Case Study: Axonlab

Akeneo PIM gave Axonlab the ability to have one view across all of their product information, with an authoritative record for each product, in a centralized data repository. The Akeneo PIM supports the entire retail ecosystem – including multiple ERP systems and e-commerce channels on a global scale – with authoritative product data that is continuously enriched and maintained.

Choosing an agile approach to integration, the out-ofthe-box features of the Akeneo PIM made the process of integrating different system requirements straightforward.

Following the conceptual design of the data structures and processes, the next step was to align the different requirements of the surrounding systems to the Akeneo PIM. For the storefront, marketing-oriented information is key but the data exchange with the storefront is not time-critical. For the ERP, a near-real time exchange is necessary. Akeneo PIM supports all these requirements.

Today the PIM instance serves 85 users from the marketing & sales teams, of which 60 are daily users. They take care of more than 150,000 products across 8 distinct Sage ERP systems sold through 9 Shopware e-commerce channels, in 8 different locales across 9 countries. AxonLab uses Akeneo PIM to define 49 different product families as well as 300 attributes.

The project lasted 4 months, and then it took 2 months of configuration before being finally operational.

Akeneo enables Axonlab to leverage the value of one view across all product information, with an authoritative record for each product, in a centralized data repository. Unique to Axonlab is the ability to use Akeneo to ensure high data quality across decentralized managed ERP systems to significantly lower new product acquisition costs. Akeneo helps Axonlab optimally manage the product data across all countries from a quality perspective, increasing the impact of marketing and sales to boost profitability.

Axonlab uses the benefits of Akeneo PIM to lower costs and increase revenue in several ways:

• Central product data and automatic transfer to ERP systems reduces the cost of data inconsistencies across countries.
• Improved data quality and ability to capture more data that can be re-purposed reduces data-related costs.
• Leveraging the product family data structure to simplify and streamline data capture and easily assign responsibilities across the organization improves workflows.
• Ease of use across functional teams including product management, suppliers, data maintenance, marketing and product promotion simplifies adoption.
• Intuitive user interface and streamlined workflows reduces the training effort and enables a short ramp-up phase for new users.
• Use of power features such as the straightforward data import and mass edit function significantly increase performance.
• Analysis of clear and visible data quality displays helps identify gaps to better allocate resources.

The fully integrated e-commerce solution based on Shopware offers Axonlab customers the possibility to manage their customer relationship through easy functions. Customers are able to manage everything independently, starting with address management, through their reorders, up to the batch certificates.

For Axonlab, this integrated solution has enabled them to take the first step into the digital future. The system landscape now provides a new degree of automation and frees resources to strengthen the expansion of market shares in the national distribution companies.