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Case Study: NEI

NEI Builds A Modern B2B Business With Akeneo PIM

Customers are now spending more time on the company’s eCommerce site, viewing more products, and completing transactions at a higher rate than ever before.

Fabio Tasco, CTO

Challenges

  • The company struggled to successfully complete its digital transformation and sell online.
  • Merging massive amounts of product data from two recently unified companies was a messy, error-prone process.
  • Legacy product enrichment processes were inefficient and time-consuming.

Benefits

  • Akeneo PIM eased the digital transformation process and helped build the leading B2B eCommerce marketplace in Brazil.
  • Catalogs were easily integrated and enriched to create a 230,000-SKU product catalog.
  • Product enrichment process and time-to-market accelerated.

The Challenge

NEI is the product of a pair of businesses — an eCommerce company founded in 2012 known as Gaveteiro, and an advertising marketplace for B2B brands established in the 1970s known as NEI.

In 2017, the companies came together to create Brazil’s go-to B2B marketplace and distributor. While they shared a common technology and business structure, NEI had never actually sold products online, instead only functioning as an advertising platform. As part of the conversion to a B2B marketplace, the company had to add product information to its systems.

Before adopting Akeneo PIM, the companies used an ERP to manage product data. However, this led to errors and inconsistencies in product data and resulted in a slow time-to-market, particularly problematic for a B2B company.

For instance, because the company supplies an extensive range of highly technical products, it could not afford to have incorrect or inconsistent product information reach clients. It also needed to accelerate the catalog management and merger process to boost shopping cart size, attract more customers, and accelerate time-to-market.

So, after struggling to manage product information efficiently and effectively in its ERP, the company realized the need to adopt a PIM solution.

 

Product data is the lifeblood of our company. Without the right product information, our customers can’t find the products they need, and we cannot grow our business.

Fabio Tasco, CTO

The Solution

After reviewing several PIM solutions, NEI elected to adopt Akeneo PIM, citing the platform’s open source architecture, easy-to-understand user interface, and the rich ecosystem that surrounds it.

The implementation process went smoothly. Fabio Tasco, the company’s CTO, said that the project’s success hinged largely on its functional team, which used Akeneo PIM to better understand NEI’s product data needs and build the appropriate product data flow. Akeneo’s open source ecosystem, including the additional features and connections offered by the Akeneo Marketplace such as the Trillix Events API, also helped clear the way for a successful implementation.

Convincing the team to embrace Akeneo was smooth and straightforward — even despite taking place over multiple continents. As a seller of, among other things, cleaning supplies, NEI faced considerable spikes in demand in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated their need for digital transformation. However, it also made it impossible for the NEI and Akeneo consulting teams to onboard new users in-person.

Despite these challenges, Akeneo’s user interface was easy for the team to understand and use successfully, while its functional and technical consulting team helped ensure a smooth transition to the PIM. “There was no need for tech support,” Tasco noted. “It’s easy!”

Now, roughly three dozen employees use the PIM daily to easily and efficiently manage product information for 230,000 products over two channels. The company also plans to add users to its enrichment team to further expand its digital catalog in the near future.

 

 

 

Akeneo PIM has been a massive strategic advantage for NEI and has helped us increase our catalog, accelerate our time-to-market, and improve product data.

Fabio Tasco, CTO

The Result

Better data

Managing product information with a dedicated PIM rather than via the ERP has allowed NEI to enrich their online marketplace with accurate, consistent product information. This gives their collection of B2B buyers increased confidence and trust in the brand, leading to increased conversions, and decreased return rate.

 

Faster time-to-market

NEI product creation and enrichment processes are no longer slow and sluggish. Instead, time-to-market has accelerated thanks to features like automation, Akeneo’s business rules engine, workflow features, and much more. The company is also now able to grow its product catalog more quickly and efficiently. Having a large offer is now one of its strengths.

 

Stronger experiences

Combine better product data and faster time-to-market, and what do you get? More robust product experiences for NEI — and customers are taking notice. Tasco reports that customers are now spending more time on the company’s eCommerce site, viewing more products, and completing transactions more quickly than ever before, with sales rising by 9% in the first month after implementing Akeneo PIM.

 

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