PIM Migration with KatanaPIM: Scope the Mess Before You Move

A PIM migration fails when you move the mess. Scope what is slow, where mistakes cost money, and who owns the data, then move a small set and learn. That is the advice from Stephan Spijkers in conversation with Raoul Straathof, Product Manager at KatanaPIM.

Companies usually arrive here because spreadsheets or a legacy ERP no longer keep product data straight as the range and the team grow. A PIM can centralise the record, raise accuracy and shorten launches. It does none of that if the project starts from a feature list. The PIM implementation guide puts this discovery work in the sequence, ahead of integrations. Where ERP stops and PIM starts is the split Straathof is pointing at when the old system is an ERP that was never built to publish.

At the microphone

• Stephan Spijkers, Co-Founder, PIMvendors.com
• Raoul Straathof, Product Manager, KatanaPIM

What they want scoped first

The common mistake is jumping to features and integrations before the business need is named. A migration that works starts from three facts: what slows the team down today, where mistakes and inconsistencies cost the most, and which teams depend on this data every day. Those answers set the order of work. A vendor demo does not.

Straathof treats governance as part of the move, not a later tidy-up. Someone has to own each domain, updates need an approval path, and the flow between systems has to be explicit. Product, marketing, IT and leadership belong in that conversation early. Leave them out and the surprises arrive during cutover, when they are expensive. Product data quality and governance is the detail behind "who owns what", including why a cleanup crew at the end of the pipeline is not a governance function.

A phased start is the pattern they prefer. A pilot on a limited product set tests the model, the rules and the team's ability to work in the new system before a company-wide rollout. The trade-off is a longer calendar. The alternative, a big-bang move of data you have not inspected, is how the new PIM inherits the old contradictions on day one.

The risks they name

Three traps come up in the conversation.

• The current data is dirtier than the plan assumes. Budget time to clean it, or the new system launches with the old errors and a new interface.
• Training and written process take longer than the import. People who could work around the spreadsheet cannot work around a workflow they have not been shown.
• The tool does not fix ownership. If nobody was accountable last month, the PIM will store that ambiguity in a more expensive place.

External help, in their view, earns its place when the range is complex or the date is tight: scoping, governance setup, and avoiding rework. It does not replace the internal owner.

What to do with this

Write the three scoping facts before you book the next vendor workshop. If you cannot name the owner of product content, stop and name one. How to select the right PIM is the selection work that should follow that naming, not precede it. Selecting a system to escape a spreadsheet, without an owner, recreates the spreadsheet inside a contract.