Data is the lifeblood of every business. You need to know “the numbers” to track sales, manage inventory, pay bills. On a personal side, it is what drives commissions and payroll. But an underpinning of this information that is rarely thought of, unless you are involved in eCommerce, is product data.

Product data is the foundation of a product. It is what is identified to design and manufacture a product. It is the “code”, the “description”, of a product. Consider it as the product’s language. Appropriately, it is called the product description and there are specific, and usually physical, attributes that are ascribed to the product. Get it incorrect and it could be fatal (in extreme cases) or at least detrimental as you could select the wrong item.

Years ago, pre-eCommerce, decisions could be made based upon visual observation. Now computers transfer and translate information. When it is all 1’s and 0’s, it better be correct.

And in the world of AI, structured data, especially product data, is critical to most efficiently support systems.

This is where IDEA and ETIM come in. The have set standards for the transference of product information.

To help better educate sales management, senior management, IT professionals, eCommerce personnel, AI developers, and product management, IDEA and ETIM are teaming up to further educate the electrical industry.

If technology is important to your company, you owe it to your company to either attend or make sure the right people from your company attend.

Angela Baraks from IDEA and Mary Shaw from ETIM shared a description of what they will be talking about regarding data syndication:

Syndicate Product Data the Smart Way

If you’re managing product data for the electrical industry, you’re likely facing a familiar challenge: different customers want data in different formats. The result? Your team is reformatting the same product information over and over, wasting valuable time and risking errors with each translation.

There’s a better way.

One Source, Multiple Formats

Join IDEA’s Angela Baraks and ETIM North America’s Mary Shaw for a practical webinar that shows how manufacturers can syndicate product data using the ETIM Technical Information Model, the IDEA Category Attribute Specification (CAS), or a hybrid approach, without duplicating effort or compromising quality. Distributors can then extract the data in their preferred format.

ETIM is the international classification data model for the standardization and classification of electrotechnical product information that is used by manufacturers, distributors and end-users doing business globally.

The secret is IDEA’s Harmonized Data Model (HDM), which serves as a single source of truth that flexibly outputs to multiple standards. Instead of maintaining separate databases or constantly reformatting data, you manage it once and syndicate it everywhere.

What You’ll Gain … Learning About Product Standards

This isn’t a theoretical discussion about standards. It’s a practical session focused on real business outcomes.  You’ll learn how ETIM and IDEA CAS address different market needs, and how HDM ties them together.

You’ll also learn about the collaboration between IDEA and ETIM North America that’s shaping the future of product data standards, making it easier for the entire industry to exchange information efficiently. With IDEA’s focus on the product categories that provide the most impact for their customer-base, and ETIM NA focusing on the product categories specific to their member-base, together they are standardizing product descriptors for the North American market.

The Business Case Is Clear

Manufacturers who’ve adopted standards-based approaches are seeing measurable benefits: significant reductions in time and labor costs, fewer data errors, faster speed to market, and increased sales opportunities as their product information reaches more channels accurately, domestically and globally.

Distributors who adopt and incorporate standardized product descriptors into their sales tools and processes are seeing the same benefits as the manufacturers, including an increase in the order-to-cash cycle.

Whether you’re a manufacturer struggling with data syndication or a distributor wanting to understand how standardized data improves what you receive, this session will show you how flexible, standards-based product data streamlines workflows and drives better outcomes for everyone.

Join us for the webinar: January 29, 2026 – 11:00am-12:00pm EST.

Register now

Don’t keep duplicating work when there’s a smarter solution.

Webinar Presenters: Angela Baraks, Director of Data Quality & Standards, IDEA & Mary Shaw, Executive Director, ETIM North America