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Emhart Teknologies:
Personalized eCatalogs attract profitable repeat business from key customers
Emhart Teknologies (ET) wanted to solidify key customer relationships and knew they needed to offer something their competitors did not. They achieved this by providing customer-specific eCatalogs, creating a personalized online user experience. Further, by implementing a 'real-time' product data management component, ET significantly sped-up product time-to-market.
Business Challenge:
Emhart Teknologies (ET) is a unit of Black & Decker. The Germany based affiliate - operating under the brand name Tucker - is a world-wide supplier of a wide range of fastening components and assemblies sold to customers in a variety of industries. Their primary market is automotive OEMs and their top-tier suppliers.
ET had several issues in their Plastic Fastener product line they wanted to address regarding product information access from both an internal and customer-facing perspective. Their product data was not housed in its entirety in one database, which severely limited users’ ability to access complete product data to respond to requests for technical data. According to Kai Loeffler, eBusiness Coordinator at ET: “We had data in various internal systems, but didn’t have an easy and quick overview of all product data needed to describe and display a part either in sales and marketing, or in engineering, nor externally as a part of our sales activities.”
Second, smaller customers not served by dedicated product or sales person needed to be served better, primarily by providing convenient access to the specifications on the product meeting their technical requirements. Third, the division, historically known for its metal products, was charged with building brand awareness of its plastic fastener line. Fourth, their worldwide business customer base required a multi-lingual resource. Despite the prevalence of English, ET wanted to ensure all users could access and comprehend an online product data solution. Finally, from a marketing perspective, Loeffler adds: “We knew that if we put this kind of solution in the marketplace, we can really differentiate ourselves.”
Technology Solution:
We employed software modules from our 24/7 BUSINESS™ suite to create an application to meet the needs of the ET staff; provide self-service tools for individual prime customers; and the technical requirements of potential customers.
The system consolidates product data on a daily basis from several data repositories housed with various departments, allowing them to retain their systems while presenting other users with a comprehensive resource for technical product information. Information on each product can be accessed from the i-MARK content management system by Engineering and Marketing users to add/modify content. When satisfied that all data is correct, the user publishes the product data and is quickly made available online.
The application provides a means to disseminate and manage the enterprise’s product data assets. It enables access to ET product data for constituents, with control based on permissions associated with specific users. There is an Internal view for employees to search and view all available data for each product. Key customers have a dedicated portal to access a private catalog of product data for the items they source from ET. Prospective customers have direct access on the public site to a product selection capability that provides rapid, intuitive search and technical information on which they can take action. The content is available in English and German, with French and Italian being added.
Says Loeffler: “If we were to look at the option of building this application, realistically, looking at the size of our IT department, and the service and support they could provide, we wouldn’t have the resources to do it.”
End Result:
ET worldwide staff in marketing, sales and customer service now has a central product data repository that has provided several benefits: customer service has immediate access to technical specifications not previously available, saving time while elevating customer satisfaction; sales has a comprehensive online catalog to employ for presentations and marketing has a central database to leverage for other marketing programs. “The experience of the last three years, says Loeffler, “tells us that this was a good decision, because whenever we need something done, i-MARK delivers it quickly, and we’ve never had anything i-MARK couldn’t do.”
The application’s features and capabilities allow ET to leap-frog the competition: providing the best online tools to interact with the firm enhances the ET brand as easy with which to do business, while positioning the firm as a technical leader in its industry. Customer comments confirm its superior functionality translate to top-notch user friendliness.
The usage among new prospective customers is rising, contributing to an expanding opportunity pipeline. “By getting customers into a self-service mode, we really reduce the number of paper material that we send out, and sometimes we don’t need to send out a sales person for the first contact, instead we might ask them go look at our catalog. Today, our marketing service people respond to a request for literature by sending an e-mail with a link to the searchable catalog.”
Regarding ROI, according to Loeffler: “We determined that strictly by the internal time savings that we were able to create, we were able to return the investment in less than a year.”
Upper management satisfaction with the system’s capabilities and impact is best evidenced by acquisition of new modules for additional product lines to extend use and position the application at the vortex of their marketing, sales and customer support.
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