Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) today announced the availability of Oracle(R) Product Information Management for Retail, an innovative master data management application that allows global retailers to create a single, enterprise view of all product information to help unlock value from within the business. Oracle Product Information Management for Retail helps retailers improve operational efficiencies, accelerate the speed-to-market of new product introductions and service offerings across different channels, improve customer intimacy and automate collaboration with trading partners.

As the industry continues to experience a dramatic transformation and the channels of retailing expand, retailers are being forced to devote significant time and resources to addressing data quality issues. These efforts are cutting into their profits and negatively impacting the bottom line as a result of factors such as wasted labor and lost productivity. Making matters worse, ignoring the data quality problem is not an option as it can lead directly to missed sales, lost market share and customer dissatisfaction when products are unavailable or slow to reach the shelf.

"Many retailers are missing the point on Product Information Management and as a result are not properly preparing themselves for the future," said Andrew White, Research Vice President, Gartner. "To be successful with business-led and technology-enabled initiatives such as customer centricity, business intelligence, multi-channel integration and SOA, retailers must establish a solid information infrastructure. With PIM, retailers can build a foundational part of that information infrastructure that will outlast and support any number of business applications and business process changes from today to the future. Retail CIOs should evaluate PIM sooner rather than later as a means to future-proof their needs for a single view of product from consumer to supplier."

Oracle Product Information Management for Retail integrates, standardizes and synchronizes fragmented product data from multiple systems into a single, central data repository. As a result, the solution is able to deliver a trusted source of product information. This is especially useful for retailers with multiple item masters, multiple sales channels or those who require data synchronization with suppliers. Retail mandates around the use of Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) standards have proven to be catalysts for many retail product information initiatives.

"Oracle Product Information Management for Retail builds on Oracle's commitment to provide global retailers with innovative solutions that address their most critical business imperatives and deliver measurable value," said Hardeep Gulati, Vice President PLM and PIM Product Strategy, Oracle. "We see a significant opportunity to help retailers and their suppliers become more profitable and deliver increased shareholder value from leveraging a single source of accurate product information."