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Case Study: Algorel | Diamart Now

Algorel accelerated its digital transformation by automating the categorization of its 700,000 product sheets for e-commerce.

Taking on the web when it has never been done before or done in an artisanal way is a high ambition. Today, we have to accelerate because the competition is going faster and faster. To free oneself from the categorization of 700,000 products is a real competitive advantage.

Alexandre Dauvergne, Digital Experience & Innovation Consultant

Project Summary

Challenges

  • Unstructured product data - essential for e-commerce but disorganized across multiple suppliers.
  • Massive catalog volume - 3 million items made manual classification impossible.
  • Supplier file inconsistencies - non-compliant files caused integration issues.

Benefits

  • Faster time-to-market - 30,000 products classified in one month, with a goal of 95% automation.
  • Efficient supplier data integration - non-standard files are now processed seamlessly.
  • Improved team productivity - freed from manual categorization, teams can focus on strategic initiatives.

Challenge

Algorel, a group of 150 independent building product distributors, has a strong physical presence with 750 points of sale. However, to achieve omnichannel success, it needed to develop its digital capabilities—starting with a structured product repository for e-commerce.

To support this digital transformation, Algorel partnered with Diamart Now, a consulting firm specializing in retail strategy and digital acceleration. Diamart Now’s first objective was to help arbitrate technical, organizational, and process-related decisions, particularly in product data management.

Before launching its online platform, Algorel faced major data challenges:

  • Unstructured product data – many references were misclassified or missing critical attributes, making it difficult to build a usable online product catalog.
  • Massive product catalog – with 3 million items, manually categorizing and standardizing data was not feasible.
  • Supplier data inconsistencies – many supplier files didn’t meet the FAB-DIS standard, leading to delays and data gaps in product listings.

 

SDM allows us to go faster, to make things possible - we are no longer faced with a mountain of products to categorize, and to deal with other fundamental issues. With the categorization work automated, teams see this task become less tedious and we can focus on their real value-add.

Alexandre Dauvergne, Digital Experience & Innovation Consultant

Solution

One approach would have been to manually categorize products, but this was far too time-consuming. Instead, Diamart Now introduced Algorel to SDM, an AI-powered solution designed to classify, standardize, and enrich product data automatically.

With SDM:

  • Product categorization was automated, eliminating the need for manual sorting.
  • Supplier files were standardized and mapped, ensuring that even non-compliant files could be integrated.
  • AI-driven learning improved over time, continuously enhancing classification accuracy and reducing manual work.

During the initial setup phase, Algorel set a goal of 50% automation, with plans to reach 95% automation in the near future. In just one month, 30,000 product data entries across five categories were processed, demonstrating SDM’s ability to handle large-scale data organization efficiently.

The artificial intelligence solution is a real opportunity; we couldn’t manually classify our product data, especially since we have a database of 3,000,000 items.

Dimitri Both, Executive Director

Results

By leveraging SDM, with the guidance of Diamart Now, Algorel achieved significant productivity gains and built a solid foundation for its e-commerce expansion:

  • Accelerated e-commerce launch – with a clean and structured product repository, Algorel could confidently move forward with its online store.
  • Massive time savings – automation reduced manual classification work, allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
  • Seamless supplier data integration – SDM ensured non-standard supplier files could still be processed, avoiding product catalog gaps.

With Diamart Now’s strategic support and SDM’s automation capabilities, Algorel successfully overcame data structuring challenges, automated tedious tasks, and positioned itself for omnichannel success, ensuring its e-commerce site could scale efficiently.

 

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