Is your product data driving your business or holding it back?
As a manufacturer, wholesaler or merchant for the Electrotechnical, HVAC & Plumbing, or Building Materials sectors, high-quality product data is crucial to sales. What’s surprising is how many businesses are hindering their own performance because this hugely valuable asset is managed and maintained using ad hoc out-dated processes outpaced by digitalisation.
Do you know:
- What data do your customers need?
- What data to you have already?
- How is it structured?
- Where is it held?
- Who is responsible for creating and maintaining it?
Straightforward questions, but the answers can be anything but straightforward.
The good news is, we’re here to help.
Digital transformation starts with data
Transforming how the UK’s wider construction sector manages and uses its data is why ETIM UK and Ireland Ltd was set up.
Through our Sector Leads – the EDA and the BMF – our role is to support businesses of all sizes seize control of their product data, driving sales and improving customer satisfaction.
ETIM is at the heart of your digitalisation journey
Central to this work is the adoption of ETIM, the internationally established data model for the standardisation and classification of technical product data. You’ll find an introduction to ETIM below.
Introducing ETIM
ETIM is an international data model for the standardisation and classification of technical product data. Specifically, it defines in a consistent way the technical and performance attributes that B2B buyers need in order to match a product to a specific need.
The benefits of adopting ETIM include:
- Your products can be found easily in digital sales channels
- Your products can be matched easily to a specification
- Improved customer experience and retention
- Higher search engine placement through provision of full, relevant data
- Greater control over accuracy and how products
Introducing ETIM UK Ltd
ETIM UK and Ireland Ltd is an independent, sector-neutral not-for-profit with responsibility for promoting, maintaining and development ETIM in this country. This includes:
- Supporting the UK sector leads – the EDA and the BMF. You’ll find a diagram further down this page illustrating this.
- Developing links with other data standards and Building Information Modelling (BIM)
- Building close relationships with providers of related business systems including PIM (Product Information Management) and ERP system providers.
ETIM UK and Ireland Ltd is part of the ETIM International’s governing body.
Your Sector Leads: the journey so far

Electrotechnical was the first sector to launch in the UK, introduced by the Electrical Distributors’ Association (EDA) in 2017.
Since 2017 substantial progress has been made through a series of Working Groups with over 70 representatives from 50 companies collaborating to Anglicise the ETIM standard for the UK market. It is estimated that over 100,000 pieces of data have been reviewed and Anglicised.

In December 2019, a new agreement between the EDA and the Builders Merchants’ Federation (BMF) ensured that the ETIM data model was extended to businesses manufacturing and trading in HVAC & Plumbing products and in Building Materials.
This new agreement means that the EDA and the BMF are Sector Leads. Each lead will run its own advisory groups and working groups to promote the ETIM standard, and guide its development for their sector.