In today’s cybersecurity realm, and in the e-commerce and product sales field, businesses probably focus on customer data, financial information, or intellectual property. However, there’s a large area that is not monitored with the same level of attention: product information.
Often products that are sold are a result of hours invested in research, specialization, and development. This information covers technical specifications, pricing, compliance documentation, and more important details, making it the recipe for competitive advantage over other businesses.
In this article, we’ll discuss why securing product data is just as important and how businesses can prevent major risks by implementing centralized product information systems.
The Hidden Security Challenges in Product Information
If a manufacturer mistakenly publishes incorrect safety information for a power tool, it could lead to potential injuries and legal liability, or on the other hand, if an employee modifies a product’s prices across multiple sales channels, this could harm the company’s revenue.
But there are also other scenarios to consider. For example, a company that manages all its product information through a shared drive without any permission protocols in place. In this e-commerce, all departments have access to the same information. One day, the blueprints of a patented product design are accessed and sent to external organizations. This could have a massive impact on the company’s future.
Your product information is your know-how, and it’s the result of careful planning. Therefore, the fragmentation of organization platforms such as shared drives, spreadsheets, disconnected databases, or emails can generate numerous security gaps that can be exploited or lead to costly errors.
If your data isn’t centralized, it could impact in different ways. Mainly, when updating information through sales platforms, leading to human errors. For example, if your company has over 400 products, adding them manually to your platforms becomes a major challenge for your team. Not only does it take a lot of time to execute, but it can also lead to inconsistencies in the information presented
As well as these situations, you can get more real-world consequences of product information vulnerabilities:
Regulatory Compliance Violations: For many companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and manufacturing industries, having accurate information is a legal requirement. If incorrect information is presented, it could result in the loss of certifications, regulatory fines, or even affect relationships with retailers and distributors. Visit BingeCringe to see more information.
Loss of Customer Trust: If you sell products on different platforms and the information on each one is inconsistent, this could confuse your potential customers and harm your company’s reputation. Also, if a customer orders your product and it doesn’t meet the description or specifications when it arrives, it could lead to returns and disputes.
Unintended Disclosures: Poorly managed product information can lead to unintended disclosures like images with metadata revealing product codenames or launch dates, or technical specifications appearing in search results before official announcements. This negatively impacts already planned marketing strategies and can result in information leaks before launches, giving competitors advance information.
Why Product Information Security is Particularly Challenging
Distributed Ownership: Product information becomes more complicated to manage in large teams and companies, where data is shared across departments, sometimes including aspects that not everyone necessarily needs access to, such as legal compliance information, engineering specs, or pricing breakdowns. This distributed ownership creates confusion about who’s responsible for data security.
Frequent Updates: Product data is constantly changing, with new prices, new regulatory requirements, and new features, creating the possibility of new security challenges and human error.
Multi-Channel Distribution: Digital businesses nowadays distribute product information across multiple channels: the e-commerce’s website, other marketplaces, retailer portals, print catalogs, and mobile apps. This widespread distribution makes tracking and securing product data particularly difficult.
Building a Security-First Approach to Product Information
Businesses could act strategically to implement a system that protects product information carefully. Some ways to do this include:
Establish a Centralized Product Information System: You could implement a system that acts as a single source of truth for product data, eliminating the security vulnerabilities created by fragmented information. With a centralized system, you not only store your information in one place, but you can also distribute product data to all your sales channels from a single portal, reducing errors caused by information desynchronization.
Implement Role-Based Access Controls: With an in-place system, you can establish a permissions protocol for your team, allowing you to grant necessary access only to those who need it. This way, if you need external organizations to access specific information, only the necessary data will be shared. These systems also allow you to establish a version history, so you can track who modified information and when.
Establish Change Management Processes: Each update should include an approval process before publication, documentation of changes, and validation of critical information.
Deploy Specialized Tools
There are tools that allow you to implement these strategies, functioning as a single source of truth, called Product Information Management (PIM) systems.
PIM systems help digital businesses manage and distribute product data across multiple sales channels. One tool is Catsy, which helps companies transform their approach to product information security.
By using the Catsy PIM/DAM solution, businesses can implement proper access controls, maintain detailed audit trails, and ensure that only accurate, approved information reaches sales channels. This structured approach significantly reduces the risk of errors, unintended disclosures, and compliance violations
Final Thoughts
Information about your products must be treated as a priority equal to traditional data security concerns; it’s the result of a costly production process that you and your team have developed over time, and what sets you apart from other businesses.
That’s why it’s important to establish systems and processes that protect it, prevent costly breaches, maintain regulatory compliance, and safeguard both your brand and your customers. Thanks to technological advances, there are now systems that allow businesses to achieve this.
