A strategic perspective on why Product Information Management and Digital Asset Management implementations succeed or fail.
Every year, organisations invest millions in Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) platforms, expecting these tools to solve their content chaos. Yet a significant number of these implementations fail to deliver the promised value. The reason is rarely the technology itself.
After years of guiding enterprises through PIM and DAM transformations, we have observed a consistent pattern: organisations that focus primarily on tool selection and technical capabilities often struggle, while those that establish clear ownership models and governance frameworks succeed. The difference lies not in the sophistication of the platform, but in the clarity of who owns what, and why.
The Allure of the Technology Fix
Modern PIM and DAM platforms offer remarkable capabilities. They promise centralised repositories, automated workflows, seamless integrations, and intelligent asset distribution. For executives facing mounting pressure to accelerate time-to-market and deliver consistent brand experiences across channels, these solutions appear to be the answer.
The challenge is that these platforms are enablers, not solutions. A PIM system cannot determine which team should approve product descriptions for regulatory compliance. A DAM platform cannot resolve the tension between regional marketing teams who need localised imagery and global brand guardians who demand consistency. These are organisational questions that require organisational answers.
We have witnessed organisations spend eighteen months selecting and implementing a best-in-class PIM solution, only to find themselves in the same content quagmire they started in. The data is now centralised, but nobody has authority to enforce data standards. The workflow engine is powerful, but competing stakeholders cannot agree on approval sequences. The platform works perfectly; the operating model does not exist.
The Ownership Imperative
Successful PIM and DAM implementations share a common foundation: they begin with explicit ownership definitions. This means identifying, at a granular level, who is accountable for each category of product data and digital content throughout its lifecycle.
Ownership in this context extends beyond simple access rights. It encompasses the authority to create, the responsibility to maintain, and the accountability for quality. When a product launches with incorrect specifications or outdated imagery, ownership determines who must answer for the failure and, more importantly, who has the mandate to prevent it recurring.
Consider a global consumer goods company we recently advised. Their DAM contained over two million assets, with new content arriving daily from agencies, photographers, and internal teams across forty countries. Despite having a sophisticated platform, they could not answer basic questions: Who decides when a product image becomes the official hero shot? Who ensures that discontinued products are flagged across all markets? Who arbitrates when the sustainability team and the marketing team disagree on which claims can accompany an asset?
The platform provided the infrastructure. What was missing was the architecture of accountability.
Building the Operating Model First
Our experience suggests a counterintuitive approach: design your operating model before you finalise your technology selection. This does not mean ignoring technical requirements. Rather, it means ensuring that governance decisions drive technology decisions, not the reverse.
An effective operating model for PIM and DAM addresses several critical dimensions:
Data domains and stewardship. Product master data, marketing content, technical specifications, and digital assets may require different governance approaches and different accountable parties.
Decision rights matrix. Who can create, who can modify, who can approve, and who can archive must be explicitly defined.
Escalation pathways. The inevitable conflicts between speed and quality, local flexibility and global consistency, need clear resolution mechanisms.
Critically, the operating model must have executive sponsorship. When a regional president believes their market needs different product positioning than headquarters mandates, when the sales team demands faster content turnaround than the legal review process permits, these tensions cannot be resolved at the operational level. Governance without authority is merely documentation.
Strategic Recommendations for the C-Suite
For executives contemplating PIM or DAM investments, or reassessing existing implementations that have not delivered expected value, we offer the following strategic guidance.
Audit your current state honestly. Before discussing features and integrations, map your existing content and data flows. Identify where ownership is ambiguous, where approval processes create bottlenecks, and where quality failures originate. This diagnostic work often reveals that the problems are organisational, not technical.
Invest in governance design. Allocate budget and executive attention to operating model development. This includes defining roles, establishing forums for cross-functional decision-making, and creating metrics that hold owners accountable. The governance framework should be documented, communicated, and enforced before the platform goes live.
Align incentives with outcomes. Data and content quality must become performance criteria for the teams responsible. If product managers are measured solely on launch velocity and not on data accuracy, expect accuracy to suffer. Governance without accountability mechanisms is theatre.
Plan for evolution. Markets change, organisations restructure, and content requirements shift. Your operating model must include mechanisms for periodic review and adaptation. The governance that works for today's channel mix may not serve tomorrow's emerging platforms.
The Path Forward
PIM and DAM platforms are powerful tools that can transform how organisations manage product information and digital content. But tools without clear ownership are merely expensive repositories. Technology without governance is organised chaos with better search functionality.
The organisations that extract maximum value from their PIM and DAM investments are those that recognise a fundamental truth: the platform is the enabler, but the operating model is the solution. Clear ownership, robust governance, and executive commitment are not optional additions to a technology implementation. They are the prerequisites for success.
The question for every executive is not which platform to select, but whether your organisation is prepared to do the harder work of defining who owns what, and holding them accountable. That is where transformation truly begins.
