Catalog production time went from 9 months to 1 week
"With Perfion and InBetween we can generate our 1000-page main catalog and make it ready for print within one week. Previously, this took up to nine months. Today we can access all product data any time and our webshop gets all necessary product information from Perfion. We have saved about 200,000 euros over the last 4 years." Matthias Westhauser, Marketing Manager, Schäfer + Peters GmbH
Challenge
At Schäfer + Peters GmbH, a manufacturer of stainless steel and acid-resistant fasteners, the product data of 32,000 different stock items was formerly scattered everywhere in the house: on computers and servers, in Excel files and the Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP system. The specifications were not properly maintained and this was creating challenges, especially with the preparation of the 1000-page main catalog. For several years Schäfer + Peters worked with the same catalog because the creation of a new version would have taken several full-time employees six to nine months.
It was difficult to provide product information to customers, because up-to-date and clean data was not available due to the absence of a central database.
Solution & Benefits
Since 2010, Schäfer + Peters manages all product information in 14 different languages with the Perfion Product Information Management system. The decisive point in choosing Perfion was its full integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV and that the sales team can access product data from Dynamics NAV directly through Perfion.
A button integrated in Dynamics NAV allows the sales team direct access to all data that is maintained in Perfion: dimensions, material, pictures, pictograms, etc. A product flyer (in PDF or other formats) can also be accessed from here and it can be printed or sent directly to the customer via e-mail at the press of a button.
Catalog production takes 1 week instead of 9 months
Perfion has revolutionized the catalog production completely. Where it used to take several full-time employees (in total 5-8 people were involved) up to nine months to create the large main catalog, the work is now done by two people within a week.
Matthias Westhauser explains how the process of catalog production is running with the help of the InBetween publishing software and the Perfion PIM system:
"When we create catalogs, flyers or brochures, we export the data as an XML file from Perfion. InBetween converts it and puts it into the catalog layout in InDesign. We have different layouts - for catalog, flyers and brochures. The process runs virtually automatically, i.e. I am only running the various programs, while the contents are generated and set without human intervention. The generation of our 1000-page main catalog takes round 3-4 days. Then I need about 2-3 days to make manual adjustments and to check everything, and then the catalog is ready for print."
Complete Integration with ePages Webshop
Also the webshop, based on the ePages online shop solution, displays only data from Perfion and Dynamics NAV. Changes to the product information in Perfion or NAV are immediately synced with the webshop. Thus Schäfer + Peters guarantees their webshop customers that all necessary and available product data is always up to date.
All product PDFs in the webshop are generated automatically with the latest data from Perfion in the moment in which the customer clicks them. The excess profit from the webshop is enormous and at Schäfer + Peters the Perfion Product Information Management solution is its data source number one.
About Schäfer + Peters
Schäfer + Peters has more than 200 employees and 32,000+ different inventory items. The company is your partner for stainless steel and acid resistant fasteners, DIN and standard parts such as wood screws, metric screws, safety screws, washers, nuts and even heavy-duty fasteners as well as solar fixtures and special parts - all in various versions.
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