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+ Growth
  • Enhanced product data quality improves market credibility
  • Consistent product information strengthens brand reputation
  • Faster product launches accelerate market reach
  • Increased pharmacist confidence leads to higher customer loyalty
+ Effiency
  • Centralized data management reduces manual updates
  • Automated processes cut time-to-market for new products
  • Real-time data access ensures accuracy across channels
  • Streamlined workflows boost team productivity

"This whole process of creating our product brochure took approximately two months in the past. It was a real tour de force. Today we can proudly say: The print-ready brochure can be created within one minute. A very nice example of how something can really be made more efficiently and extremely accelerated."

Christoph Hüsemann
Head of Marketing Services at VERFORA

About VERFORA

VERFORA, the market-leading supplier of prescription-free medicines in Switzerland, is a key distributor for other manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble and has a portfolio of around 100 nationally very well-known brands such as Algifor and Merfen. More than 1,700 pharmaceuticals, health and beauty products are sold exclusively through specialist retailers, i.e., pharmacies, drugstores and therapy centres. VERFORA is characterized by a close network and relies on professional sales advice with practical training for sales partners. In this way, the company generates annual sales of more than 150 million Swiss francs.

Since 1997, VERFORA has been part of Galenica AG, which is Switzerland's largest pharmaceutical and logistics company with more than 7,000 employees and annual sales of 4 billion Swiss francs (2022). The Group has many subsidiaries, including the three Swiss pharmacy chains Amavita, Coop Vitality and Sun Store. It thus combines valuable key functions in pharmaceutical distribution and can optimally coordinate marketing processes.

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Pain

Bridging gaps, building trust

As a market leader, VERFORA faced a significant challenge: no standardized process for managing product data before implementing Contentserv in July 2020. Each of the five marketing departments either used unique systems or none at all, resulting in critical data and assets stored locally and accessible only by select individuals. This fragmented setup led to frequent data losses when employees left, causing costly re-creations of advertising materials and presentations over the years.

With Contentserv, VERFORA embarked on a comprehensive transformation to establish common standards, improve data quality, and set a stable foundation for further digitalization. In an exceptionally complex system landscape, Contentserv’s flexibility and robust functionality stood out, adapting precisely to VERFORA’s needs without compromise and gaining the company’s trust for lasting, scalable improvements.

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

Elevating excellence through unified data

Contentserv’s PIM solution aimed to empower VERFORA with a unified “single source of truth,” centralizing all product data while enhancing process efficiency. Key objectives included centralized storage and standardized processes to elevate data quality, enabling seamless search capabilities and integration with their SAP ERP as the primary system. The solution also ensured connectivity to various web stores, starting within the Galenica Group and extending to partner stores.

With strategic guidance and top management support, VERFORA meticulously planned and executed the PIM implementation. Led by Christoph Hüsemann, Head of Marketing Services, the team engaged in topic-specific workshops, fostering a smooth cultural shift and alignment with new ERP capabilities. This foundation not only reinforces VERFORA’s market leadership but also enhances its operational and technical sophistication, unlocking valuable potential for future growth.

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

Turning complexity into instant impact

Nearly two years post-implementation, Contentserv’s PIM solution has transformed VERFORA’s approach to product information management, bringing impressive gains. With 1,200 products now organized and enriched within a single source of truth, VERFORA ensures both data integrity and streamlined operations. Key achievements include:

  • Effortless data access with a three-click search, allowing employees to locate any product information instantly, eradicating previous data loss challenges
  • Efficient, cost-saving advertising material creation, reducing the annual brochure production time from two months to just one minute, without the need for external agencies
  • Enhanced content reuse across contexts, simplifying customization with easy access to modular text and data segments
  • Accelerated digitization and automation strategies, leveraging Contentserv’s flexible, all-in-one platform to unlock additional marketing efficiencies and prepare for future growth

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: Pharmaceuticals / Consumer Healthcare


Annual turnover: > 100million CHF (VERFORA AG) / 3.3 billion CHF (Galenica AG - 2019)


Target market: Switzerland


Target customers: B2B

Facts and figures

Type of products: prescription-free medicine, health & beauty products


Number of products: 1.740


Number of digital assets: 12.617


Distribution and marketing channels: Pharmacy network, e-shops & drugstores

Facts and figures

Contentserv solution used: PIM


Usage model: On-Premises


Implementation partner: aclevion

Why (How) VERFORA uses Contentserv

  • PIM as single source of truth for centralized, high-quality product data across departments
  • Three-click data search streamlines access, enabling faster, accurate information retrieval
  • SmartDocuments integration automates brochure creation, reducing production time to one minute
  • ERP integration with SAP ensures seamless data flow and supports ongoing digital transformation

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.