(Nov. 1, 2007) Manufacturers, distributors and retailers manage massive amounts of data, and keeping that information in compliance with industry standards and trading partner requirements is an increasingly complex task. R.L. Polk & Co., an automotive information and marketing solutions provider, now offers a suite of service to help companies get a handle on their product data.

The service offering, which Polk calls Information Process Management, defines the scope of the processes, protocols and tools used by automotive aftermarket catalog managers, product managers, category managers, marketing and sales professionals.

"Manufacturers have all of this data, but they don't know how to make sense of it all," says J. Scott Huston, Information Process Management consultant at Polk. "They're afraid of making a costly mistake."

Polk's offerings include a needs assessment and analysis; data evaluation; vendor assessments and recommendations; information and system implementation management; integration of third-party POS, OE, research and vehicle count information; and integration of other business and aftermarket related initiatives.

"We benchmark where they are now, and what issues they're facing," Huston says. "Then we can show them what they might be missing in their strategy, and show them were the return on investment is.

"They might understand industry standards, but are facing fines because they're not providing data in the format that their retail partners require," Huston continues. "They might be receiving data from their partners, but not know how to use it. We can help with all of these areas."

While every customer is different, Huston says the most common challenge he sees with Polk's customers is in the area of software or application selection. "Companies want to have a safe data repository," Huston says. "A lot of organizations are trying to minimize the clutter of their enterprise systems, and want to bring everything together in a centralized system."

Huston added that while the aftermarket industry as a whole is making progress on data standards, he'd like to see more manufactures embrace these product data efforts.

"I think the industry is generally headed in the right direction in terms of standards," Huston says. "The retailers are there, but it would be beneficial to have more manufacturers involved in these initiatives. Manufacturers don't see the product information department as something that has an affect on profits. They just see it as a cost center.

"Having clean data can benefit a manufacturer in terms of increased sales and profits," Huston says. "One or two errors in part numbers, spread out over the supply chain, can cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in critical sales a year."