PLM Product Lifecycle Management systems support product development from R&D to industrialization, management of versions, and changes to processes or specifications, down through the phase out. PLM systems are often smart, relatively complex systems that form the backbone of many of the industrial processes in product-oriented organizations. From a taxonomy and data model point of view, there is definitely something to be learned here. PLM systems usually have technical product specifications that we can leverage, including technical documentation. PIM & PCM Product Information Management (PIM) or Product Content Management (PCM) is PLM’s smaller and more frivolous brother, and leans toward the marketing organization. Although it fills a very real need in product-oriented organizations, we’ve always felt that the DAM-PIM coupling was a very awkward and artificial thing—but more on that later. DAM DAM is generally owned by the marketing organization, and the scope is roughly that it holds media files, including product images. DAM is one of the most mature, and therefore most valuable, repositories for marketing content in most organizations. MRM Marketing Resource Management (MRM) platforms, also known as campaign management platforms, are a special guest here. These platforms are generally used to support and measure the overall marketing cycle—from strategic planning around budgeting, media planning, creative, review and annotation, to execution, dropping final materials into the DAM, and measuring impact in the publication channels. In reality, unfortunately, most implementations we encounter are poorly executed. At best, the MRM platform gives insight into the marketing calendar and brings some structure to the high-level process. But more often, we have seen clients use MRM platforms for small sub-processes such as regulatory approval or even creative review. Even in an organization where processes are mature and implementation into the MRM platform is elegant, there is usually still a major element missing: the way content—both data and files and the associated metadata—is handled, stored and made available downstream. Creative review Creative review tools cover the upload of drafts of creative artifacts such as layouts or video, and annotation and commenting by stakeholders. This is a very useful and well-defined scope of purpose that lends itself perfectly to a subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.
“Marketing content is all over the place. Literally .”
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