Data management is a cornerstone of good business. You can’t hope to grow and scale without a detailed plan for how you distribute, edit, and update product data for your customers. You need accurate data to provide accurate quotes, after all.
However, there’s a pitfall you need to avoid along the way. You can’t risk having valuable product data siloed off into one system or channel — it needs to be available everywhere. That’s what it means to think vertically about data management. When a single detail is altered at the top of the chain, that change should flow down into every other channel automatically.
If it doesn’t, you risk giving customers outdated or misleading information that can harm your relationship with them before it ever begins. Vertical data management is a solution that helps you get the right order, in the right configuration, to your customers every time. Here’s how AQ’s foodservice equipment and supplies (FES) data solutions can help you reach this goal.
Don’t Wait, Integrate
The first step toward vertical data management is to connect your configure, price, and quote (CPQ) system to product listings. Byintegrating both AQ Listing Pro and AQ CPQ into your quote-to-cash process, you can ensure that the product information you list on the AQ platform is updated for every rep, dealer, or consultant interested in your products.
There are more than a million SKUs listed on AQ CPQ already, each with more than a hundred data fields for product specifications, descriptions, and pricing. Thinking vertically with your listing and quoting data makes certain that, when a customer starts the quoting process after browsing your product listing, every data point is exactly the same. You don’t want any surprises when it’s time to quote, and vertical data management virtually eliminates this possibility.
Trust is an important part of the relationship between manufacturers and distributors. When you integrate your data vertically with AQ, you can give them everything they need to sell your product without having to worry about the details. All of the information will be available to them online and accessible at any time.
A Data Solution for Every Channel
To take vertical data management to the next level, it’s important to think about how all of this detailed product information will get to your other channels — that’s where AQ Products API comes in. This all-in-one solution helps your data flow vertically from one central platform. AQ can list and store your product content for dealers, reps, and consultants, and AQ Products API takes that data and standardizes it across every system and channel you use.
Once you make changes at the top, AQ Products API automatically updates your data uniformly everywhere your products can be found, including:
- Ecommerce platforms
- Company websites
- ERP Systems
AQ Products API also works with most internal systems, updating your data both in-house and online. This data isn’t just numbers, either. AQ’s API solution can distribute everything from high-resolution images of your products to dense technical specifications, and everything in between. The AQ product management team will be there to help you implement this data yourself or with an implementation partner, standardizing product documentation to make integration pain-free.
When you’re working with hundreds of products and SKUs, doing this by hand becomes unmanageable at scale. It could be a full-time job to make sure product data is consistent across all platforms and channels. But with AQ Products API, the system can take care of the menial work for you, freeing up your time and money to focus on making your customers happy.
