related digital assets:
- Master Data Management (MDM) solutions that are either focussed on product master data or being a multi-domain MDM solution covering the product domain as well as the party domain, the location domain, the asset domain and more.
- Product Information Management (PIM) solutions.
- Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions.
According to Gartner Analyst Simon Walker a short distinction is:
- MDM of product master data solutions help manage structured product data for enterprise operational and analytical use cases
- PIM solutions help extend structured product data through the addition of rich product content for sales and marketing use cases
- DAM solutions help users create and manage digital multimedia files for enterprise, sales and marketing use cases
The below figure shows what kind of data that is typically included in respectively an MDM solution, a PIM solution and/or a DAM solution.
This is further elaborated in the post How MDM, PIM and DAM Stick Together.
The solution vendors have varying offerings going from being best-of-breed in one of the three categories to offering a OneStopShopping solution for all disciplines.
If you are to compile a list of suitable and forward-looking solutions for MDM, PIM and/or DAM for your required mix, you can start looking at The Disruptive List of MDM/PIM/DAM solutions.
Liliendahl on Data Quality 