As 2015 rapidly comes to a close, most of us are busy preparing for the SEMA Show and getting next year’s budgets in order. If you are not yet working with the SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) to take total management control and ownership of your product data, now is a perfect time to plan for engagement in 2016, just in time for the spring selling season. And remember, the SDC doesn’t charge any initial onboarding or setup fees. In fact, you don’t pay anything until your data is ready to distribute, so you can start the process today and not affect your calendar 2015 budget.

Believe it or not, one of the most common excuses for business people to put off change is to simply declare, “We’re too busy.” Too busy to hire more help, too busy to evaluate internal systems, too busy to change a simple process that will pay for itself many times over.

If you are part of the “too busy” crowd, it’s time to stop and take a breath. Spend some time looking around the company, listen to feedback from the folks who are actually doing the work, then take some sort of positive step forward to implement bits of efficiency, no matter how small.

The Manufacturers’ Representative Network (MRN) has continued to collaborate with the SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) to provide valuable and user-friendly benefits to reps. Over the past few months, several exciting projects have received attention. Here is an update for MRN members.

Questions From Your Industry Peers

Back in July, my team and I had the opportunity to meet with the SEMA council leadership at its annual Council Summit in Pomona. We were invited to join the meeting to talk about the SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) and get feedback from this diverse gathering. What was particularly fascinating was that this group—made up of smart folks who do a great job of running their businesses—had widely varying understandings (and thus opinions) about product data management. After an hour of very productive discussion, the entire room merged onto the same page, and we came away with a group that was better able to relate product data management to their individual businesses while helping us at the SDC to realize that a lot of hand-to-hand education still needs to happen.

Are you Setting the Bar or Doing the Bare Minimum?

Chotchkie’s Manager: We need to talk about your product data.

Joanna: Really? I have 15 fields….

Chotchkie’s Manager: Well, okay. Fifteen is the minimum, okay?

Joanna: Okay.

Chotchkie’s Manager: Now, you know it’s up to you whether or not you want to just do the bare minimum. Or, well, like your competitor, for example, has 37 data fields, okay? And great digital assets, too.

The SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) is now completing its first year in full-operations mode, and we thought you might like to see that your industry-owned data management resource is now well–established and helping companies increase sales every day. As a reminder—the SDC is operating a centralized product data service for manufacturers that organizes, houses and then distributes online product catalog information to WDs and retailers to help power all manner of business systems, ultimately driving sales growth.

What does the Data Co-op progress report card look like? Consider these results from the first year of operations.