Habitat case study

The Brief

Develop a marketing application which improves the central management and distribution of product information.

• Provide consistent product information across all channels eg: website, in-store, catalogue.
• Improve marketing and merchandising information flow through integration with existing business systems and processes.
• Develop a flexible and scalable solution, including the ability to work in several languages across the globe.

The Solution

LShift developed Expro – a Product Information Management system that allows Habitat to syndicate, manage and then deliver product information to the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in the most appropriate way.

Expro interfaces with Habitat’s supply chain systems and external data sources, extracting useful information and combining this with new information (such as product images, PDFs, marketing documents, care and safety instructions). This allows Habitat to create structured product information from unstructured content.

The Results

• £400,000 savings through automated production of shelf-edge labels
• Increased sales due to better informed sales teams
• Reduced costs through more efficient product information management
• Eliminated the need for internal product information publications
• Reduction in product lead times
• Digital communications team use the system to provide content for the award winning Habitat website
• HR department use Expro to generate product training documents that help get new staff up and running quickly
• Press department use Expro to provide product information when dealing with media enquiries
• Future-proofed the business in terms of potential product information usages e.g. publishing information to PDAs, mobile phones or RFID