Product Experience Management

Products and services are the foundation of every organization, regardless of its industry or size. In a black-swan event, demand for a product may spike or dip, so in these situations it is of the essence that products get the attention they deserve as they are marketed, sold, serviced and enhanced with innovations. In challenging times, a “customer-first” mentality tends to take hold. This is not unreasonable, but in a rush to satisfy customers, business leaders too often forget that the product experience is key to satisfying customers and buyers.

An organization’s agility and ability to invest adequate time and resources into products determines its sustainability, operational effectiveness and overall business health. Effective product experience and technology investments in product experience management enable communication with customers and buyers to be impactful and interactive.

An organization’s agility and ability to invest adequate time and resources into products determines its sustainability, operational effectiveness and overall business health.

Ventana Research defines product experience management (PXM) as the practice of using information; applications to effectively support product-related processes to meet the satisfaction and needs of any consumer, customer, partner and supplier across the front office; the customer and revenue areas of marketing, sales, commerce, customer and field service; and the supply chain of manufacturing and distribution. As organizations increase the number and diversity of products and services they offer to customers and partners, they need to address limitations in the ways they manage and distribute product information, including how related attributes and content that describes the products is managed.

PXM is built on decades of evolutionary advancements of product information management (PIM) systems that have focused on the administration and standardization of product content and data for internal processes and applications. But not all PIM systems have evolved to support product experiences that can be consumed and provided across the demand and supply chain, though the needs of organizations necessitate those capabilities. Effectively evaluating PIM systems requires the ability to examine an expanded set of requirements that support PXM.

At the same time, competitive pressures require that they be able to incorporate large amounts of new content — video and images, for example — quickly while ensuring that the information presented to customers is accurate, operational processes run uninterrupted and timely data is available for business analysis. In an environment in which consumers, suppliers and partners use multiple channels to get to product information — websites, kiosks, smartphones, tablets — it is essential that the organization always be able to present complete, up-to-date product information to inspire interest and facilitate purchases.

PXM and the applications and technology that enable it are designed to help organizations provide the best possible product information to their processes, departments and partners. To accomplish this, software must support multiple business roles, including product managers and marketers, operations and manufacturing teams, and suppliers and those in the supply chain. It must enable manufacturers, for example, to share product information with distributors, and with direct retailers or digital commerce providers. The software used for PXM should be able to meet the direct needs of consumers and customers who interact with information within other applications or platforms or directly where product catalogues are shared from websites to marketplaces. Our Ventana Research Benchmark Research finds that the majority of organizations (62%) deem product experiences to be very important.

Effectively managed information is also essential to support a range of decision-making processes about products and services. Analytics applied to product information can yield a variety of metrics: where product information is missing, where it needs to be improved, what the patterns are of product usage and the meaning of any feedback received. In the preparation of product information, analytics can help profile and improve the quality of data and associated attributes to determine where action must be taken. In more recent years, a more advanced application of analytics and machine learning (ML) have elevated the importance of what is referred to as product intelligence.

Product experience management and PIM is not the same as master data management (MDM), although the two are sometimes confused.

PXM and PIM is not the same as master data management (MDM), although the two are sometimes confused. This misunderstanding can distract businesses from focusing on what they need in providing product experiences versus just managing a master set of product information for internal-focused processes. MDM technology can ensure a single definition of data across the enterprise and improve the quality and integration of data across information systems. PXM systems must have built-in MDM and provide or connect to the data integration and quality processes to ensure there is only one defined master record for any given product.

But product information encompasses more than just the defined name, attributes and images of a product in a database — it also includes all related information, such as digital assets and documents needed for reference or compliance purposes. Organizations should take care to understand the differences between PXM and MDM as well as how they can complement each other to inform decisions. PXM is essential to enable business units to manage their product-related processes themselves, just as IT staff need broader MDM technology and integration tools to enable them to manage data throughout the enterprise.

Today’s businesses must manage a continually expanding array of data, content and digital assets as well as satisfy the demands of consumers for comprehensive product information. Addressing these challenges requires unified processes and automated systems and, most importantly, the ability to augment and enrich product information. Our Benchmark Research in PXM finds almost one-half (48%) of organizations have incompatible tools and 43% do not have a centralized information repository. These are situations that lead to wasted time and inefficiency in checking for errors and reconciling data across systems.

To provide an effective product experience for buyers, consumers, customers and partners, as well as throughout the supply chain, organizations must deliver accurate, consistent and actionable product information. Doing this will enhance visibility into — and engagement with — product information and can help organizations increase revenue and satisfy customers. Moreover, it is impossible to deliver the best customer experience without a great product experience; in our benchmark research, over half of organizations (55%) cited improving the customer experience as a benefit they realized from their investment into PXM.

Managing product information can be a difficult challenge across industries where organizations and the individuals within them frequently use different names, attributes, images and related information across products for the same purpose.

Managing product information can be a difficult challenge across industries where organizations and the individuals within them frequently use different names, attributes, images and related information about products for the same purpose. Disparities often exist across departments. Additionally, organizations regularly add suppliers to their business networks and increase the number and variety of products they offer without utilizing already defined and agreed-upon product information. Over one-third of organizations indicate that today’s customers also expect to have a delightful product experience that provides information on their mobile devices, but commerce across sites and social media introduces challenges for a unified experience.

These advances bring additional content and data into organizations’ information systems, but they also introduce new inconsistencies in how products and attributes are combined. Still, competitive pressures require that the information presented is not only up-to-date and accurate but engaging in its presentation — in other words, an effective product experience. Organizations need systems that enable intelligent processes to run continuously and uninterrupted, and that use ML and analytics to identify issues and opportunities to exploit the power of product information. Analytics can provide insight on the use of product information and where collaborative actions need to be taken for improvement.

In most organizations, product information is spread across websites, applications, digital asset management systems, databases, spreadsheets and other systems, each of which can have its own ways of presenting the information, resulting in disparate product experiences. A related issue is the difficulty of exchanging, integrating and synchronizing product information across the diverse systems and services used directly by buyers, customers and business partners, typically outside of enterprise systems, and in cloud computing environments such as digital commerce, marketplaces and CRM systems. Slow and incomplete integration processes prevent organizations from easily gaining a single view of products for controlling and updating the information to enable a product experience that is consistent for employees, partners and customers.

Every organization should start by assessing all short- and long-term efforts related to the product experience and any approach already in place.

Every organization should start by assessing all short- and long-term efforts related to the product experience and any approach already in place. No matter where an organization manages product information — whether from a dedicated approach such as an ERP or CRM system, or worse, from a tangle of spreadsheets — it must continuously improve the product experience.

Furthermore, organizations that have not yet moved PXM to the cloud must make this an immediate priority. It is more difficult to readily access product information when it is managed on premises, and this approach does not provide an acceptable level of resiliency for business continuity. It is essential to go beyond conventional wisdom. Applications in the cloud are basic steps in digital transformation, but that does not mean everything will be just fine. We have all witnessed the peril of this mindset. Many current approaches lack agility and require continuous improvements in processes and technology.

Organizations should cultivate product information that encourages buyer and customer engagement, whether in the physical world or through digital systems like commerce and websites that present products, services and subscriptions, to bolster more interactive experiences. Doing this requires more intelligent, streamlined and automated product information processes so responsible parties can focus on areas that need immediate improvement, be it velocity and volume of interest and sales, or outdated product information. The product information should include the price and promotional aspects that determine if the items will be purchased or subscribed to in any process or system.

An organization’s investment in its products will always determine its success, and success is impossible without high-quality, seamless digital experiences. In fact, Ventana Research asserts that by 2025, one-half of organizations will realize digital experiences that are not intelligent or automated fail to meet the readiness requirements of organizations.

Product success is about more than just merchandising and maintaining product information on a digital shelf, increasing levels of productivity, and sustaining those efforts in the best and worst of times, under pressure and over time. It is about increasing effectiveness in digital engagement and bringing new value to the process itself. Applications should do more than just enhance productivity in managing product information and provide insights into usage such as new product introduction (NPI) and end of life (EOL).

The product experience unifies an organization’s efforts to not just sustain continuity but bring new value to digital merchandising and marketing efforts, helping exceed buyers and customers’ expectations.

The product experience unifies an organization’s efforts to not just maintain continuity but bring new value to digital merchandising and marketing efforts, helping exceed buyers and customers’ expectations. Optimizing the product experience is more than just a nicety — it is essential for every organization that looks to make the most of buyer and customer engagement and relationships. This effort is especially important when depending on digital commerce to sell products and services. Without an optimized product experience, an organization will not be able to elevate the customer experience.

Many organizations have managed product information across an array of business applications, but few of these applications support a dedicated focus on optimizing the product experience across a range of business processes. The information for a quality product experience requires the right technology, which we currently do not find in the traditional ERP or CRM applications, or even in legacy PIM approaches or technologies designed for MDM. It is important that an organization make investments into supporting PXM that uses an automated and intelligent approach to optimize priorities and resources, simplifying the execution of product-related tasks and activities to improve outcomes. The current movement in PXM technology can help enhance the digital and virtual elements of products and use a common platform that can author and support endeavors to optimize interactions with customers and buyers.

Using the right technology is foundational to success, and creates opportunities for breakthrough growth that far exceeds mere productivity improvements.

Using the right technology creates opportunities for breakthrough growth that far exceeds mere productivity improvements. Sustainable growth through effective product information is only possible when the organization is deliberate about the technology it uses to work collaboratively with customers, partners and suppliers. Organizations with a unified approach will find that it is easier to achieve organizational agility when blending digital communication and work platforms that can help increase the velocity of engaging in and executing product-related work.

Organizations also should prioritize investments that enable more effective digital merchandising and price management. They need a view of not just one product but the digital shelf, and should be able to virtualize products, from packaging to specifications, for buyers and customers. Simply posting an image and description was possible a decade ago, but that does not provide an actual product experience. In cases where the product is equipment, extended reality (XR) technology can virtualize and augment the product experience, significantly enhancing buyer and customer engagement and often answering their questions without losing valuable time on a phone call or chat with a customer service agent. Embracing methods that use mobile devices to virtualize products in context, whether in a facility or a living room, can further enhance the product experience, thus increasing likelihood of a purchase.

Organizations can better determine sentiment about the product experience by collecting feedback from customers and related parties at time of purchase or when the product is used. If an organization is unable to capture and monitor interactions and online feedback from all relevant parties, then it is probably missing the insights required to effectively improve the product experience. Continuous feedback can help increase productivity and, more importantly, the effectiveness of the organization. Additionally, sharing feedback digitally through product reviews can establish confidence with buyers and customers. Organizations should seek to establish or expand a Voice of the Product (VoP) program with a set of processes and technology that uses customer feedback and sentiment along with analytics and ML to gain insights.

Organizations must not neglect digital investments in the product experience, especially if that experience has not previously been a focal point of executive leadership or a team involved with product processes, whether marketing, selling or servicing. A superior product experience demands technology that supports processes that improve productivity and the overall digital effectiveness of product information. Leadership that invests in managing products, including services and subscriptions, can have a profound impact on buyer and customer engagement and an organization’s ability to reach expected revenue and financial performance.

Continuous improvement is a shared responsibility across business and IT leadership, and impossible to do without product experience management designed to optimize the product experience.

Continuous improvement is a shared responsibility across business and IT leadership, and impossible to do without PXM designed to optimize the product experience. Antiquated methods such as spreadsheets, databases and other tools or methods inside of ERP, CRM or digital commerce are not always designed for a modern digital product experience. And old approaches can decrease productivity, diminish accountability and increase risk. It is critical that organizations, especially in times of duress, use business continuity as a driver to improve planning for — and the intelligent use of — PXM and related communications and work, and thus should examine their investments in technologies.

The use of digital technologies to reinvent the product experience from the outside in and from the inside out requires the right lens that supports business continuity rather than distracts from it. Organizations should optimize underlying product processes and technology not just for internal use, but for buyers and customers, suppliers and partners as well. This can have an immediate impact on top- and bottom-line results and reflects the priority an organization places on product experience. Organizations should ensure that existing and future PXM technology investments are designed for effective engagement and a fantastic product experience, not just for automation and efficiency. Organizations need only to look at how they manage prices and the related promotions for revenue management as an example. The product experience is much more than just the physical usage of a product, the digital usage of a subscription or the user experience (UX) of software. An organization with an effective approach to digitally secure and open communications, along with the right tools for PXM and leadership committed to delivering an optimal product experience, is built to last.

Ventana Research believes a methodical approach is essential to maximize competitiveness. To improve the performance of your organization’s people, process, information and technology components, it is critical to select the right vendor and product. Our research analysis placed fewer than one in seven organizations (15%) at the highest Innovative level of performance in their use of PXM. However, a caution is appropriate here — technology updates alone are not enough to improve the use of PXM in an organization. Doing so requires applying a balanced set of upgrades that include efforts to improve processes and information as well. The research finds that such improvements are not only necessary but desired, as fewer than one-third (32%) of organizations are satisfied with their PXM processes and even less are satisfied (15%) with underlying PIM efforts.

The goal of PXM is to establish a reliable single source of product information that can be shared across channels. Getting it right is not easy; almost one-half (46%) of organizations have more than 5 sources of product information that they must integrate and manage efficiently. More than one-half (59%) of the organizations participating in our Benchmark Research acknowledged that standardizing product information requires significant or substantial effort, and less than one-quarter (22%) said they completely trust their product information.

In their efforts to produce a reliable product record, most organizations use laborious, time-consuming methods: 23% develop custom code and 27% rely on manual effort. Almost one-half (48%) of all organizations still depend heavily on spreadsheets and a little less (41%) use them moderately to create their product records. And nearly all (94%) spreadsheet users find major or minor errors in their records.

Processes and tools are available that can automate much of this work. If properly deployed, PXM systems can synchronize all attributes and definitions used in the identification, description, sales and fulfillment of products across all channels that customers, suppliers, trading partners and workers use.

Organizations must effectively manage and improve product information outside their channels and systems to ensure accuracy and consistency across the entire enterprise’s efforts. This approach enables organizations to better align their products to their specific activities and processes, but it requires applications that allow an organization to manage product information to an effective digital experience. The benefits of using dedicated PXM technology can be significant. More than one-half (55%) of organizations said it can help eliminate data errors, gain a competitive advantage and improve the customer experience through consistent product information. And if addressed effectively, the improvement can ensure an organization can achieve satisfaction in product experiences as only one-third (32%) do today.

This Value Index report evaluates the following vendors that offer products that address key elements of PXM as we define it: Akeneo, Bluestone PIM, Contentserv, IBM, Informatica, inriver, insightsoftware, Oracle, Perfion, Pimcore, Precisely, Sales Layer, Salsify, Stibo Systems, Syndigo and Viamedici.

Value Index Overview

For almost two decades, Ventana Research has conducted market research in a spectrum of related areas including business planning, data preparation, machine learning, data and analytics in the cloud, natural language processing, and big data analytics and integration. We have also led the establishment of the management and governance of PXM products use in collaboration capabilities, social media techniques and location-related analytics. The findings of these research undertakings contribute to our comprehensive approach.

This market report on the Product Experience Management Value Index is the distillation of over a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address buyers’ requirements for PXM software. The index is structured to replicate an RFI/RFP process by incorporating all criteria needed to evaluate, select, utilize and maintain technology, and maintain relationships with vendors.

Ventana Research has designed the Value Index to provide a balanced perspective of vendors and products that is rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs.

In this Value Index, Ventana Research evaluates the software in seven key categories that are weighted to reflect buyers’ needs based on our expertise and research. Five are product-experience related: Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability, and Usability. In addition, we consider two customer-experience categories: Validation, and Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment (TCO/ROI). To assess functionality, one of the components of capability, we applied the Ventana Research Value Index methodology and blueprint, which links the personas and processes for PXM to an organization’s requirements.

Unlike many IT analyst firms that rank vendors from an IT-only perspective or consider futures or vision over what is available in the products today, Ventana Research has designed the Value Index to provide a balanced perspective of vendors and products that is rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to use PXM to achieve the levels of organizational efficiency and effectiveness needed for engaging digital experiences to meet your buyer, consumer, customer and partner needs.

We use our research-based analytics and methodology to generate the Value Index ratings. We then build them into a set of indicators that we present in both analytic and graphic form, each depicting the value of a specific vendor’s offering to your PXM needs.

The Value Index is not an abstraction; we use a carefully crafted best practices-based methodology to represent how organizations assess vendors and products.

The Value Index is not an abstraction; we use a carefully crafted best practices-based methodology to represent how organizations assess vendors and products. The Value Index is designed to ensure that it provides objective research and guidance to organizations looking to assess and evaluate their applications for business and IT needs.

The structure of the Value Index reflects our understanding that the effective evaluation of vendors and products involves far more than just examining product features, potential revenue or customers generated from marketing and sales. We believe it is important to take this comprehensive research-based approach, since making the wrong choice of a PXM technology can raise the total cost of ownership, lower the return on investment and hamper an organization’s ability to reach its performance potential. In addition, this approach can reduce the project’s development and deployment time, and eliminate the risk of relying on a short list of vendors that does not represent a best fit for your organization.

To ensure the accuracy of the information we collected, we asked participating vendors to provide product and company information across the seven categories that taken together reflect the concerns of a well-crafted RFP. Ventana Research then validated the information, first independently through our database of product information and extensive web-based research, and then in consultation with the vendors. Most selected vendors also participated in one-on-one consultative sessions, after which we requested them to provide additional documentation to support any new input.

Ventana Research believes that an objective review of vendors and products is a critical business strategy for the adoption and implementation of PXM software and applications. An organization’s review should include a thorough analysis of both what is possible and what is relevant. We urge organizations to do a thorough job of evaluating PXM systems and tools and offer this Value Index as both the results of our in-depth analysis of these vendors and as an evaluation methodology.

How To Use This Value Index

Evaluating Vendors: The Process

In our view, business improvement efforts should be based on best practices that research indicates deliver value quickly. Our Value Index evaluates PXM business systems and tools in accordance with that belief.

We advocate using the Value Index as part of a structured approach that begins by incorporating these steps into a program document that will both summarize and detail your initiative or project. Then consult the Value Index to ensure you make choices that will yield the results you want.

The steps listed below provide a framework for a technology-driven business improvement project.

1. Define the business case and goals.
   Develop the business case for investment. Define the mission of the business project: What is the purpose, why is it important, what outcome do you want to achieve and how will you measure the project’s success? The goals should be grounded in your organization’s strategy and plans and should make clear the expected outcomes.
2. Specify the project’s business requirements.
   What must be done to achieve these goals? Defining the business requirements helps identify what specific capabilities are required with respect to people, processes, information and technology.
3. Assess the required roles and responsibilities.
   Identify the individuals required for the project at every level of the organization from executives to front line workers, and determine what each will contribute.
4. Outline the project’s critical path.
   What needs to be done, in what order and who will do it? This outline should make clear the prior dependencies at each step of the project plan.
5. Develop the technology approach.
   Determine the technology approach that most closely aligns to your organization’s requirements. Then develop a comprehensive list of potential vendors and products that best fit your needs.
6. Establish technology evaluation criteria.
   Define the business and technology criteria that you will use to evaluate vendors. We recommend using the criteria we have developed based on our Benchmark Research and use to build the Value Index: Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability, TCO/ROI, Usability and Validation. This step will provide the tools necessary to move from a long list to a short list of vendors and products that you will then evaluate for final selection.
7. Evaluate and select the technology properly.
   Weight the seven categories of technology evaluation criteria to reflect the organization’s priorities. Then evaluate the short list of vendors and products based on your business case, requirements and the technology evaluation criteria for your project.
8. Establish the business initiative team to start the project.
   Identify who will lead the project and the members of the team needed to plan and execute it. Have them begin by establishing a timeline and allocating resources.

In addition to evaluating existing suppliers, the Value Index can be used to provide evaluation criteria for new projects. Applying our research can shorten the cycle time when creating an RFP.

Products Evaluated

 The Findings

All of the products we evaluated are feature-rich, but not all the capabilities they offer are equally valuable to users or support everything needed across the entire life cycle of use. Moreover, the existence of too many capabilities may be a negative factor for an organization if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a larger number of functions is a plus, especially if some of them match your organization’s established practices or support an initiative that is driving the purchase of new software.

Factors beyond features and functions or vendor assessments may become a deciding factor. For example, an organization may face budget constraints such that the TCO evaluation can tip the balance to one vendor or another. This is where the Value Index methodology and the appropriate category weighting can be applied to determine the best fit of vendors and products to your specific needs.

Overall Scoring of Vendors Across Categories

The Product Experience Management Value Index finds Informatica first with Akeneo in second place and Salsify in third. Companies that place in the top three in any category earn the designation Value Index Leader. Informatica and Akeneo has done so in Overall, Product and Customer Experience, and in all seven of the categories; inriver in Customer Experience and four categories; Salsify in Overall, Product Experience and in two categories; and Syndigo in one category. All are Value Index Leaders.

The overall representation of the Value Index below places the rating of the Product Experience and Customer Experience on the x and y axes, respectively, to provide a visual representation and classification of the vendors. Those vendors whose Product Experience have a higher weighted performance to the axis in aggregate of the five product categories place farther to the right, while the performance and weighting for the two Customer Experience categories determines their placement on the vertical axis. In short, vendors that place closer to the upper-right on this chart performed better than those closer to the lower-left.

The research places vendors into one of four overall categories: Assurance, Exemplary, Merit or Innovative. This representation classifies vendors overall weighted performance.

Exemplary: The categorization and placement of vendors in Exemplary (upper right) represent those that performed the best in meeting the overall Product and Customer Experience requirements. The vendors awarded Exemplary are: Akeneo, Informatica, inriver, Salsify and Stibo Systems.

Innovative: The categorization and placement of vendors in Innovative (lower right) represent those that performed the best in meeting the overall Product Experience requirements but did not achieve the highest levels of requirements in Customer Experience. The vendors awarded Innovative are: Pimcore, Syndigo and Viamedici.

Assurance: The categorization and placement of vendors in Assurance (upper left) represent those that achieved the highest levels in the overall Customer Experience requirements, but did not achieve the highest levels of Product Experience. The vendors awarded Assurance are: Bluestone PIM, Contentserv and Perfion.

Merit: The categorization for vendors in Merit (lower left) represent those that did not exceed the median of performance in Customer or Product Experience or surpass the threshold for the other three categories. The vendors awarded Merit are: IBM, insightsofware, Oracle, Precisely and Sales Layer.

We warn that close vendor placement should not be taken to imply that the packages evaluated are functionally identical or equally well suited for use by every organization or for a specific process. Although there is a high degree of commonality in how organizations handle PXM, there are many idiosyncrasies and differences in how they do these functions that can make one vendor’s offering a better fit than another’s for a particular organization’s needs.

Occasionally, vendors elect not to participate in our Value Index process even though they meet our criteria for inclusion and are actively marketing their offering to the focus of the Value Index. We assess the vendor and products based on publicly available information, briefings we have received from that vendor, and our direct experience or experience of our clients with the vendor’s offering.

We explicitly indicate if a vendor has not participated because a lack of information could have a negative impact on our evaluation and therefore the vendor’s Value Index rating and classification. With respect to the adequacy of publicly available information to do a thorough evaluation, vendors that limit information about their company and products on their website and through other easily accessible means limit our ability to have the depth otherwise found through active participation. The impact of a vendor not participating hinders organizations’ ability to do their own assessment.

We advise organizations to assess and evaluate vendors based on their requirements and use this research as a reference to their own evaluation of a vendor and products.

Product Experience

The process of researching products to address an organization’s needs should be comprehensive. Our Value Index methodology examines Product Experience and how it aligns with an organization’s life cycle of onboarding, configuration, operations, usage and maintenance. Too often vendors are not evaluated for the entirety of the products; instead, they are evaluated on market execution and vision of the future, which are flawed since they do not represent an organization’s requirements but how the vendor operates. As more vendors establish a Chief Products Officer role, it is essential for them to be more engaged in the product experience that they and their organization represent.

The Product Experience Management Value Index based on the methodology of expertise and research identified the weighting of Product Experience to 80% or four-fifths of the total evaluation. Importance was placed on the categories as follows: Usability (20%), Capability (20%), Reliability (10%), Adaptability (15%) and Manageability (15%). This weighting impacted vendor rankings in Product Experience and the resulting overall rankings in this Value Index. Informatica, Akeneo and Salsify were ranked as Value Index Leaders because of their commitment to PXM technology. Syndigo, inriver, Viamedici and Stibo Systems were found to meet a broader range of enterprise requirements. Inriver, in particular, placed higher in Usability and Reliability with its focus to meet usage, performance and scalability requirements.

Many organizations only evaluate vendor offerings with the capabilities of IT or administration in mind, but a broader set of usage personas must be able to consume product information through engaging experiences. As a result, the Value Index reflects the increased criticality of Usability.

Customer Experience

The importance of a customer relationship with a vendor is essential to the success of the products and technology. The advancement of the Customer Experience and the journey an organization has with its vendor is critical for ensuring customer satisfaction. Thus, a vendor’s offering is not just about technology and should be evaluated using a lens that ensures proper assessment and product selection. Technology providers that have Chief Customer Officers are most likely to have greater investments in the customer relationship and to focus on customer success. These leaders also need to take responsibility for ensuring the marketing of their commitment is made abundantly clear on the company’s website and in the buying process and customer journey.

The Product Experience Management Value Index weights Customer Experience, which represents the framework of commitment and value to the customer relationship, at 20%. The two evaluation categories are Validation (10%) and TCO/ROI (10%) and are weighted to represent their importance to the overall Value Index, balanced with the Product Experience.

The vendors that rank the highest overall in the aggregated and weighted Customer Experience categories are Value Index Leaders Akeneo, inriver and Informatica. The category leaders in Customer Experience provided an impressive level of information to communicate their commitment and dedication to customer needs within PXM technology.

There were many vendors that have not made this a priority and provide little to no information through their website, presentations or in our evaluation. Many have customer case studies to promote their success but lacked depth on their commitment to an organizations’ PXM journey. As a result, despite products that provide PXM, many of the vendors did not rank well in Customer Experience. As the commitment to a vendor is a continuous investment, the importance of supporting customer experience in a holistic evaluation should be included and not underestimated.

Appendix: Vendor Inclusion

All vendors that offer relevant PXM products and meet the inclusion requirements were invited to actively participate in the Value Index evaluation process at no cost to them. If a vendor did not respond to or declined the invitation, a determination was made whether to include it in our analysis based on our inclusion criteria. These criteria are designed to ensure we include all vendors with geographic operations, customer base and revenue, as well as all relevant aspects of the products’ fit for the particular category being evaluated.

For inclusion in the Ventana Research Product Experience Management Value Index for 2023, a vendor must be in good standing financially and ethically, have at least $15 million in annual or projected revenue (as verified using independent sources such as ZoomInfo), sell products and provide support on at least two continents, and have at least 50 customers. The principal source of the relevant business unit’s revenue must be software-related and there must have been at least one significant software release in the last 18 months. The product must provide PXM for enterprise processes, electronic commerce, suppliers, consumers and B2B for product life cycles, and the mastering and integration of information including content and data for use by management, managers, operations, analysts and administers across any LOB and IT needs.

If a vendor is actively marketing, selling and developing a unified product for general market availability as reflected on its website that is within the scope of the Value Index, it is automatically evaluated for inclusion. We have adopted this approach because we view it as our responsibility to assess all relevant vendors whether or not they choose to actively participate.

Ten of the 16 vendors responded positively to our requests for information and provided completed questionnaires and demonstrations to help in our evaluation of their product experience management products. These vendors were Akeneo, Bluestone PIM, Informatica, inriver, Perfion, Pimcore, Sales Layer, Salsify, Syndigo, and Viamedici. Contentserv provided a demonstration and a briefing. The following vendors declined to fully participate or did not respond to our invitation: Contentserv, IBM, insightsoftware, Oracle, Precisely, and Stibo Systems. For all vendors, we collected and considered all information available from briefings, documentation, presentations, release notes, videos and websites for the analysis. Online material that was generally available was also used for the analysis, along with briefings and any information the vendor did provide. Microsoft, Salesforce and SAP have yet to provide a unified product for supporting PIM and PXM requirements but include siloed approaches in their individual applications including commerce, marketing and sales.

Vendors that meet our inclusion criteria but did not actively participate in our Value Index were assessed solely on that publicly available information. As this could have significant impact on their Value Index classification and rating, we recommend additional scrutiny when evaluating those vendors.

Vendors of Note

We did not include vendors that, as a result of our research and analysis, did not satisfy the criteria for inclusion in the Value Index, or were not included because they have not actively engaged with our firm on the topic of the Value Index. These are listed below as “Vendors of Note” so organizations utilizing this assessment guide can be assured of our exhaustive review. Inclusion criteria validation was completed to the best of our ability using information publicly available or through our research.