Case Study: ZODIO

The Akeneo implementation project lasted 3 months and was split into 3 stages:

An organizational audit of existing processes defined several requirements for the PIM:

• New product selection: the product offering had to be based on samples and renewed continuously, adding new products to benefit from the latest supplier innovations.
• Supplier relationships: once the product selection was complete, each supplier needed the ability to insert product information into the system. This often involved numerous revisions and time-consuming validations. Previously, Zodio normalized its electronic file sharing formats to minimize typing errors and missing information. The PIM integration revealed new areas of product data improvement.
• Product data enrichment: Using permission-based access, both internal and external teams validate product data. Akeneo access control ensures that each team focuses on its core business: marketing promotes product offers while buyers manage new products and restocking.
• Publication: Akeneo PIM tracks the progress and completeness of product data, making it easy to set publishing requirements and to renew product offers more quickly.
• Process change management: to ensure buy-in from the beginning, the Akeneo project team involved employees at the start of the project and set a common vision for all contributors. “Teams needed to know that things were moving in the right direction without overwhelming the stakeholders during the massive digital transition”.

A functional stage: updating 800 templates of product details with a focus on presenting “what my final client really wants to know about this product” and a full-range of product content such as videos, multi-media content and descriptions that are easy for the customer to navigate and understand. The parent company ADEO had already standardized product templates in a previous Akeneo Project. The “Group” structure made it easy for Zodio to re-use this knowledge to create its own product information structure within the PIM. This also made the implementation faster and more efficient.

A technical phase: a partner portal was implemented to help suppliers reference new products. The PIM supports two options to upload new products or update existing products:

• For large volume updates: a .csv file can be imported directly from the Akeneo user interface. A matrix matches the updated files to predefined schemas .
• For smaller updates: a product is created or updated directly in Akeneo using the drag & drop user interface.

In both cases, business rules and quality controls apply.

Akeneo PIM provides permission-based access rights management, so each supplier has personalized and secured access to the portal. The integrator partner supported the integration of third party systems including the ERP, eCommerce platform and an ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) that helps propagate product data across systems.

The PIM enforces and improves established business processes, reducing the time to market for new products. Better and more relevant product data increases conversions, boosting revenue.

During a special “Golden Week”, 10 Akeneo end users worked in a “task force” to validate 800 templates of product detail pages and associate them across 60,000 products.

“The strong support of end users – coupled with the mass edit capabilities of Akeneo – helped us to exceed our initial productivity objective by 50%.”

“Two contributors re-focused on managing suppliers with improved services, better onboarding of product data, and validating data completion. This change significantly increased conversions both in-store and online.”

Zodio credits Akeneo PIM with improvements across the business:

• Product selection improvements for the central buying service.
• Time savings for the marketing team.
• Merchandising efficiencies where each product manager can now shift from collecting product data to focus on critical differentiators: highlighting unique decor styles, proposing showcases that better suit client expectations, and classifying products with greater accuracy.
• Collaboration between product managers and members of the community, who are fully part of the enrichment workflow, with feedback on first-hand customer experiences to support the core brand strategy.