Key to Unlocking a Future-Proof Digital Commerce Strategy
We saw that customers needed the information at their fingertips, and not in a catalog or in the mind of someone who has to come on site. We want to give our customers the tools they need as an extension of our business, providing them access to everything we can supply to them as if they were working for us.
ASSA ABLOY offers a comprehensive range of complex solutions and services, spanning door locks, access control systems, entrance automation, secure identity solutions, and mobile access technologies across more than 150 countries. Their diverse portfolio caters to a wide range of businesses, from residential and commercial sectors to industrial and institutional clients.
With a strong commitment to innovation, the company’s technological advancements has enabled them to stay at the forefront of the industry, constantly adapting to evolving security needs and emerging trends.
As they continued to grow, ASSA ABLOY faced a set of challenges that hindered their ability to provide an optimal customer experience and sustain digital growth.
Over the years, their entire product record had become scattered across various places – spreadsheets, legacy databases, and even in the heads of product managers. Teams across marketing, product management, sales, and customer support had to spend countless hours chasing information instead of delivering it. This created inconsistent and incomplete product experiences for customers.
Customers seeking straightforward details, such as finish options, color codes, or compliance information, often struggled to find them online. Instead, they had to call customer support or consult physical catalogs.
Insufficient or incorrect pre-purchase product information led to customer queries and support requests that could have been avoided, meaning valuable Customer Support resources were wasted on redundant tasks such as clarifying product details or addressing misinformation.
The impact was clear: higher bounce rates on websites, frustrated customers, and strained internal teams. ASSA ABLOY knew they needed a way to centralize, enrich, and scale their product information so customers could make confident, informed decisions without friction.
We want to give our customers the tools they need as an extension of our business. They should be able to access everything we can supply to them as if they were working for us or with us.
Addressing these challenges required ASSA ABLOY to adopt Akeneo Product Cloud not just as a tool, but as the foundation for a company-wide product experience (PX) mission. The initiative brought together their product management, digital marketing, IT, sales enablement, and customer support teams. All aligning around a single goal: improving customer experience by making product information complete, consistent, and accessible everywhere.
The company established Akeneo PIM as its central source of truth for product information, creating a clear and efficient data workflow. The process begins when a product is enabled in their SAP ERP system, which then feeds the basic data directly into Akeneo for enrichment. Once enriched, the product information is pushed out via API to approximately 12 different websites and 10 channels, including B2B webshops (IBM WebSphere), brand-specific B2C sites (Magento), and content-managed sites (Adobe Experience Manager)
One of the most transformative changes came with the use of Akeneo Shared Catalogs. ASSA ABLOY used this feature to securely share curated, always up-to-date product assortments directly with internal stakeholders, regional teams, and select channel partners.
To further leverage this centralized data, ASSA ABLOY integrated Akeneo with other key business systems:
A key to success was driving user adoption through collaboration with executive stakeholders, marketing teams, and the product managers who held the essential knowledge. The feedback from product managers is that they now “love to use Akeneo”. To accommodate different working styles, the team even generates Excel templates from within Akeneo for users who prefer that format, allowing them to import their work back into the PIM. This approach ensures everyone remains engaged while maintaining a single, reliable source of truth.
It used to take a team of people 2 weeks every time we relaunched a price list. We've managed to streamline that entire process into Shared Catalogs, which now takes just two hours.
The results were both immediate and measurable, with benefits felt internally and, most importantly, by ASSA ABLOY’s customers.
Most importantly, ASSA ABLOY’s customers now trust the information they see. They can browse confidently, compare options, and make purchase decisions without second-guessing specs or waiting on external confirmation. Sales reps can create personalized catalogs or datasheets on the fly, ensuring every conversation is backed by the latest product data.
For ASSA ABLOY, Akeneo wasn’t just about streamlining product information; it was about strengthening customer relationships through trust, speed, and transparency.
A special thanks to our partners who supported this project:
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