Profine

Looking for a high-profile DAM system

profine GmbH has its hands full with its three brands: A wide variety of window, door and privacy protection systems are produced daily across worldwide production sites (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, China, India, USA) and delivered to sales locations, dealers and window manufacturers in numerous countries. Ensuring that such a global production and distribution network operates professionally, effectively and efficiently therefore requires excellent organization – entrepreneurially, logistically and in terms of data technology. With over 450,000 tons of profiles produced every year that need to be distributed and sold, a result is quite a bit of digital data material. From individual product images and renderings to complete product flyers, catalogs and brochures, they all need to be well organized. It’s imperative to have professional digital asset management (DAM) to handle.

Challenge: Digitize workflows throughout the company to create an overview

profine GmbH had already been using a DAM system from a third-party provider for a long time to ensure this level of organization and centrally manage all assets. However, the system was already outdated, not user-friendly to operate, and its design language was anything but modern. Updates had not been installed for a long time, and the configuration options – e.g. relating to self-management by profine – were also limited. For example, it was only possible for external partners such as dealers or window manufacturers to register as a user via a long-winded process involving the DAM’s third-party provider. Likewise, the DAM’s search function was only rudimentarily developed, meaning profine’s marketing department frequently found themselves answering the phone or replying to emails when a sales colleague couldn’t find a certain product image or brochure. The workflows were therefore not very efficient and were particularly time-consuming and resource-intensive. profine therefore decided to switch to a new DAM system to modernize and further develop digital asset management – and came across our 4ALLPORTAL DAM.

Solution: A scalable and intuitive system

Using our 4ALLPORTAL DAM, the profine Group was able to serve three central points in particular that were essential for the company:

1. The new DAM had to have an extensive search function that simultaneously offered flexibility. In other words: assets can be keyworded via individual metadata fields and can subsequently be found more easily on the one hand, while on the other hand, additional metadata fields can be added at any time. The entire DAM system also had to be scalable to match the requirements and intended uses set out by the profine Group.

2.  In the future, assets should be able to be sent directly from the system to the recipient via email link. The recipient can download the assets selected by profine – e.g. a brochure on KÖMMERLING brand profiles for a local window manufacturer – directly via the 4ALLPORTAL eTicket without needing a DAM account. This eliminates the need to exchange e-mails with huge data attachments, and profine can also directly specify the correct download format (e.g. use on the web or for print, image size or file format).

3. As a whole, the system had to have an attractive user interface and provide a high-quality user experience. In other words, working with the system had to feel good. After all, that wasn’t the case with the old system. The graphic designers and other employees in profine’s marketing team needed to manage the system intuitively, thereby simplifying work processes and optimizing them throughout the company. Dealers who sell profine products worldwide should also be faced with an appealing and self-explanatory design interface when accessing the DAM and – in the best case – only see products that are relevant to them.

We were quickly able to put a check beside these three key requirements thanks to our DAM. What’s more, we were also able to fulfill profine’s desired DAM branding by incorporating the profine Group design. We also configured the user management so that profine can manage data and users independently for internal users and for external users – i.e. users outside the organization – to have an easy registration process before being approved by profine.

Following a thorough analysis and by sorting all existing assets in terms of duplicates, file naming and obsolete versions, the assets were loaded directly from the cleaned file server into the 4ALLPORTAL DAM and entered there. The profine Group hosts the system itself. The system was rolled out company-wide, meaning that all internal employees worldwide now have access to asset management.

Result: Better collaboration and time savings

The profine Group uses the 4ALLPORTAL DAM as a company-wide platform for managing and organizing its assets, as well as for collaborating with external parties, such as dealers and window manufacturers. The visual product world of the three different brands in the form of images, brochures, renderings and videos is organized centrally via the DAM and distributed to various user groups. This ensures clarity and actuality in data maintenance for all employees and external partners and, in particular, uniformity across associated external communication. For example, the use of outdated or highly disparate product images by sales colleagues at other company locations or out-of-date product brochures for dealers, is now a thing of the past.

In addition, the profine Group now works significantly faster and more efficiently thanks to the 4ALLPORTAL: “We have already received a great deal of positive feedback on the 4ALLPORTAL DAM: Our in-house colleagues praise the system thanks to the great user experience and seeing their actual workload reduce. Our marketing and graphics department alone saves about 20% time since data can now be found quickly by colleagues thanks to the excellent search function. As a result, the phone rings less and fewer support queries are landing in inboxes. And local dealers and window manufacturers are also just as enthusiastic: Finally, there’s no need to constantly send e-mails back and forth, and they can find their assets in a modern system,” explained Raymond Jackson, the project manager responsible for the project.