For decades, enterprise software vendors promised that the right PIM system, MDM platform, or master data management strategy would give your organisation a “single source of truth.” It never quite worked out that way. Here’s why.
If you’ve worked in retail, manufacturing, or distribution for more than five minutes, you’ve heard the phrase. “We need a single source of truth.” It has been the rallying cry behind every product information management initiative, every PIM system rollout, every master data management project for the past two decades. Billions have been invested in product information management software, PIM and DAM integrations, and enterprise MDM platforms — all in pursuit of that elusive, organised, single version of product data.
And yet, most organisations still struggle. Product sheets are wrong. Regulatory filings get rejected. Customers receive contradictory information across channels. The ERP says one thing, the e-commerce platform says another. Sound familiar?
The problem is not the software. The problem is where we assumed the truth lived.
The Promise of PIM and MDM
The logic of product information management and master data management was sound on paper. Centralise your product data, create a governed repository, and every downstream system — your e-commerce store, your product sheets, your ERP, your marketing materials — pulls from that same golden record.
And PIM solutions did solve real problems. They eliminated internal silos. They standardised attribute structures. They gave marketing teams a place to manage rich content alongside a PIM and DAM workflow. For companies managing thousands of SKUs, a well-implemented PIM system was transformational.
But there was always a foundational assumption baked into this model — one so obvious that no one questioned it:
“We assumed the truth was ours to own. That it originated inside our four walls. That if we just organised it well enough, we’d have it.”
Where the Model Breaks Down
Consider a product at the centre of today’s regulatory landscape — a wooden chair, a coffee blend, a packaging material subject to PPWR. Your internal product data describes what you sell. But who knows what that product actually is? Who knows where the wood was sourced, what certifications the plantation holds, whether the supply chain is compliant with EUDR? Who has the raw material composition data needed for accurate product sheets?
Not your internal team. Not your MDM platform. The answer lives with your suppliers — the manufacturers, growers, and processors at the upstream end of your supply chain. And your product information management software was never designed to reach them.
This is the gap at the heart of modern master data management. Your PIM system is a container — a very sophisticated, well-governed container. But you can only put into it what you already have. If the authoritative data doesn’t originate inside your organisation, you’re filling that container with approximations, guesses, and stale copies of documents emailed from a supplier two years ago.
The single source of truth was never inside your company. It was always out there — in your supply chain — waiting for you to build the right bridge to reach it.
Up Next: Part 2
In the next post, we look at what it actually takes to bridge this gap: how supplier collaboration, supply chain product data, and the right communication layer transform your PIM and MDM systems from containers of approximations into genuine sources of verified, regulation-ready product truth.
Read Part 2 → From Supply Chain to System: Building Product Data That Actually Comes From the Source
