You gave a well-received presentation at the NCMA conference about how technology staff can make the business case for data standards adoption to their executives. Why is that important?
As a customer-focused tech company, we’ve learned that it’s critical that IT make requests that are based on making it easier and more profitable for customers to buy from you, i.e., it's good for the company, rather than it’s good for IT. Related to data standards issues, executives will ask for the return on investment to have their data in ACES, spend the money to shoot images for every part. If you don't translate those requests into sales impact, you're not going to get anywhere. For every investment you make, you have to articulate that message to the guy who is going to approve your budget. If not, then he is just going to view it as another cost. You have to be able to take those requests to upper management in a way that they see the benefit to the company in sales and profitability, not just for the benefit of your own department.
Why does the technology staff or the catalog department have trouble communicating that message?
IT teams tend to be more technically oriented, looking at their own data within the four walls. "Where is this data coming from?" "Where are these images coming from?" "How are we processing it?" Sales or marketing executives ask, "How am I perceived in the marketplace? Why would a customer choose my product over a competitor?" It’s important that catalog mangers look at both.
The industry has been having this conversation about the importance of data standards for a long time. Shouldn't aftermarket executives already "get" the importance of these technology initiatives to sales?
In theory, I agree with you. But at our industry meetings, we see a lot of catalog mangers, but not a lot of sales and marketing people. I think companies would get a huge benefit out of having stronger representation from sales and marketing at these events. It’s by no accident that many of those that do, have made the catalog a competitive differentiator.
So how they can prepare or improve?
One suggestion is for the catalog managers to frame the discussion around the audience, and take their point of view into consideration. If you say, "I need to convert data to ACES because that's what I heard at this industry meeting," that's very internally focused. Instead, consider, "Almost every part purchased today is purchased using an electronic catalog that relies on robust information to make a choice. In fact, eight out of our ten competitors are already submitting ACES and PIES data with images to our biggest catalog receivers. In the competitive choices our customers see on the electronic catalog screen, we are less likely to be chosen, and we'll see sales decline."
Those are both ways of asking the same thing, but the second way is saying, "Do you realize how much business we are going to lose if we don't do this?"
