The Digital Product Pass: Why Companies Must Act Now

The Digital Product Pass (DPP) – Challenge or Chance?

The decision has been made: on the basis of a mandate by the European Union (EU), political bodies across many countries such as the German Federal Ministry of Environment (BMUV) have already declared that companies must have implemented the Digital Product Pass for all their product assortments by the year of 2030. On the one hand, this decision is an important contribution to push forward environmental protection and sustainability, while, on the other hand however, it constitutes a plethora of new challenges for companies. After all, companies must not only make adjustments to their business processes now, but they must also guarantee that they have the capacities to gather all necessary data required for the Digital Product Pass and provide it accordingly. Though, the Digital Product Pass does also offer businesses with the opportunity to strengthen their competitive prowess and win the customer’s trust by demonstrating the transparency and sustainability of their products.

Now, what even is Digital Product Pass, what requirements does it impose on your company and your product data, and before anything else: how can you use it strategically in order to achieve your corporate objectives?

Answers to these questions are provided to you in this blog post. Have a delightful read!

What is the Digital Product Pass?

The concept of “Digital Product Pass” may remind us, at first glance, of a travelling pass – a metaphor that is, in fact, more than appropriate.

After all, the Digital Product Pass is nothing more than the “travel” of your product. It is the central point where all information about the life cycle of your product is collected: from the first industrial sketch to the finishing touches before release – in the future, your customers will have the option to track the travelling route of their desired product at the click of a single button. With this, they must no longer search hours upon hours for the desired information. Instead, they can directly scan it in a quick and easy manner via a QR code or your app, for example.

How to Profit from the Digital Product Pass and Enhance Your Competitiveness

You save time!

According to the BMUV, not only vendors and consumers but also all other agents involved are supposed to gain access to relevant information via the new Digital Product Pass. The primary aim of the pass is to promote a circular economy that is friendly to the environment so that the requirements for sustainable production of raw materials or for an ecologically-acceptable waste management are easier to fulfill.

The following figure illustrates the concept of the product pass very well:

In this figure, you can clearly see how all agents of the closed-loop economy have easy access to product data using the Digital Product Pass. An important foundation for all this is the communication established through a stable and standardized data exchange. This cuts both extra coordination with other parties involves as well as the need to set up a data transformation procedure for sending and receiving data.

With the Digital Product Pass, you gain valuable time which you can use to focus on the truly important matters of daily business.

More than Mere Image: Act and Think with Environmental Awareness!

Green deal is in! Consumers are starting to value sustainability more and more when making purchases. According to an Europe-wide survey by YouGov from 2021, around 60 percent of the interviewed people from Germany take sustainability to be a decisive purchasing factor (source: YouGov). The digital product pass will, therefore, not only be a legal requirement on both the national and EU level – but also a topic with high trend potential among consumers to whom sustainability and environmental protection are important issues. Companies, on the other hand, can once again demonstrate to their customers that ecological awareness enjoys high significance when it comes to manufacturing their products. The product pass is also an ideal instrument for becoming even more eco-friendly as a company. In the future, you will be able to conduct is–ought analyses, upon which you can then ground the optimization of your business processes: be it sustainable material, information about the recycling process, or more transparency in the supply chain – every little green step helps. And as if all this isn’t enough yet, you do also motivate your customers to commit to more sustainable purchasing habits on top of that. They can obtain important information about repair, reprocessing, and recycling of purchased products in a comfortable and easy manner. In the long run, this reduces waste production and it is also easy on the environment.

Secure Your Competitive Edge

With the early implementation of the Digital Product Pass, you demonstrate to your customers that you have not only understood the principle of environmental protection but also that of digitization. On the one hand, you position yourself on the markets as a state-of-the-art provider and a pioneer in your industry branch. On the other hand, your customers receive perfectly maintained and, most importantly, complete data about your products. This manifests itself in the form of a significant reduction of cancelled purchases and an increase in sales.

Sustainable Outlook: What Companies Ought to Do Right Here and Now

By 2030 at the latest, the Digital Product Pass will be required by law for all product assortments in the case of some European countries like Germany. Additionally, further legal requirements to be fulfilled will follow as mandated by the EU commission.

Even if the implementation of a Digital Product Pass seems to pose a challenge at first glance, you should start gaining an understanding of it as early as possible. After all, you can only profit from it. As we have seen, the new e-pass does also offer many advantages which you can strategically mobilize for your business objectives. Therefore, you should begin in good time with preparations by evaluating the current state of your IT system environment. One foundational requirement for the successful implementation of your Digital Product Pass is a central data source. Since only when all your product data and information is kept up to date and free of error at all times by centralizing it in a single source of truth, is it possible to ace all requirements of the Digital Product Pass without suffering from shortage of personnel in the process of doing so. Now, let’s get to the best news: PIM systems are practically made to support you in tackling this and related challenges head on in the best possible manner.

Equipped with a PIM system as your central datahub, you can efficiently manage and edit all your data while also updating your product passes at regular intervals.