Hanna Bugla
Cosmetics Manufacturer Dr. Grandel relies on Contentserv PIM
The company founded by Dr. Felix Grandel in 1947 has celebrated the joy of beauty and health from the very beginning. By implementing a Contentserv solution, product communication has now been given an intensive treatment down to the very roots: Over 7.5 months, Laudert’s IT experts designed and implemented the system and trained its future users. This centralization of product and media data now allows Dr. Grandel to benefit from significant savings in time and costs for more efficient use of resources that have been freed.
Although the Augsburg-based family company began with the research of wheat germ and nutrition, it has transformed over the years into a leading manufacturer in the field of professional cosmetics. Dr. Grandel operates subsidiaries and foreign branch offices in more than 40 countries around the world. Through its brands Dr. Grandel, Phyris and Arabesque, the company manufactures premium cosmetics products and dietary supplements that are available in cosmetics institutions, pharmacies, health food stores and specialist shops as well as online in the company’s own shops.
The starting point: A lack of data organization
Until a year ago, the functional system now established for the shop interfaces would have been merely wishful thinking given the underlying product information: Central data collection, clear workflows and structures. Different storage locations and formats required a great deal of talent for research and orientation. The variety of departments involved significantly complicated the creation process for product data and texts: Releases were delayed and a great deal of effort was required in order to verify the accuracy of data. Now with complete networking of information throughout the manufacturing process, Dr. Grandel is an advocate of digitalization and has demonstrated great readiness for change. Accordingly, the choice of a PIM and MAM system to „enhance“ the data was just another logical step.
Efficient involvement of all departments in the release process
The objective of the project was clear: All product-related data such as texts, attributes and images had to be managed and maintained using workflows for rapid and efficient export to various output channels. The release process should be defined and simplified to ensure that communication is ultimately CI-compliant and relies on the highest quality of data.
Said and done. After all requirements were covered, it was time for Laudert’s project implementation. In this phase, the exceptional factor was to set up individual workflows depending on category, product or material in order to automatically incorporate the departments of Development, Training, Product Management, Science + Legal as well as E-business where necessary. A project-specific function exceeding the standard requirements was implemented to ensure that each department would be able to identify and manage only its allocated attributes at a glance. The assignment of user roles and one or more workflow statuses allows employees at Dr. Grandel to take on their specific responsibilities for data management.
This information is exported automatically to various online shops and smart documents, i.e. print documents such as informational materials. During the project, translation management was also optimized: Agencies begin translation into seven different languages as soon as all data-relevant texts have been entered in German. Thanks to the interface with the translation management tool Trados, text content is automatically transferred and fed back into the PIM through the same channel after complete translation. Other interfaces exist from the Contentserv system to the ERP system and back as well as with the online shops.
One implementation – a thousand benefits
Thanks to early involvement of all specialist departments during the design phase, employees are able to engage with the system and give input from the beginning: this was a major advantage as it ensured high acceptance of the PIM upon launch.
The use of the PIM solution helps Dr. Grandel to ensure the high levels of data quality that must be observed particularly due to statutory provisions and official requirements. Streamlined release processes ensure efficiency in the entire creation process for product data and texts. This enables the company to reinforce success factors such as quality, speed and innovation while achieving a shorter time to market. The basic technical framework offers additional stages of future expansion such as larger database publishing and prepares the company for the digitalized future.
