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Working in flow

How to use integrated workflow management to guarantee successful product communication

Work-in-flow

Software solutions such as PIM do not always just involve the management and control of product data. The solutions aim to optimize all processes related to a company’s product communication. A successful deployment of such a solution, requires that both people and software are considered a cooperating unit – this is where workflow management comes into the picture.

In this blog article, you will learn how workflow management in combination with product-relevant systems can help your employees stay in flow and keep your communication processes running smoothly – both in B2C and B2B.

What is Workflow Management?

Workflow management is a discipline that encompasses the modeling and control of business processes. The ultimate goal of workflow management is to simplify complex workflows and recurring process steps – in other words, to optimize workflows, for example through partial or even complete automation. A workflow management system is the corresponding software solution that supports companies in optimizing their workflows and, in combination with PIM, DAM or even CM, ensures that the processes surrounding product communication run smoothly. This helps companies to save resources and reduce errors as a result.

Work-in-flow

Why is Workflow Management important?

Especially in e-commerce, which requires products to be pushed to market quickly and for product communication to be adapted directly to the needs and wishes of the customer, workflow management plays a role that is crucial to success. There is no doubt that the lifecycle of a product involves extremely complex processes, often including many different departments and employees. To minimize time-to-market, everyone involved must have access to the information and files they require at all times while knowing which tasks need to be completed in which order.

Using a carefully structured and systematic workflow management system to define and regulate product communication processes, companies can easily ensure that their employees work together efficiently. This in turn has a positive impact on both time-to-market and the quality of product communication.

About the functionality and benefits of a workflow management system:

control

Centralized control:
A workflow management system provides a platform for modeling workflows, defining tasks, and assigning roles and rights, which simplifies the day-to-day work of any project manager and also enables agile processes.

automation

Automation:
Once the workflow of a project has been modeled, the system generates task lists and assigns them based on roles and rights. This ensures the order in getting tasks processed is followed, and in turn improves collaboration.

Transparency

Transparency:
A workflow management system documents and analyzes individual process steps and provides a 360° view of all projects. This transparency makes it easier for project managers to identify weaknesses and identify opportunities for streamlining.

The advantages of working in flow:

  • 360° view on all projects and process developments
  • Roles, rights and release management
  • Automated task distribution
  • Efficient collaborations and smooth workflows
  • Higher productivity and employee satisfaction
  • Short time-to-market with minimized use of resources
  • High-quality customer approach
  • High customer satisfaction and conversion rate

What should be considered when selecting a workflow management system?

Like any software solution, a workflow management system should enable perfect interaction between application and human. For this, the solution should provide an intuitive interface for process modeling and also deliver a workflow engine that triggers new processes immediately after tasks are completed. For successful product communication in e-commerce, which is characterized by quality, short latency and a personalized approach, it is also essential for the workflow management system to be able to connect with product and communication-relevant systems such as PIM, DAM, CM or even ERP. It needs to be able to control all processes between these systems.

Stay in the flow with mediacockpit

The marketing platform mediacockpit from Bertsch Innovation is characterized first and foremost by its special system architecture, which not only closely links the disciplines PIM and DAM, but also unites them in a single user interface. This allows product experiences to be created from a single source. The platform also provides a workflow designer for modeling and graphically displaying any number of workflows. mediaprojects also allows you to add status-controlled task management to your individual workflows. mediaprojects provides you with a central overview of all projects in mediacockpit and also lets you assign to-do lists, automatically reminding those responsible of open tasks and deadlines via push or e-mail messages.

Want to see mediacockpit in action? CTO Chris Turchin takes you through our mediaprojects module as part of PIMVendors.com’s Lightning Demos – showcasing an ideal PIM workflow could look like.

Accomplish more together

We believe in the value of collaboration and exchange. This applies both to our customer projects, from which we generate many valuable insights for our product development, and to our growing partner network, with an extensive range of which we support our customers in their digitization.