IBT Industrial Solutions Uses Bluemeteor Product Content Cloud to Improve Data Quality, Streamline Workflows, and Enhance Customer Experience

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

IBT Industrial Solutions is a US-based industrial distributor of operational maintenance products (MRO), raw materials, and components for finished goods. Their customers include manufacturers, food processors, machine fabricators, and municipalities. To keep pace with changing market dynamics, IBT has embarked on a multi-year digital transformation journey.

A core focus of their transformation is to “Digitally Extend” what has made IBT successful while continuing to deliver exceptional customer experiences across every channel. IBT has invested heavily in enabling technologies with the aim of driving 30% of revenue through digital channels by 2027.

According to Adam Massie, IBT’s VP of Supply Chain, “IBT’s calling card is the extreme service we provide our customers. We offer expertise and personalized services they don’t get from larger competitors. It all starts with our product data.

A key to this extreme service mentality is providing our customers with robust and relevant product including application information, how-to’s, and educational articles.” IBT leverages Blue Meteor Product Content Cloud to scale their business and ensure they remain trusted by their customers and partners.

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THE CHALLENGES

IBT needed to improve the amount, quality, and timeliness of their product content. They also recognized that their incumbent PIM was not enabling them to make necessary business improvements required to improve the throughput of IBT’s product content. Several factors were contributing to this:

A Growing Product Catalog

Managing product content for a growing catalog of SKUs, expected to cross 1 million by 2025, was a challenge due to labor-intensive manual processes, and a lack of coordination with business partners.

Multiple Sources of Product Data

IBT acquires product data from numerous sources, in different formats which was challenging to import into IBT’s incumbent PIM solution.

Integration Complexity

Multiple IBT systems rely on product content. Getting these platforms in sync and communicating seamlessly was the crux of operational inefficiency and hindered data flows. IBT required a unified solution to provide an escape from inflexible platforms.

Outdated Solution

For a variety of reasons, the incumbent PIM did not live up to IBT’s expectations. It restricted their ability to perform simple tasks without the assistance of a 3rd party partner. They wanted the ability to configure and support their PIM solution on their own.

Inefficient Processes

IBT had implemented several manual processes and workarounds to carry out everyday product content management tasks. They needed these processes to be audited, optimized, and preferably automated by the new PIM software they would select.

Reliance on Third Parties

To the extent possible, IBT wants to be self-sufficient and use the capabilities of the platform they have purchased without having to depend on a partner organization for support.

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THE SOLUTION

To address these challenges, IBT Industrial decided to replace their incumbent PIM solution with Blue Meteor Product Content Cloud- A powerful, enterprise-wide, single source of truth for IBT’s product content.

It enables IBT to leverage AI and automation to unify and manage complex product content, streamline product data lifecycles, and deliver more meaningful online product purchasing experiences at scale.

Product Content Cloud seamlessly integrates data from multiple sources, including suppliers, affiliated distributors (AD), and the PIE Technology Platform, with their ERP and customer-facing website, ShopIBT.

By doing so, all product details can be managed in a single digital hub. In addition to product content, IBT also stores all their product images on the Product Content Cloud.

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THE IMPACT

Blue Meteor Product Content Cloud has enabled IBT to go faster and be more agile by driving down the cost and complexity of acquiring, managing, and delivering product content.

IBT accelerated the collection and distribution of product data while improving data quality and compliance. In addition, Product Content Cloud allows IBT to:

1 – Automate and streamline the flow of product content across IBT’s entire content value chain.

2 – Transform messy inconsistent data into clean, easy to find content.

3 – Connect disparate data and catalogs; map and automate data from/to different standards and taxonomies.

4 – Distribute rich product content across multiple systems and channels at a lower total cost of ownership.

Product Content Cloud’s user-friendly and intuitive UI empowered IBT to get more done in less time, enabling them to focus on other value-add activities – without the support of a 3rd party system integrator.

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“Implementing Blue Meteor’s Product Content Cloud solution has been a game changer for our business. We have been able to streamline our product data management process and deliver high-quality, consistent, and up-to-date product content to our customers.

With this improved data, we are better equipped to serve our customers online, driving our digital strategy forward.”

Adam Massie
Vice President – Supply Chain | IBT Industrial Solutions