Highly Flexible Marketing Model - Extensions for synchronizations
What do you like best?
You can do whatever you want with this PIM solution. The Marketing Model for your product data is highly flexible so you don't have to enrich the same information twice. You can have as many product levels as you need, you can also have sibling (on the side) information such as Brands, Fabrics, Technology, etc... that are applicable to many of your products so you don't have to copy product information on several places.
If you wish to have a custom interface for specific needs that the native portal doesn't provide, you can leverage "HTML Templates" and create your own. Also, you can create as many imports/exports as you need by leveraging "Extensions". Important mention that inRiver is a pure SaaS and you don't have to bother with hosting and software version upgrades, it's all done by inRiver.
Finally, inRiver is highly extensible and you can do whatever you need, but keep in mind that these customizations need developments from your inRiver partner. So if you were looking for a "plug & play" PIM solution and leverage only "out-of-the-box" features, you can be disappointed. It's a good idea to do an internal assessment of your need before selecting the PIM solution.
What do you dislike?
I always said that inRiver's strength is also his weakness. By allowing the Marketing Model to be flexible, it could be hard to even impossible to use inRiver's native features, such as "Excel import/export", Content Store, Syndicate app, Supplier onboarding/Contribute, etc... So as I said above, if you were sold to use one of these native features but your complex model prevents you from using it without customization and you don't have the budget for this, it could be a really bad surprise or even a roadblock.
I know inRiver is working hard to better support complex models throughout its platform, a lot of work is currently in development for this, so let's cross-fingers it's going to be released soon.
What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
As an inRiver partner, we helped several customers to
1) Centralized their product information;
2) Put in place a robust product life cycle with one-to-many departments involved, internal & external;
3) Change their internal processes;
4) Replace deprecated or in-house solutions that were used as PIM;
5) Speed up product time-to-market.
