mgm technology partners, experts in designing and integrating innovative, individually customized solutions into existing IT environments, have been commissioned in spring 2014 to design the Product Information Management (PIM) for Groupe SEB “SEB&Share” program.
In October 2014 the newly designed Hybris based PIM, a major part of the future digital hub, went into production. Since then the production system is continuously evolving to integrate new features raised during deployment in the different countries.

Groupe SEB, the world leader in small domestic equipment, operates in 150 countries with a unique portfolio of top brands including Tefal, Rowenta, Moulinex, Krups, Lagostina, All-Clad and Supor. Groupe SEB has envisioned within its corporate global approach the new product launch program SEB& Share to consolidate, aggregate and organize all product information produced across various legacy systems within the company in one unique digital hub. For the heterogeneity of the interacting systems involved – e.g. also all the software systems for the organization of the manufacturing are included – the digital hub cannot be a classical Product Content Management (PCM).

Figure 1: SEB&Share Digital Hub

Figure 2: Fully customized product cockpit.

Sharing a vision and put it into production

mgm’s software experts always want to first really understand their customer’s key business and the structure with which it is operated. In Groupe SEB’s case coordinating nearly 25.800 employees at 29 industrial sites and 65 marketing offices in 150 countries to produce, market and sell small domestic equipment with a unique portfolio of top brands including Tefal, Rowenta, Moulinex, Krups, Lagostina, All-Clad and Supor each with an own well defined identity, globally addressing both culturally specific consumer attitudes and the accordingly different strategic needs of Groupe SEB’s retailers. Cut down to an example, this means that a technically identical steam iron produced at maybe even one Groupe SEB production site will be sold under Calor brand in France and Belgium, but under Tefal in others countries. The respective product information like product pictures or videos for TV advertisement has been branded so far, too.

The vast synergy effects, cost and error reduction of one consolidated PIM / PCM system as envisioned by Groupe SEB that nevertheless guarantees the company’s powerful multi-brand strategy are obvious. But the complexity of putting the SEB&Share IT vision into production, too. mgm’s experts met the challenge. And succeeded!

To achieve this, the mgm team mobilized its project-proven technical expertise and Hybris know-how. The key success factors were: Agile development cycles, a mock-up approach for non-finalized requirements and end user involvement all along the process. Groupe SEB’s openness to adopt this agile methodology and align with the team tremendously helped to overpass obstacles and accelerate the users’ system adoption.

Listening and customizing with operational consciousness

Facing a daily updated data volume in heterogeneous systems for currently 65.000 products (each with several documents) and a worldwide team of expected 500 marketing people from subsidiaries or external agencies using the future SEB&Share, for finding the right data model it was crucial to listen closely to their needs in operating this data. mgm did so.

“We knew that, besides an obviously high technical standard, it was essential to really understand the key users and the Business Unit leaders and to produce something, for time and cost reasons, within the Hybris standard that is taking into account the overall Groupe SEB management structure and individual work flows worldwide as much as possible”, says Pascal Bresson, the responsible project manager at mgm. “On the background of our experience with similar Hybris projects, this approach made it possible to customize a product cockpit and to integrate the new SEB&Share PIM successfully to the other systems within only four months.”

Quick, coherent and reliable brand communication – PIM made by mgm!

The PIM individually customized for Groupe SEB on the Hybris standard by mgm’s experts centralizes all information created by all content producers worldwide needed by both global and local content users for a product launch in a structured, constantly updated and reliable format. With several hundreds of new references annually launched globally, Groupe SEB is thereby able to organize the complete brand communication even more efficiently, reacting globally more immediate to both retailers’ and final customers’ needs worldwide.

* This reference has been officially confirmed by Groupe SEB.