Data solutions for industry
This page describes how Pico works with data and digital solutions for industrial companies with complex products, heavy processes, and high demands for structure and documentation.
Industrial context and typical challenges
Many industrial companies are characterised by long value chains, technically complex products, and a high degree of customer customisation. Products often consist of many components, variants, and configuration options, and they are sold across markets with different requirements for documentation, language, standards, and compliance.
Data supports virtually all core processes in the business, but is often distributed across many systems and organised based on historical considerations rather than current business needs. This creates challenges such as:
Heavy and slow workflows, where changes to products or assortments require many manual interventions
Lack of coherence between product development, sales, production, and documentation
Inconsistent or insufficient product information across channels and markets
Limited overview of variants, configurations, and dependencies
High risk of errors when data is reused or maintained in multiple places
In this context, product data becomes not just an operational element, but a strategic asset that must be able to support both efficient operations and business development.
Pico's overall role
Pico helps industrial companies create structure, coherence, and governance in their data. The starting point is always the business: how products are developed, sold, produced, and documented, and how data best supports these processes over time.
Pico's services range from analysis and data modelling to implementation and further development of solutions that handle product data and related information flows. The focus is not on individual systems, but on the whole and the interplay between people, processes, and technology.
Product data and data modelling
A central area of Pico's work is the structuring and modelling of product data. For industrial companies, this often means handling:
Complex product structures with many levels and dependencies
Variants and configurations, where products are assembled based on rules
Technical specifications, certificates, and documentation
Market- and customer-specific information
Pico works to define data models that reflect the real complexity of products without making them unnecessarily difficult to maintain. This involves clear definitions of data types, relationships, and responsibilities, so that data can be reused safely across systems and processes.
PIM as a structuring centrepiece
For many industrial companies, a PIM system serves as a central hub for product data. Pico works with PIM as a discipline rather than as an isolated tool.
This means that PIM is viewed in the context of:
ERP and production systems
CAD and technical source systems
Commerce and sales channels
Documentation, manuals, and compliance requirements
Pico's role is to ensure that PIM supports the company's business logic, including variant management, market adaptation, and governance, and that data flows in a controlled manner between systems.
Processes and workflows
Beyond the data itself, Pico works with the processes that surround it. In industrial companies, this is often where complexity is truly felt.
Pico analyses and designs workflows for how data is created, changed, approved, and published. This can include collaboration between product development, quality, marketing, sales, and IT. The goal is not to simplify reality, but to make complexity manageable and transparent.
Clear processes and roles are a prerequisite for stable data quality and for solutions to be scaled and further developed over time.
Connection to other areas
In industrial setups, product data is closely linked to a number of other areas across the value chain that Pico often works with in parallel.
This may include commerce solutions, where accurate and consistent product information is essential for the customer's decision-making. It may include integrations that ensure automated data exchange between systems. It may also include areas such as sustainability reporting, where product data is used as the basis for calculations and documentation. Not least, there are often central interfaces towards sales, where structured data is used for quoting processes, CPQ, and more.
Pico views these connections as part of the same whole and works with solutions that can be adapted to new requirements and business needs as the company evolves.
Value in an industrial context
When product data, processes, and systems are connected, industrial companies gain better overview, fewer errors, and greater flexibility. Changes to products or assortments can be handled more quickly, and data can be reused across markets and channels with greater confidence.
Pico's services aim to support this development by creating a robust and understandable foundation for the company's data – a foundation that can carry both day-to-day operations and strategic ambitions over the long term.