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Case Study: Bentley

Bentley Builds A Better Business By Investing In PIM

Akeneo PIM has helped us find more customers and get great products to them more quickly.

Marie-Lou Blais, Senior merchandiser

Challenges

  • Bentley’s product information management processes were inefficient, and relied on outdated tools such as spreadsheets.
  • The company needed to increase its product offering in order to keep up with competitors elsewhere in the market.
  • The company needed to attract more customers to its new eCommerce website.

Benefits

  • By replacing its legacy product information tool with Akeneo PIM, Bentley boosted process efficiencies that accelerated time-to-market.
  • Akeneo PIM streamlined processes and enhanced information accuracy, enabling simpler, faster catalog expansion.
  • Improving product information quality led to increased SEO rankings and site traffic, resulting in increased conversions.

The Challenge

Planning an exciting trip around the world and need something to carry all your keepsakes? Or maybe someone in your family is getting ready for their first day of school or the first day at a new job. Where do you turn to find a backpack or briefcase to help make sure they’re ready for the big day?

For many Canadians, the answer to that question is Bentley. Founded more than 30 years ago in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the company has become known as a pioneer in the luggage and handbag market, establishing themselves across Canada with more than 160 brick and mortar stores, along with a thriving eCommerce business, and printed catalogs.

After more than two decades in the brick-and-mortar retail space, Bentley wanted to continue to grow its eCommerce business. However, in order to do so, the company knew it would need to completely overhaul its outdated and inefficient product information solutions and processes.

These outdated solutions, which largely consisted of spreadsheets and daily copy-and-pasting, slowed employee productivity, and time-to-market down to a snail’s pace. This not only meant fewer selling days for new products, but it hindered the company’s efforts to add new SKUs to its existing product catalog.

What’s more, these solutions left the company with low-quality product information and poor product experiences. This made it more difficult for potential shoppers to find Bentley’s online store, further threatening the company’s potential digital revenue. So, determined to finally cast out the plague of poor product information management, Bentley decided to adopt a PIM system.

 

We knew we needed to replace our outdated and painful product information management processes.

Marie-Lou Blais, Senior merchandiser

The Solution

While Bentley considered a number of product information management solutions, it eventually decided to adopt Akeneo PIM. Marie-Lou Blais, senior merchandiser of eCommerce at Bentley, noted that the solution’s productivity-focused features and open-source architecture, along with its pricing model, helped it stand out from the competition.

Once the decision was made, Bentley went to work building new product information processes and integrating Akeneo into their existing Magento-powered eCommerce store using the PIMGento connector. All told, the project took just under 3 months, according to Blais, and has so far been popular with the company’s employees. She noted that Bentley’s product enrichment teams are now happier, more productive, and able to enrich new SKUs on a daily basis.

 

Akeneo’s affordability, flexibility, usability, and open-source nature made it the perfect solution for Bentley. We replaced a painful, 30-plus-step product information process with an efficient solution in Akeneo PIM, helping us get products to market more quickly.

Marie-Lou Blais, Senior merchandiser

The Result

Increased efficiency

Bentley needed to eliminate inefficiencies, fix its painful product information management processes, and get products to market faster. Thanks to Akeneo PIM, the company was able to replace a long, complicated product enrichment process with a fast and efficient solution that helps accelerate time-to-market.

 

The more the merrier

Bentley also needed to find more customers if it wanted to succeed — and thanks to Akeneo PIM, that’s exactly what they did! The company used PIM to improve its product information quality, improving SEO rankings, and helping customers more easily find their products, increasing traffic to their eCommerce site.

 

Agile Catalog Expansion

With more efficient product information processes in place, Bentley is able to more quickly respond to changing market demands. For instance, when COVID-19 travel restrictions threatened the company’s luggage sales, it used Akeneo PIM to quickly pivot and expand its catalog and add new products to its offering. Within just two weeks, Bentley was selling masks and hand sanitizer to customers.

 

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