See How Walgreens Boots Alliance Improved their Content and Merchandising Process with WebCenter and MediaBeacon
Watch the video to learn how Walgreens Boots Alliance increased their productivity by using WebCenter and MediaBeacon.
The Challenge:
The process for merchandising, creative, and promotional work was disorganized, informal, and inefficient. With a manual process, feedback on creative design was getting lost, extra time was spent searching for images to use on promotional materials, and projects were taking too long to complete.
The Solution:
With WebCenter, a collaborative workflow solution, the Boots team is automatically guided through the entire process of content creation through distribution. With digital share and approve, the team can provide trackable feedback in a single source so that approvals go through faster. With MediaBeacon digital asset management (DAM), the Boots team can find all the digital assets they need from a single source.
The Benefits:
Increased productivity and approvals cut by an estimated 50%.
Case Study Summary
Boots is part of the Walgreens Boots Alliance and their portfolio includes cosmetic brands such as No. 7, Soap & Glory, and Botanics. Before Esko, the process for merchandising, creative, and promotional work was disorganized, informal, and inefficient.
Watch the video to learn how Walgreens Boots Alliance used WebCenter workflow management and MediaBeacon digital asset management to increase productivity by an estimated 50%. They enabled a few key improvements through:
Automatic workflow for content creation and distribution
Trackable content feedback from a single source
Product images self-serve for multiple departments
A Better Content Process for Boots
Boots is part of the Walgreens Boots Alliance and their portfolio includes cosmetic brands such as No. 7, Soap & Glory, and Botanics. These products sell in Walgreens stores in addition to other retailers, including Target, CVS, Ulta, and more. The way the products are presented on the shelf, including the surrounding signage and promotional materials can have a big impact on sales. They need to meet evolving consumer preferences for interacting with products, both in physical stores and online.
That’s why Lead Project Manager Jeremiah Callaghan coordinates a major rejuvenation of the materials used for merchandising twice a year. “It starts 12 months out and we talk about everything that needs to happen…with all the different players,” says Callaghan.
Before Workflow & DAM
The process for completing these projects hasn’t always been a breeze for the team at Boots. “Before, we’d have to make sure everyone was in the room,” explains Callaghan. “We used excel, paperwork, we had to print everything out, we had to get their signature, we had to chase them down if they weren’t there. We just weren’t scalable so we were getting to the peak of what we could handle manually.”
Because the approval process was disorganized, the creative design phase took excessive effort to complete. “There wasn’t a streamlined platform where we provided feedback for creative requests,” says Boots Brand Manager Casey Weber. This left the Creative Designer, Jason Sagat, little time for creating new materials. Instead, he spent his time juggling a multitude of design requests from a variety of untrackable sources, in addition to being the one person everyone came to when they were looking for product images. “I’d end up doing more work than I really
needed to,” explains Sagat.
Their process wasn’t sustainable, it didn’t allow for collaboration, and it was time-consuming. So, Callaghan and team turned to Esko for the solution.
Solutions from Esko
Boots implemented two Esko tools to help increase their productivity: WebCenter and MediaBeacon.
WebCenter is a collaborative workflow solution that automatically guides the Boots team through the entire process of content creation so it is quickly ready for distribution.
Through digital share and approve, the team can provide trackable feedback from a single source so that updates and approvals go through faster.
With MediaBeacon, a digital asset management (DAM) tool from Esko, the Boots team can easily find and download all the digital assets they need from a single source so the designer doesn’t need to spend his time finding and distributing assets to other people.
“We knew we needed something that would help us grow. What is great about Esko is that they tailored WebCenter to fit our process,” says Callaghan. “The process that we have built helps us to get to our timelines easier, which ultimately allows us to do more.”
Weber estimates that the company cut down their approval time in half from using the Esko tools. She says there is “less back and forth, eliminating days or hours that it would have taken to give feedback.”
Now, the Boots team can collaborate from a single source so they can get more done. “We’ve never missed a deadline,” says Callaghan. “We still have everyone involved, but now everything they want to know is on WebCenter.”
With a streamlined solution to complete their merchandising processes, the team at Boots is confident that Esko tools will continue to equip them to meet the demands of their consumers faster.
“I honestly can’t tell you who else I would want to work with,” says Callaghan. “I think the process is really really easy, the system itself is easy to work with, and the people are great. I love it.”
