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Case Study: Midland Scientific

PIM Helps Sustainably Boost Scientific Sales

We can already see that with Akeneo, we have better content and product information for our customers.

Rodrigo Neves, Technology Officer

Challenges

  • Large number of SKUs and legacy information management systems led to errors and inconsistencies.
  • Inaccurate and inconsistent product data provided a poor experience for shoppers, who typically require highly technical, specific, precise, and accurate information.
  • Print catalog and eCommerce store updates took a long time to be produced due to poor data quality.

Benefits

  • Replacing legacy product information management processes led to accurate and consistent product information.
  • Delivering high quality product information significantly improved the customer experience.
  • Employees now enrich 10x as many products per week and print catalog production time decreased by 50%.

The Challenge

Even if they don’t realize it, many high school and college students are quite familiar with the products sold by Midland Scientific.

The company, founded in Omaha, Nebraska in 1975, has staked out a reputation as a leading seller and distributor of scientific and laboratory instruments, mainly operating as a B2B distributor servicing other companies or schools around the United States, and around the world. When these students or professionals alike are in the lab, precision, consistency, and accuracy are essential to a successful experiment.

But unfortunately for Midland Scientific, the company struggled to efficiently manage product information. Even with hundreds of thousands of SKUs, the company used inefficient legacy solutions like spreadsheets to manage and enrich product information, which often led to errors or inconsistency in product information or delays in enrichment. This led to poor experiences for Midland Scientific’s customers, who rely on this information being accurate and consistent to get exactly the right equipment they need.

With an eCommerce update looming, the company knew it needed to correct and enhance its product information while also accelerating time-to-market. As a result, Midland Scientific turned to a Product Information Management (PIM) solution.

 

Our main goals were to provide better information to our customers, along with better tools to help them find the products they’re looking for.

Rodrigo Neves, Technology Officer

The Solution

Midland Scientific considered five solutions before deciding on Akeneo PIM. According to Rodrigo Neves, technology officer at Midland Scientific, Akeneo’s flexibility, ease-of-use, and user interface appealed to the company’s need to move fast without sacrificing accuracy or consistency.

The solution’s flexibility, along with its open-source nature, also allowed the company to customize the PIM. Midland Scientific added custom capabilities to their Akeneo PIM solution within just a few months, Neves said.

Akeneo’s user interface was also a major factor in Midland’s decision, Neves noted. The company hires students as seasonal workers, but these students typically only work for the company over the course of a few weeks, or at most, months. The easy-to-understand user interface allowed the company to train these temporary student workers in just one week, rather than several weeks, making their short-term employment far more productive.

All told, between 30 and 60 employees use the PIM on a daily basis, depending on whether student workers are on-call during a given day. These employees are now able to move more efficiently, Neves said, enriching 2,000 products per week, compared to 200 products per week before the implementation of Akeneo PIM.

 

 

 

Before Akeneo, we enriched content for roughly 200 products a week. Now, it’s up to 2,000 products per week.

Rodrigo Neves, Technology Officer

The Result

Correct, consistent product information…

Midland Scientific previously managed product information via a sea of spreadsheets, which led to errors in product information. With Akeneo, the company was able to correct product information and ensure customers find consistent data throughout all channels.

 

…leads to a better customer experience…

Before implementing Akeneo PIM, Midland Scientific’s spreadsheet struggles and incorrect information led to a poor experience for customers, who relied on the company to provide highly specific and technical information. The improved product information quality brought on by PIM allowed the company to offer customers a more accurate, compelling, and consistent experience.

 

…and faster time-to-market.

Midland Scientific’s implementation of Akeneo PIM resulted in better internal efficiency and accelerated time-tomarket. The company can now enrich its print catalog, a process that previously took an entire calendar year, in six months, and enrich 10x as many products per week as it did before implementing Akeneo PIM.

 

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