The Top 10 Akeneo Case Studies of 2023

In the spirit of gratitude and learning, we thought we’d present a compilation of ten customer case studies that highlight different aspects of Akeneo’s technology. These narratives not only showcase the diversity of industries we touch but also exemplify the power of exceptional product experiences (PX) in transforming businesses worldwide.

All of these case studies are available for download if you’d like to dig deeper into the use case - and as always, if you’d like to reach out to a PX expert directly, we’re always here to help!

1. Staples

As a world-renowned brand, Staples is the go-to office retailer for businesses of all sizes, offering products and services designed to support working and learning. From printers to office furniture to technology and more, Staples is a one-stop-shop for corporate headquarters and home offices alike.

But this hasn’t always been the case – with more and more folks working from home, Staples realized that while their B2B offering was still strong, their B2C digital commerce offering needed some support. So they turned to Akeneo to help.

With our modern PIM technology, Staples was able to:

• Manage twice as many products in less time without increasing the size of their team
• Enhance teamwork and collaboration through easily shareable dashboards and quick product data insights
• Improve data quality, consistency, and accuracy while reducing time-to-market

2. ASSA ABLOY

You may not recognize the name, but chances are you’ve interacted with their brand a number of times. ASSA ABLOY is a global leader in innovative access solutions and security technologies, offering a comprehensive range of products and services including door locks, access control systems, entrance automation, secure identity solutions, and mobile access technologies.

ASSA ABLOY utilized Akeneo PIM and Shared Catalogs to:

• Introduce a mobile app that provided customers with a digital place to research, compare, and purchase products, empowering customers to better themselves in their field of expertise
• Reduce employee workload by over 40 hours a week  and decreased incoming support calls by 20%, enabling teammates to focus on high value activities
• Rapidly pivot 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%.
• Improve upsell and cross-sell opportunities with an improved customer and product data record

3. Leatherman

For 40+ years, Leatherman Tools has been providing multitools for consumers around the world. From everyday essentials to knives, accessories, and apparel, Leatherman is committed to providing consumers with the best multipurpose products to help them solve expected and unexpected problems in everyday life.

At the core of Leatherman’s strategy lies the aspiration to foster closer bonds with consumers and elevate their experiences at every interaction point. Their journey towards direct-to-consumer (D2C) excellence has primarily revolved around their in-house eCommerce platform and Amazon FBA, with ambitious plans to expand their presence in marketplaces and international eCommerce domains.

However, Leatherman found itself shackled by a legacy Product Information Management (PIM) system that had outlived its usefulness. Designed to meet their needs a decade ago, the PIM solution had grown into an impediment as Leatherman’s product portfolio, sales channels, teams, processes, and technology had evolved.

After comparing several PIM solutions against over 100 stringent requirements, only one solution rose to the top: Akeneo PIM.

Leatherman Tools implemented Akeneo technology into their tech stack in just under 5 months, and was immediately able to:

• Save time for team members, enabling them to focus on complex, critical tasks
• Enhance confidence in data integrity
• Increase speed to market
• Empower team members to effectively utilize the tool in just a few months
• Streamline efficiency through features like Product Models, rule creation, and product families

4. INTERSPORT

In 2016, INTERSPORT embarked on a digitalization journey, recognizing the need to adapt to the evolving retail landscape. 

As part of this transformation, they established their own eCommerce platform, envisioning it as a dynamic platform that would effectively showcase their extensive range of in-store offerings. The primary goal was to leverage the digital medium to emphasize the breadth and quality of their product portfolio, however the available product data primarily catered to the in-store experience and was not suited for an effective eCommerce strategy.

While the in-store product information served its purpose within the brick-and-mortar environment, it fell short in meeting the demands and requirements of a thriving online retail presence. Recognizing the importance of a comprehensive and tailored approach to eCommerce, INTERSPORT realized the need for a more robust solution that would bridge the gap between their physical stores and their digital platform. This realization set the stage for the exploration and adoption of a suitable PIM system to enable a successful digital transformation and align their offerings with the evolving expectations of online customers.

With Akeneo and Unifai technology, INTERSPORT was able to achieve:

• 50% Reduction in Classification Time: INTERSPORT cut the time it took to classify new products in half, allowing their teams to focus on more strategic tasks.
• 95% Improved Classification Accuracy: Unifai’s AI technology provided unmatched precision, ensuring that INTERSPORT’s product data was as accurate and up-to-date as ever.
• 18 Hours Saved Per Week: The freed-up time equated to 18 extra hours per week for the data integration team and buyers to dedicate to higher-value activities.
• 30% Efficiency Boost: The product classification process became 30% more efficient, leading to faster decision-making and product placement.
• Data Accuracy for Business Operations: Accurate data is the backbone of any retail operation, particularly for budget tracking and sell-out/stock tracking. The accuracy of Unifai’s AI model ensured Intersport’s business ran smoothly.

5. Smallable

Globally renowned Family Concept Store, Smallable embarked on a remarkable journey to redefine its product management and content enrichment strategies. With an extensive inventory boasting over 1 million products from 1,000 international designer brands, Smallable grappled with the challenge of efficiently overseeing this vast catalog and localizing product content to different markets and geographies.

Smallable surmounted these obstacles and ushered in a new era of operational efficiency, reduced production timelines, and elevated customer experiences with the aid of Akeneo technology.

In particular, Smallable utilized Akeneo’s best-of-breed technology to:

• Streamline product information management across millions of SKUs, expanding their product catalog offering without investing in a larger team
• Automatically create product attributes to enrich the customer experience and reduce return rates
• Improve production times and time-to-market due to improved team communication, publishing anywhere from 50 to 500 products a day.
• Integrate and communicate seamlessly with Smallable’s existing technology stack

6. Rexel

In a market where information is power, Rexel, a leading electrical supplies distributor, was looking for cutting-edge technology that would elevate their customer experience. With a staggering 2.5 million products in their catalog, the challenge was to ensure each item's data met the highest standards.

Enter the collaboration of Unifai and Akeneo PIM. Leveraging the prowess of Unifai’s AI technology, Rexel embarked on a mission to enrich 800,000 products to the international classification standard for technical standards, ETIM. The result was not just compliance but a mastery of precision.

Unifai’s AI technology not only achieved a remarkable 98% accuracy in suggesting content gaps or missing data, but also defied expectations by benchmarking 12,000 ETIM classifications in just three months.

Rexel’s utilization of our two solutions stands as a testament that shows that when forward-thinking distributors embrace technology, the customer experience reaches new heights. Rexel's journey with Unifai and Akeneo PIM exemplifies the power of AI in transforming challenges into triumphs and solidifying their position as leaders in the ever-evolving landscape of electrical supplies distribution.

7. Bath Depot

After seeing a 400% increase in online transactions during the pandemic, Canadian retailer of bathroom and kitchen renovation products Bath Depot turned to Akeneo and Valtech to focus on improving their eCommerce offering. 

This investment enabled the company to:

• Provide enhanced digital shopping experiences to its customers, with detailed descriptions, visuals, and specifications to help inform purchasing decisions. 
• Offer exciting hybrid and custom shopping journeys for customers such as in-store demos and stock availability for every product across every channel, as well as a range of shipping options, including ship-to-store, in-store pick-up, and curbside options, which allows customers to choose the option that best suited their needs. 
•  Automatically localize country, language, and pricing information for all of their products
• Enrich and launch more than 500 products online in less than three weeks, easily managing and distributing product information to all their sales channels, including their eCommerce website and physical stores.

8. Verkkokauppa.com

As their name literally translates to “eCommerce”, it’s no surprise that Verkkokauppa.com has been a retail powerhouse in Finland since 1992. With a unique blend of physical stores and a bustling eCommerce shopping experience, Verkkokauppa.com offers a diverse range of products, including computers, home electronics, toys, gaming, and navigation products, and boasts an extensive catalog of over 60,000 products, selling both directly to consumers and to other businesses.

Verkkokauppa.com sought out a PIM solution that would support their vast catalog of products, integrate seamlessly with their existing technology stack, and provide a more compelling experience for their customers.

This eCommerce powerhouse harnessed Akeneo technology to unlock the next level of customer experiences with smarter cross-sell and upsell opportunities, enhanced internal efficiency, and scalable product experience management.

9. Shop Apotheke

Today, Shop Apotheke Europe operates online pharmacies in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Shop Apotheke Europe delivers a wide range of over 120,000 original products to over 4.5 million active customers quickly and at attractive prices. The company’s goals are to drive growth, optimize processes, streamline the organization, and enable their consumers to receive the same experience online as in the local pharmacy.

However, this only works when customers in the online pharmacy shop find comprehensive product information such as applications, dosage, side effects, interactions, reviews, and more. The interaction between the ERP and Shop Apotheke Europe’s home-grown PIM development soon became unmanageable due to its lack of flexibility, requiring repeated programming efforts for adjustments. Additionally, the system was not stable, and outages became frequent.

Due to the time-consuming data preparation and maintenance, the product lead times were long – too long to respond quickly. Furthermore, product data quality suffered from a lack of transparency, making it difficult to expand the product range. The goal was to replace the home-grown system with a new, stable, and flexible PIM, streamline workflows, simplify data maintenance, and generate transparency so that international expansion could be advanced on solid foundations.

Akeneo’s open-source PIM technology and built-in community of product experience (PX) experts enabled Shop Apotheke Europe to enhance their digital presence across seven countries and manage over 500,000 SKUs with efficiency and speed.

10. Kolmi Hopen

After the COVID-19 Pandemic, leading manufacturer of protective equipment Kolmi Hopen had to meet an unprecedented level of demand at an unprecedented speed. Meeting this demand would require a faster enrichment process and increased productivity, however, the company had historically relied heavily on Excel for data management. Finding product information involved coordinating with different teams and cross-checking data on their ERP system, a process that was time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Internally, employees had to dedicate significant hours and resources to find the necessary product information. The process was also difficult for external stakeholders, with distributors struggling to access updated, centralized information that is translated and localized to their specific regions.

With products that must meet very specific and demanding standards, product information management became a strategic element in Kolmi Hopen’s plan to differentiate itself in the market, as well as to provide added value to its customers. And so they turned to Akeneo.

12 Days of PXMas

As we wrap up and tie a bow around our 10th day of PXMas, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the power of exceptional customer experiences transcends industries and borders. These ten case studies are not just success stories; they are testaments to the transformative impact that a focus on customer and product experience can have.

As we celebrate these milestones, we're reminded that each brand and retailer has its unique tale of innovation and customer-centricity. From personalized AI-driven recommendations to sustainable practices enhancing brand loyalty, these stories underscore the diverse ways brands can elevate themselves in the eyes of their customers.

We wanted to express our heartfelt gratitude to the customers who entrusted us with their narratives. Their success is our motivation to continue championing excellence in the realm of customer experiences. Here's to a new year filled with more stories, innovations, and partnerships that redefine the possibilities of retail!