Sylvania

• Classification of product data.
• Centralisation of data storage.
• Local information is maintained locally.
• Product information maintained by the product managers.
• Separation of data & lay-out: a new design can be implemented quickly.
• All online data is permanently up-to-date.
• Advanced product search methods that are impossible via classical site navigation.

Challenge

Sylvania needed to serve their customers better by improving the quality and delivery of commercial and technical product information. They wanted to offer specific websites with detailed information about their products. Later on in the project even greater efficiency gains could be achieved as additional publishing channels are added. The basis for this was laid by the implementation of xCS.content and xCS. web, and xCS.press will be added later for automating the paper catalogues production process.

Solution

An Enterprise Content Management System (CMS) was required as this was not present. Sylvania’s existing Central Item Master (CIM) database would remain the source for the technical data. Within CIM some 80 data fields are maintained
by R&D, sales and marketing. A synchronisation between xCS.content and the CIM database takes place automatically, updating and adding changed and added products. Initially the various product managers prepared their data in Excel. Now the data is entered and managed using the web interface available to product managers and marketing staff located in Belgium, Netherlands and England. 

Benefits

Now that the website is fully operational, Sylvania is able to use this same data to generate printed catalogues and price lists. This is possible using xCS.press to generate files that can further be manipulated in FrameMaker or InDesign.