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Case Study: ASSA ABLOY

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.

Matt Caffery, Solutions Architect

Challenges

  • The only option for customers was physical catalogs, limiting research potential and resulting in a bad customer experience, especially during COVID-19.
  • Customer Support resources being wasted on redundant work due to insufficient or incorrect pre-purchase product information.
  • Product record scattered across various PIMs and spreadsheets, creating siloed teams and an unreliable foundation for sustaining digital growth.

Benefits

  • Provide customers with a mobile app to research, compare, and purchase product.›
  • Reduced employee workload by over 40 hours a week and decreased incoming support calls by 20%.
  • Rapidly pivoted to meet new market challenges by creating a single source of truth for customers and internal teams alike to access product data, increasing page views by 27% and reducing the number of users leaving the site by 16%.
  • Improved upsell and cross-sell opportunities with an improved customer and product data record.

The Challenge

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.

Matt Caffery, Solutions Architect

The Solution

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:

  • Integration with Priint: To enhance their sales and support capabilities, ASSA ABLOY integrated Akeneo with Priint. This connection allows them to:

    • Equip field sales representatives with tablets that access real-time data from Akeneo. Reps can build bespoke brochures and portfolios for customers on the spot by pulling data sheets and other assets through the Priint integration.
    • Send data sheets directly to a dedicated mobile app, giving locksmiths and installers instant access to technical drawings and support information while on the road.
  • Integration with BI Tools: To ensure enrichment efforts are targeted and effective, ASSA ABLOY connects Akeneo to BI tools like Power BI. By extracting data from the PIM via SQL, they generate real-time reports for the executive team on data completeness. This allows them to strategically focus on enriching their highest-selling products first, ensuring the most critical products have the best data to drive sales.

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.

Matt Caffery, Solutions Architect

The Result

The results were both immediate and measurable, with benefits felt internally and, most importantly, by ASSA ABLOY’s customers.

  • Faster time-to-market: Product updates that once took days or weeks can now go live in hours, ensuring customers always see the most current information.
  • Operational efficiency: Processes that previously consumed weeks of effort were reduced to just hours, saving teams more than 40 hours per week.
  • Higher customer engagement: With clearer navigation and richer product detail, website page views increased by 27%, while exit rates dropped by 16%.
  • Reduced support calls: Customers now find the information they need online, cutting support inquiries by around 20% and freeing agents to focus on higher-value tasks.
  • Seamless ordering: The percentage of orders that flow straight through without manual intervention rose from 46% to 85%, a testament to the accuracy and completeness of the product data feeding downstream systems.

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.

Akeneo Product Cloud in Action

akeneo-PIM akeneo-Shared Catalogs

A special thanks to our partners who supported this project:

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