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+ Growth
  • Increased brand visibility with consistent product information
  • Enhanced customer engagement across digital channels
  • Expanded reach by supporting multiple languages and markets
  • Improved sales potential through precise, reliable data delivery
+ Effiency
  • Simplified product data management across all platforms
  • Reduced manual tasks with automated data updates
  • Faster product launches with a centralized data hub
  • Minimized errors in product details, enhancing data accuracy

"With Contentserv, we have a central place where we can manage our media assets and our product data at the same time. This ensures that all data are always correct and up-to-date. We can finally dismantle our data silos that have grown over time and, as one team, revolutionize our product information management so that we can serve our customers even better in the future."

Nicolas Nowak
Digitization Marketing Manager, PREFA

About PREFA

For more than 70 years now, PREFA Aluminiumprodukte GmbH has made a name for itself all over Europe when it comes to the development, production, and marketing of aluminum roof and facade systems.Based in Marktl, Lower Austria, the company is part of the CAG Holding corporate group owned by Dr. Cornelius Grupp. PREFA employs over 600 people in total across 23 countries and produces its more than 5,000 products exclusively in its two factories in Austria and Germany.

PREFA markets its products both to suitable roof plumbing specialists, architects, and planners, and directly to building owners, whom they also connect with trained tradespeople in their area. Communication is therefore geared toward both B2B and B2C. To this end, PREFA uses a wide range of channels, including its own website, content marketing, social media, a partner platform, PoS and print advertising, print materials, and TV and radio advertising.

prefa-customer-story-in-blog-one
Pain

The search for a reliable information hub

PREFA’s rapid growth in recent years presented a challenge: their internal systems and processes couldn’t keep up. Without a centralized, reliable source for managing product information and marketing assets, PREFA faced inconsistency and inefficiency. Ensuring data accuracy across channels required labor-intensive, manual updates that hindered growth.

Departments were siloed with separate systems, inconsistent formats, and no unified product information hub. Key data was fragmented, with no link between product data in ERP and digital assets in the DAM. Version control and allocation tracking were nearly impossible, and manual workflows slowed down processes, risking coordination errors and data inconsistencies that impacted decision-making and overall efficiency.

However, with a fast-moving ready-to-wear market, the colossal manual entry of different product data (6,000 color references per season, assortment tracking, product feature updates in different languages, etc.) became extremely challenging. Furthermore, primarily using spreadsheets for this purpose was very time-consuming and error-prone. These files quickly became archaic in the context of Lacoste’s digital transformation and they would often contain numerous data entry errors, which resulted in a slow time-to-market that was harmful to sales. Another major challenge involved variable data such as collections, which must be renewed every six months and had to take into account the difference between the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Therefore Lacoste needed to adopt a tool that would streamline the creation and distribution of its product catalogs on both its merchant and marketplace sites. This made it clear that Product Information Management (PIM) was the right solution to quickly enrich databases, accurately aggregate content, and shorten time-to-market, all while increasing agility and flexibility.

Aim

Building a single source of truth for growth and consistency

With Contentserv, PREFA aimed to create a central system for product information and digital asset management, eliminating data redundancies. This single source of truth would ensure all product information remained consistent, reliable, and accessible for both internal teams and external touchpoints.

Automated workflows would streamline collaboration across departments, fostering an efficient, seamless working environment. User-friendly design was key to encourage adoption across teams. Future expansions, such as integrating translation management and output for web and print, would enhance efficiency, supporting continued growth and a unified brand experience.

In addition to these initial objectives, there were two other quantified objectives: the implementation of the PIM solution should make it possible to increase the average value of orders and reduce product returns.

Lacoste evaluated five PIM solutions, and at the end of 2016, they selected Contentserv. Contentserv allows data to be quickly onboarded and adjusted via user-friendly, intuitive interfaces, and for information to be distributed across all sales media. A pioneer in the PIM industry and a leader for 20 years with an international customer portfolio, Contentserv has extensive experience in product information management.

Gain

Seamless collaboration and scalability: PREFA PIM/DAM advantage

Contentserv swiftly set up a showcase using PREFA's product data, allowing their team to directly experience the PIM/DAM system. The intuitive usability made an immediate impact, ensuring efficient workflows and enthusiastic system adoption.

The cloud-based solution enabled centralized, international collaboration, scaling with PREFA’s growth needs—all without adding strain to IT resources. The comprehensive package, with its flexibility, functionality, and supportive partnership, perfectly aligned with PREFA’s objectives.

The Contentserv PIM solution provides great flexibility in data generation, with users managing an impressive amount of data (2,400,000 attributes, 24,000 references, and 172,000 ean/UPC barcodes). Export procedures integrated into the solution speed up the automatic creation and editing of catalogs and web pages, allowing Lacoste to export up to 40,000 items daily. Users can then assemble images, technical attributes, and prices by simply dragging and dropping them onto dynamic models subject to pre-established rules.

Other significant advances include the ease of creating new attributes such as information that allows consumers to refine their choices and maximize their shopping experience. This process used to take several months and now takes only 2 or 3 weeks. Furthermore, as fashion is governed by seasons, it is necessary to reconfigure entire offerings every six months. The Contentserv PIM solution allows Lacoste to maintain the attributes (about 300 per product) of the models that remain on sale, and thus, avoids rebuilding the catalog from scratch.

Facts and figures

Industry: Manufacturer of aluminum products for buildings and flood protection


Target market: Active in 23 European countries


Number of products: Over 5,000 items


Producing: Aluminum roof and facade systems and drainage systems

Facts and figures

Contentserv solution used: PIM and DAM


Channels - Online: Website, partner platform, social media


Channels - Offline: Magazines, PoS, print catalogs, price lists, data sheets


Channels - Media: TV and radio advertising

Why (How) PREFA uses Contentserv

  • PIM/DAM for centralized product information and asset management, ensuring data accuracy across channels
  • Cloud-based collaboration supports global teams with real-time data access and seamless updates
  • Automated workflows streamline approvals, speeding up processes and reducing manual tasks
  • Scalable integration with ERP and DAM, enabling future growth without overloading IT

However, with a fast-moving ready-to-wear market, the colossal manual entry of different product data (6,000 color references per season, assortment tracking, product feature updates in different languages, etc.) became extremely challenging. Furthermore, primarily using spreadsheets for this purpose was very time-consuming and error-prone. These files quickly became archaic in the context of Lacoste’s digital transformation and they would often contain numerous data entry errors, which resulted in a slow time-to-market that was harmful to sales. Another major challenge involved variable data such as collections, which must be renewed every six months and had to take into account the difference between the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Therefore Lacoste needed to adopt a tool that would streamline the creation and distribution of its product catalogs on both its merchant and marketplace sites. This made it clear that Product Information Management (PIM) was the right solution to quickly enrich databases, accurately aggregate content, and shorten time-to-market, all while increasing agility and flexibility.

Ready? Here you grow.

Get in touch with one of our Contentserv experts to discover the Product Experience Cloud.