In Part 1, we established that the “single source of truth” was never truly internal — the real data lives upstream, in your supply chain. In this post, we look at what it takes to actually reach it: the technology, the communication layer, and the competitive advantage that follows.
Knowing that your supplier product data is the missing piece is one thing. Building the infrastructure to capture, validate, and activate it is another. Most organisations have tried — and most have ended up with a graveyard of email threads, spreadsheet templates, and half-completed supplier data requests that never quite made it into the PIM system.
The reason is almost always the same: it’s not a technology gap. It’s a communication gap.
Why Supplier Data Requests So Often Fail
When you send a supplier data request — asking a manufacturer to fill in a compliance questionnaire or provide raw material declarations — the quality of the answer depends entirely on whether they understood the question. Not just the words. The purpose behind it.
Regulatory frameworks like EUDR and PPWR are inherently complex. The supplier data requests they generate are often interpreted differently by different suppliers — sometimes even by the same supplier at different points in time. Without shared context, you get inconsistent supply chain data that erodes trust in your entire product information management infrastructure. Garbage in, garbage out — regardless of how good your PIM and DAM setup is downstream.
“The hard part isn’t collecting supplier data. It’s ensuring every question is answered based on a shared understanding of its purpose.”
This is why we’ve built communication intelligence directly into the supply chain collaboration layer at Prduct. Every data request carries context. Every field is explained in terms of its legal and operational purpose. The result is supplier product data that isn’t just collected — it’s understood by both sides.
Enriching Your PIM and MDM — Not Replacing Them
The good news: you don’t have to throw away your PIM system or rebuild your master data management architecture. Your existing PIM solutions are still valuable — as the distribution layer, the governance hub, the single place from which downstream systems draw. But they need to be fed by something richer.
What Prduct does is sit upstream of your MDM and product information management software — reaching into your supply chain to collect supplier data, validate it against regulatory and business requirements, and push enriched, source-verified product data into your existing systems. Your product sheets become accurate. Your compliance filings become defensible. Your AI models get trained on something real.
This is especially critical as organisations adopt AI tools for product content generation and sustainability reporting. AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. Feeding your AI platform with internally-generated approximations produces unreliable outputs. Feeding it with verified supply chain product data produces results you can stand behind.
The Competitive Advantage of Getting This Right
Organisations that solve supply chain collaboration at the data level don’t just achieve compliance. They move faster on new product development because their supplier product data is already structured and available. They enter new markets faster because their product information is already verified against international regulatory requirements. They negotiate better with suppliers because they have real data, not estimates.
The shift from “internal single source of truth” to “supply chain-sourced truth” is not just a philosophical upgrade to your master data management strategy. It’s a genuine competitive differentiator — one that grows more valuable with every new regulation, every new AI use case, and every customer demanding product transparency.
The companies winning on product data quality today are not the ones with the most sophisticated internal MDM governance. They’re the ones who’ve built the deepest, most structured supply chain collaboration workflows.
Where to Start
If your organisation is navigating EUDR, PPWR, or any supply chain due diligence requirement, the first question to ask is not “which PIM system should we upgrade?” It’s “how do we build a structured, governed channel for supplier data to flow from source to system?”
That’s exactly what we help companies do at Prduct. We work with leading brands including REMA 1000, Normal, BoConcept, Dagrofa, Bolia, and Holmris B8 to transform compliance requirements into structured supply chain product data — and feed that verified data into the systems that need it most.
← Read Part 1: The Myth of Internal Truth: Why Your PIM System Is Only Half the Story
