Founded in 1947,
third largest distance seller and the largest furniture distributor in France
in 2006
- 640 M € in sales
- 7.2 million products
- 12 stores across France
Staff
- 1745 employees (1 million of cooperative members)
- 130 users collaborate via the Perigee Software Suite (Windows and Macintosh platform)
Products and catalogues
- 190,000 product references
- 10,000 printed pages per year.
Website
www.CAMIF.fr
CAMIF Testimonial
The Perigee Solution has matured and has become the backbone of our organisation.
La CAMIF - A true Multi-Channel Retailer
La CAMIF, a true multi-channel retailer, has implemented a marketing content and multi-channel publishing system to overhaul the development and communication of their product offers. They needed to drastically reduce the time to market for their paper catalogues in order to support a vast product range and an increasing number of channels and editions such as e-Commerce and B2B, in addition to their increasingly savvy consumer direct base.
Publishing Administered Production or P@P, helped CAMIF to not only create product offers more quickly while reducing costs, but also to communicate consistent messages across all channels, while leveraging the benefits and demographics of each channel. At the backbone of their production, lies the Perigee Software Suite.
CAMIF relies on the full range of the Perigee Software Suite to manage the development of product offers across multiple sales channels: in-store product information and promotions, direct marketing pieces, e-commerce sites as well as all printed catalogues.
CAMIF’s Publishing System Shows Tangible Benefits
François Cossy, Publication Director, explains, “In 2006 and 2007, all publications (mailings, catalogues, etc.) were produced with our new content management system, P@P. This global approach, which encompasses all steps of production from digital photo shoots up until the file is ready to print, has sped production and has allowed us to increase the number of pages created without increasing investments. This has been extremely profitable for our B2B subsidiary, which micro-targets companies who have in the range of 10,000 employees. Re-doing our e-commerce site meant that we had to adapt our editorial tools so that they could supply multi-media content. How we communicate in our principle B2C catalogues was overhauled to better respond to our customers’ needs.”
La CAMIF has increased the number of pages produced by 30% with the same resources. Publication quality has also improved.
The reduction in time to market by repurposing content has indirectly led to an improvement in quality. Previous to P@P, there were not enough resources to create test editions prior to launching the production of CAMIF’s main catalogues. Most recently for the 2008 Spring/Summer Catalogue, CAMIF produced two test versions before the final catalogue. This feat would have been impossible before the implementation of the P@P system.
Production is also much more flexible than it was in the past. Prices can be updated last minute and new product offers are made available immediately on the e-commerce site, even if the printed catalogue has yet to be produced or has not yet been distributed.
As Mr. Cossy points out, “The Perigee Solution has matured and has become the backbone of our organisation.”
Publishing with Perigee P@P
P@P users include all product contributors such as Product Managers & Assistants, Copy Writers & Editors, Graphic Artists, Colour/Retouching Specialists and Web Designers - 130 people in all, on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Users collaborate seamlessly, in real time, with a single easy to use interface for all platforms, including web.
Digital Asset Management
All users have access to Perigee DAM in order to share and store files
in one central location, rights permitting. Files and data placed on DTP (Desk Top Publishing) pages are linked to their source so that when an image or if product information changes, updates are automatically made wherever that image or information was used. These links save a considerable amount of time, as no manual updating is required.
Product Information and Publishing Content
In order to speed time to market, the Perigee P@P system manages several different types of product information from various sources, all automatically imported from other business systems.
Buyers fine-tune product text, images, logos and other generic information relevant to the publication database. Eventually variable product information, such as price, services, descriptions and other details, are associated with a particular edition or channel, and are thus context-specific. P@P makes the distinction between variable and generic data and the two types are managed accordingly.
Content is often repurposed from one channel to another with details varying not only according to the channel but also according to the intended audience.
As large parts of the production process that were once manual are now automated, updates, such as pricing, are made at the last minute. This flexibility was critical for CAMIF.
Media Supply Chain
Product visuals may be created in several ways, including in-house or outsourced photo shoots. Of course, visuals could also be stock photography directly from a supplier or manufacturer. Workflows manage all visual acquisition and creation.
CAMIF’s P@P system includes a special publication tool with a built-in workflow, called a meta-image. Meta-images are used to associate more than one in-process visual with a product so that catalogue work can continue with the meta-image acting as a placeholder on the DTP page. Once an image is finalised, an automatic swap occurs, placing the actual image wherever the meta-image was used.
Meta-images can be repurposed as all previous image choices are maintained. Users can simply change the final selection to update the visuals in a later edition.
Meta-images have helped CAMIF maximise the return on their digital asset investments while saving a considerable amount of time and increasing long-term design flexibility.
Media Support Databases
CAMIF has several databases, each corresponding to a different catalogue. In turn, each catalogue has its own set of rules governing how information should be handled and including house styles. Workflows are integrated down to the page level in order to automate as much of these processes as possible with users being updated when tasks await them.
CAMIF estimates that anywhere from 20 – 60 % of content is reused from one edition to the next.
E-Commerce
To manage their e-Commerce offerings, CAMIF has created a support database that contains information for various product offers, often taking information from other editions. However, e-Commerce offers do vary from their print counterparts in that different photos and visuals are used, product descriptions are written with a younger audience in mind and supplemental information is sometimes added.
Print Catalogues
The creation of a printed catalogue begins with an analysis of prior editions. CAMIF uses several types of reporting to gather process feedback including reports on the number of images, launch plan, production tracking and square inch analysis or SQUINCH.
Once target content is decided, team members determine which content to repurpose and all relevant product content is automatically updated, including price.
For the spreads themselves, as the content and house styles are updated automatically by P@P, Graphic Artists concentrate on making minor edits and fine tuning the overall look of the page.
Product managers then access PDF versions of pages for re-reading and final validation before pages go to print.
Several workflows are used to speed the production process and to delegate and track tasks. Workflows manage a variety of processes from new image acquisition to sketch creation, image conversion and page layout progress.
All users have to-do lists and e-mail alerts to help manage their project load.
CAMIF’s Future
Now that catalogue production is up and running smoothly, what is next for CAMIF?
François Cossy comments, “Our goal up until now was to industrialise the generation and management of our product offers. Doing so required a lot of effort to solidify our back-office structure. The next step for us will be to evolve our front office as well. The front office will be really spectacular from the consumer’s point of view. But it was necessary to have the back office in place first.”
CAMIF continues to work closely with Perigee in the evolution of future solutions.
