Decoding Digital: Bruce Wright

The next Door4 Decoding Digital event is fast approaching (25 February in fact – find out more or register here).

We took time to talk to one of our featured speakers, Bruce Wright – technology and sales specialist with Pimberly.

Hi Bruce, thanks for agreeing to take part in February’s Decoding Digital event – for those not familiar with your work, could you tell us about what you do?

I’ve always had a technology background, I started out in IT and did an apprenticeship but I was drawn to customer facing roles.

This led to me being involved in pre-sales, where I was able to solve problems and add value for clients at an early stage by recognising and addressing their requirements.

So from there it was a natural progression to working in sales but with a more technical angle – I know some people can have a certain view of salespeople but I’m always careful to qualify everything I recommend and never promise anything I can’t deliver.

At Pimberly, I’m working with our CEO in the fourth business we’ve been involved in together over the last 20 years or so.

And what does Pimberly do?

It’s a ‘Product Information Management’ platform – or PIM with an integrated Digital Asset Management (DAM). These have become more prevalent, especially in the last few years, for retailers and distributors. Historically, all the product info for a website was held in spreadsheets, which people had to manage and input manually. Often there might be more than one person with access to these as well.

Presumably that can lead to errors?

Errors, lack of brand consistency in terms of product descriptions and visual assets and more. With a PIM/DAM, this is all managed via a single central location so you know your data is clean, accurate and consistent, which means a better user experience for customers. And of course improvements in UX ultimately lead to improvements in SEO performance too.

So e-commerce businesses will find your presentation useful?

Yes but also distributors – even if you’re not an online seller or your customers are B2B, a PIM/DAM can make a huge difference. For example, a product distributor could have hundreds or even thousands of suppliers and outlets – that’s a lot of data to manage manually. Especially if you’re trying to ensure product consistency across partner sales channels.
Without giving too much away, is that what you’ll be talking about on the day?
Some of that and also other examples of how product data drives customer experience

Like what?

Like a digital asset management (DAM) facility that stores relevant content like pictures, videos, certificates of conformity and so on. This can prove particularly valuable for businesses with websites in different territories.

How come?

Let’s say you’re an athletic clothing company selling sports gear in the UK, so you choose a picture of someone running down the South Bank with the London Eye in the background – to sell the same product in France, you’ll need a different image. With a DAM, you can ensure there’s a pic of that same product being used but with the Eiffel Tower in the background, for example.
And by the same token, a PIM/DAM like ours enables you to ensure the right language is used for different territories but with the same consistency and accuracy of information.

It sounds like a powerful tool to deploy – is there anything else in the sector that has excited or interested you recently?

Well, like so many areas in digital, we’re starting to see the measurable impact of AI in product management. It’s exciting because you can make a lot of decisions without the need for human interaction, which obviously can reduce costs and inaccuracies while improving efficiency.

But the flipside is that currently this can impact the UX side of things – retailers will be keen to retain that personal touch, so it probably needs to be worked on still. It’s interesting seeing how the application of AI will play out in our industry.
We’ve seen some great examples with our clothing retailer clients, who are using their great quality product data to improve online UX to enhance the in-store customer experience. Sales assistants can interact with the customer while having all the relevant product info at their fingertips on a screen, so they can order a delivery or different size, colour, style and more with a few taps. But this level of service relies on the best product data, which is what we help retailers achieve.

Do you do many industry events like this one?

Yes, I’ve presented plenty of times doing things like product demonstrations and webinars.

And what do you want to be the main takeaway for anyone who sees your presentation for Decoding Digital?

Hopefully that I demonstrate my understanding of the industry and how Pimberly can benefit businesses by helping grow their online sales.

Thanks Bruce!

Our next Decoding Digital event is this Friday 28th January at 10:00pm. Book your FREE space today to learn more.