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Digital transformation meets 126 years of tradition – engelhorn gets ready for a digital future

16 May 2017

After “Big Data”, the new success factor in e-commerce that is being hyped up is “Customer Centricity”. In fact, this is not a new concept, but rather the next, logical step in e-commerce. Customer centricity is an approach to doing business that focuses on the customer’s wishes and expectations. Rather than just reacting to customers’ wishes, customer-centric businesses – retailers as well as manufacturers – rely on anticipating these needs and wants in order to be successful. Luckily, there are already enough technical solutions to enhance the buying process and to meet the expectations of digital natives; nevertheless, the implementation still represents a huge challenge for most companies. Customer centricity presupposes a suitable IT structure, high-quality master data and efficient processes in place. Therefore, customer centricity (as a general approach or a goal) is closely linked to the “digital transformation” of companies and usually entails considerable investments and extensive restructuring.

Engelhorn, a premium fashion retailer, believes in the importance of customer centricity and digital transformation. We have asked Thorsten Huth, Head of the Technical e-Commerce Department at engelhorn and data expert, what really matters.

Thorsten, you have been responsible at engelhorn for the development of the system to manage the online channels. What is “Digital Transformation” for engelhorn?

Engelhorn is a very successful retailer and is considered to be the local market leader in the Rhein-Neckar region. On the one hand, digital transformation allows us to serve our customers more efficiently; on the other hand, it enables us to attract a more diverse clientele than with our physical stores only. It is an essential prerequisite to become a top player at a national level.

However, digital transformation is also a huge challenge for engelhorn; 126 years of traditional retail are part of our DNA and have strongly influenced our employees and our business culture. Therefore, one of the key success factors of digital transformation is to get all colleagues on board and to make the company fit for the future.

Customer centricity is a popular buzzword at the moment. According to your experience, what is the role of master data and product information in this context?

In the past, goods were the most important asset in retail. Today it’s data. As retailers we always try to find more effective ways to guide our customers to the right product for them. To achieve this, we have to understand exactly and even predict what our customers want. We need to provide a seamless experience for our customers, regardless of channel or device. A comprehensive and central database is essential. All the technical solutions that facilitate product search, such as faceted search or the filtering options in web shops, depend on the quality of the data provided.

In 2016 you have gone through, with parsionate, your Product Information Management (PIM) system with a fine-tooth comb and started a project to optimize it. What was the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge was definitely transferring all the expertise of our colleagues about our fashion and sports products into a system architecture. Choosing an appropriate data structure and setting up efficient processes was essential for the continued success of engelhorn, but it was a highly demanding task for the entire project team. It was very helpful to have parsionate’s experienced and objective consultants at our side. They helped us define which information was really needed and how the content could be structured appropriately. A handbag, for example, requires different master data than a shoe. Together, we were able to effectively use our expert knowledge to create an appropriate maintenance structure.

We have talked about the challenges. Now let us turn to the positive aspects: What are the advantages of the new PIM and the restructured data management?

On the one hand, we are benefiting from the improved content: through PIM, we have considerably enhanced our quality management and are now able to offer our customers significantly better product information. Thus, for example, it is automatically ensured that only data with a certain quality standard go live. The quality of our web shop has been improved significantly to the benefit of our customers.

On the other hand, PIM has helped us to optimize our processes and to become much more efficient. Among other things, the content creation process has been shortened by the improved maintenance structure, which in turn has had a positive impact on our time-to-market. In addition, PIM allows us to get a better overview of our own performance and thus to continuously optimize our processes.

 

In the interview:

Thorsten Huth
Head of E-Commerce Technology, engelhorn Holding GmbH

Thorsten Huth is one of the proven data experts in Germany. After various positions with Johnson + Johnson, Netrada, Otto, Neckermann and BMW, he has been successfully established in practice since 2007. Since 2016, he is responsible for the development of system architecture at engelhorn and is responsible for the technological transformation as head of department. Thereby he orchestrates the various technologies such as the Informatica MDM Product 360 (PIM), Salesforce Commerce Cloud and the middleware of Information Builders as a powerful and effective data machine.

The interview was conducted by Jasmin Stöckle.

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