Hagen Group: PIM Meets InDesign
Hagen Group are the world’s largest privately-owned, multi-national pet products manufacturer and distributor. Underlying their entire philosophy is one simple fact: Pets are not only the heart of their business, they are the reason Hagen Group are in business.
The Challenge
As an international company who needs to coordinate multiple geographically disparate teams marketing in multiple languages, Hagen Group were battling with keeping rich product data up to date and consistent and making new product introductions fast and coordinated.
Similarly, the issue of maintaining worldwide brand consistency was increased by the fact that Hagen Group have numerous brands each with its own characteristics.
The question Hagen Group were struggling with was essentially “how do we ensure we’re always communicating the right information and messages about our products worldwide using consistent visuals?”
The Solution
Hagen Group’s PIM implementation focussed on solving multiple challenges at once by:
Improving product data management and consistency
Improving brand consistency
Their chosen software was Plytix, which is designed to help teams manage and syndicate product information at scale. It’s the single source of truth for your content, to help get your products to market faster and smarter.
Plytix PIM software centralises product data and allows different departments to collaborate without stepping on each other’s toes. Users can organise, manage, and edit content at the same time—avoiding misplaced spreadsheets, duplicated content, and bottlenecks in tasks. It’s the efficient way to get Product Information Management done, and get it right the first time.
Hagen Group were particularly interested in how their product data within Plytix could be used in the production of their marketing publications, such as, product data sheets, illustrated price lists, brochures and flyers.
This challenge required Channel Studios expertise in publishing processes for producing marketing materials directly from a product information source.
Using sample product data sheets supplied by Hagen Group, we created InDesign templates for Hagen Group’s product data sheet production and linked these to the data from the Plytix Channel using the EasyCatalog Plug-in for InDesign – to create a batch pagination process that Hagen Group could initiate and control. This process enables the mass production of styled PDF product data sheets by Hagen Group’s own internal marketing teams – across the world on demand.
These product data sheets are then imported back into Plytix and made available in a Plytix Brand Portal. This ensures that Hagen Group and their resellers have up to data access to the latest product information relating to Hagen Group products – technical facts and figures, marketing copy, images and the individual product data sheets.
Similar high speed, low effort batch production processes are on the way for other elements of Hagen Group’s marketing collateral with the twin benefits of releasing substantial amounts of time for their marketing team whilst helping ensure worldwide brand styling consistency.
“Plytix PIM has revolutionised our workflow and drastically reduced errors, saving us valuable time. The efficiency and consistency it has brought to managing our product information has been game-changing.
Sharing of organised, categorised digital assets now takes a few minutes compared to previously via email or Dropbox or WeTransfer. No more searching for assets or asking different departments. In this area alone I would say we’ve seen at least a 50% time saving. Updating and sharing content to platforms such as Shopify takes seconds, making the whole process extremely efficient.”
The Results
Following the implementation of Plytix and the publishing solution, Hagen Group have seen significant improvements across the board. This includes;
Streamlined processes, especially with regulatory boards which has resulted in enhanced compliance.
Saving substantial amounts of time and reducing errors.
Enhanced efficiency, enabling them to manage product information more effectively and consistently.
One source of truth.
Increased alignment with industry standard and a better ability to keep up with technology progression.
Meeting trading partner and customer requirements, whilst enhancing their experience.
Faster time to market.
Better content for marketing.
Improved worldwide collaboration with increased communication between global offices.
Hagen Group’s journey demonstrates the power of combining a PIM with InDesign through expert implementation. By streamlining Product Information Management and integrating automated workflows for marketing publications, Hagen Group have benefitted from increased efficiency, consistency, and scalability.
Automation for Product Data Sheets.