Photo: EFO - front: Sølvi Ekle, Geir Arkøy, Nanna Wister and Frank Jaegtnes
The Norwegian Electrical Association (EFO) is the trade organization for the electrical and electronic communications industry in Norway, and operates, among other things, the EFObasen – the central database where manufacturers and suppliers publish product data for the electrical industry.
Recently, EFO awarded the 2026 Product Data Award to suppliers who excel in high quality product information in their database.
The award was divided into three size groups to ensure fair comparison – and in all three categories the award went to companies that update the EFO database directly from the PIM feed.
feed PIM is iSYS's product information management (PIM) system. It manages product data in one place and automatically publishes it to all channels that need it – EFObasen, GS1, online stores and others.
In the group for smaller suppliers (under 1,000 products), EL-Tjeneste AS won, with 899 active products and 100 percent error-free data.
In the middle group (1000–5000 products) , Elis Elektro AS took the award, with high data quality, good environmental coverage and solid digital information sharing.
Among the large suppliers (over 5,000 products), the award went to ABB Electrification Norway AS – Fornebu , which achieved almost 100 percent error-free data and very good coverage of technical characteristics.
Ole Gunnar Honningsøy, strategic advisor to the Norwegian Electrical Association, emphasizes that product data has become one of the industry's most important shared resources, and that the winners show that quality is created through continuous effort - not through individual clean-up actions.
That's exactly the point of feed PIM: when product data is managed in one place and goes straight to the EFO database at the same time as all other channels, there is no "version number two" to keep track of. Three of this year's winners have solved that problem – in three completely different size categories.
"As a small company with limited resources, we are completely dependent on automating as much as possible. Our goal is simple: Information should be recorded once and then flow automatically. Today, we record production data in the ERP system, enrich the product information in the feed PIM and transfer it automatically to the EFO database and our website. This means that we normally do not need to do manual work in the individual channels. The next step is to start the information flow already in the design tool and automate even more of the process. For us, this is absolutely crucial in order to be able to maintain high quality of the product data with the resources we have."
– Sølvi Ekle, general manager of El-Tjeneste
