How Jan Linders automates thousands of POS materials for each store weekly
A customer story about Jan Linders with Babette Voorn-Thissen & Thomas Heijnen.
Jan Linders Supermarkets
What started out as the local milkman in 1963, became one of the best known supermarket chains in the south-eastern provinces of the Netherlands with over 60 store locations.
The supermarket chain has been on the forefront of innovation, investing heavily in technology and process improvements. In particular, on the side of ERP, Promotions and Marketing content. As part of their ecosystem, Relayter was challenged to provide each store with an individual and route-sorted POS package.
"More than 25% of your revenue is promotion based. So why not have full control over it? It's crucial for everyone, from category management to the point of sale in store."
Thomas Heijnen – Commercial Support Manager
50,000+ POS items and 52 leaflets per year
Weekly POS package customized for each store
Content time-to-market reduced by 3.5 weeks
Paper consumption has been greatly reduced
Category Management, Marketing, and Production time reduced by several FTE
Agency costs cut by 50%
Creating a future-proof promotion process
When Thomas became involved in the project to implement a new ERP & PIM, it was initially an IT-project. But when the team started to gather requirements and expectations across the organization, it quickly became clear that this should be a multi-department integrated process. From buying and category management to marketing and design.
Several meetings were held with industry peers, such as SPAR Supermarkets, to see how Microsoft, SAP or other software was able to provide a good retail-focused promotion management solution. As marketing content came more into the picture, it became an opportunity to see how the entire marketing execution workflow could also be made more efficient and sustainable. Babette and Thomas wanted to create the perfect process from A to Z. It would have to make life easier for category management, buyers, marketing, and also colleagues at the point of sale itself. Besides ERP, DAM and Space Management solutions, the team made a shortlist for content automation software. Relayter quickly came out on top. Being a specialist in retail data-driven content, Relayter was the perfect choice.
Seamless integration of ERP, Promotions, Store data and Content Automation
To create the perfect marketing promotion workflow, it starts with people. The responsibility and ownership of different aspects are now clearly defined for each person within a department. For example, Category Management is responsible for ensuring that promotion data is provided in full and on time. Marketing is responsible for the correct content production across all channels and store locations.
To facilitate this Jan Linders has customized a promotion planning module within Microsoft Dynamics 365. In Relayter, the business logic for brand style elements, promotion mechanisms, templates, layout grids and POS packages, is configured in great detail. This gives both full control and a near-perfect content output under each data scenario.
The production workflow was pretty cumbersome before; separate Excel sheets, collecting images manually and large amounts of brand guidelines and layout rules. “Now you don’t have to think about it anymore, the systems do it for us.” Babette explains.
“Multiple systems are connected seamlessly. We manage all product and promotion data in Dynamics 365. Space management (store shelf data) is then also fed into Dynamics 365. If there is a change, we manage it there, in one place. This data is continuously pushed to Relayter, which generates and updates all content on time and on-brand. Thousands of items every week.”
Digital Asset Management is handled by Relayter as well, it aggregates all product and other images from various data sources, such as suppliers or photo studios. This makes Dynamics 365 our single-source-of-truth for data and Relayter our one-stop MRM and content publishing hub.
"Take time to optimize the process. Because peace of mind in the promotions chain creates room for better collaboration with colleagues, and time to think about the fun things."
Babette Voorn-Thissen – Teamlead Promotions
Standardization is key
Standardization was an important element in the implementation of the various systems and POS locations. Babette explains: “For example, you can’t come up with a new promotion mechanism every week. Then you or your agency will keep doing everything by hand, which doesn’t make it any easier for the organization, the stores or the consumer.”
During the project, all promotion locations in the stores were mapped out and linked to Space management (shelf layout). This ensures that all stores communicate in a uniform manner and only receive materials that they actually need. “All of this is only possible thanks to the tight integration of all systems as well as the training of staff in using these. Everyone now knows where to go and give the right (data) input for the right result in-store.”
The Jan Linders team has worked closely with Relayter and the printer (E.M. de Jong) to sort weekly POS packages on individual store-shelf-routes so that they are in walking order per store location. Relayter prepares everything automatically based on configurable business ruling. This results in faster time-to-market of promotion materials, easier handling by store staff, but also less waste and thus cost savings.
Babette: “The current promotion marketing execution is almost flawless, and we’re proud of that! There is a sustainable process in place that everyone is reaping the benefits of.” Thomas also notes that everyone has adapted very well to the new way-of-working within six months.
How to automate promotions with Relayter
Manage campaign or project data by importing products and promotions. Set up smart design templates and create proofing workflows. Then streamline your complete marketing production with creative automations.
Review and proof creative work
Keep track on what to do next. Don’t lose PDF’s and e-mails. Easily review design work and proof it with sticky notes or comments all in one place.
Automate marketing production workflows
Setup custom marketing production workflows with steps, automations, proofing reviews, triggers, roles, rights and more. Collaborate the way you want to.
Manage commercial layout planning
Stop working in excel sheets. Visually determine where products need to go and what is important. Keep a clear view of your layouts for all channels.
Setup automated design templates
Create automated design templates for all your marketing channels, product labels, publication types, and more. Stay consistent and on-brand easily.
Manage product information & PIM data
Import product data from your PIM or ERP. Then customize and enrich product data as you go with tags, commercial descriptions, creative assets, and more.
Manage digital assets and products
Easily manage all your product and promotions related creative assets in one place. Or use our API to import your data from any source: DAM, PIM, ERP.
Create omnichannel marketing campaigns
Set up or import one central data set, such as a promotions briefing. Then automatically publish omnichannel marketing materials and content with ease.
Manage campaign and project data
Import or setup campaign data, such as product information and promotions pricing. Manage your campaigns without excel sheets and collaborate online.
Automated Design & Proofing Workflows for Retail Promotions
Relayter is a leading SaaS provider of omnichannel Automated Design and Proofing Workflow management within large marketing productions. Request a FREE DEMO from one of our Design Automation experts to discover why so many companies use Relayter.