Success story
Argos Limited

Industry• RetailSolution• OpenText™ Media Management

Argos underpins digital transformation
strategy with OpenText

OpenText™ Media Management serves up digital assets
for multichannel strategy
Results
Enhanced productivity andaccuracy with a single sourceof truth
Improved efficiency withmulticahnnel marketing
Saved time by eliminating mundane,
repetitive and time-consuming
manual tasks through automation“With OpenText Media Management, we have an effectiveand long-lasting partnership, which will see our digitaltransformation vision become a reality. Indications are thatthe solution will provide a full return within two to three years.”Andrea Millers

Digital Asset Manager
Argos Limited

Argos underpins digital transformation strategy with OpenText

Argos is the UK’s leading multichannel retailer, selling a range ofmore than 53,000 products through 840 stores, by phone and via
its website and mobile apps for collection or delivery.
The Argos website, argos.co.uk, is the UK’s second most visited
retail website, with more than 900 million visits last year. Customers
can use the highly-successful ‘Check & Reserve’ service to reserve
products online and collect them same day from a store of theirchoice. Ninety percent of the UK population lives within 10 miles ofan Argos store. Same-day delivery services are also available.
Since 1973, Argos has been well known for its printed catalog ofproducts. However, in 2012, Argos began a five-year business journey
to reinvent itself as a digital retail leader, the largest retail transformationin the UK. The aim is to make its in-store, online and mobile experiences
work together, with digital at the heart of the business, to better serve
its customers’ needs with more choice and faster availability. Planned
growth in the number of products, plus new requirements for channels
such as kiosks and the shortest possible lead times for click-and-collectand same-day delivery services, meant a new digital asset management(DAM) solution was a must.

Selecting a digital asset management solution
fundamental to digital transformation

Argos began its transformation by scrutinizing all existing systems andinfrastructure to determine its suitability for future plans. The existing
digital asset repository was labor intensive, highly repetitive in capturingand managing assets and focused on the traditional printed catalog.

It was clear that a new agile and flexible DAM solution was needed tosupport the planned growth in the number of product lines and theongoing transition to multiple digital channels.
Argos initiated a tendering process to evaluate several DAM solutions.
Andrea Millers, digital asset manager at Argos explains further, “Ourselection criteria included the ability to handle massive volumesof video, still images, artwork and more, plus many hundreds ofthousands of assets. For our digital transformation strategy to beeffective, we needed a single master asset from which to automatically generate other renditions depending on the channel, e.g., web,print, mobile, etc. Forrester and Gartner place OpenText as the clear
leader in DAM. After evaluating a number of solutions, we selected
OpenText Media Management as the best DAM solution overall, andby some distance.”
The DAM solution was just one of two new solutions supporting the Argos
digital strategy, the other being its product information management(PIM) system. The two must work seamlessly together, sharing andsynchronizing data frequently, for the project to be successful.
Core elements of Argos’ plans included automating processes wherever
possible to improve efficiency and keep costs down. To compete in
the market, being able to quickly add or amend products is critical.
The number of products is growing from around 50,000 to more than
100,000, each with an average of six or seven assets. Governance andsecurity of digital assets is also key, as is building a platform for the longterm to open future roadmap possibilities. Argos decided that MediaManagement meets these requirements.

“After evaluating a
number of solutions, weselected OpenText MediaManagement as the bestDAM solution overall, andby some distance.”
Andrea Millers

Digital Asset Manager
Argos Limited

Argos underpins digital transformation strategy with OpenText

Collaboration helps build a solution that meetsbusiness needs

Following the solution selection, a project team came together to begin
detailed design workshops and to document the scope of the solution.
Representatives from a number of departments participated to ensure
the design met all of their needs.
“We involved all stakeholders from the outset, including our IS team,architecture, catalog, marketing and product information teams. We
worked with OpenText to develop and document our initial design,and create test scripts too,” adds Millers.
The scope of the project covered both the out-of-the-box functionality of
OpenText and any necessary bespoke configuration to meet a variety ofneeds including task automation, repro order creation, order sequence
swapping and reporting.
“For the first time, Argos controls its own digital library and is nolonger reliant on external providers. However, we also wanted oursuppliers to be able to submit assets to the library, reducing the timeand cost of adding external assets,” says Millers.
Nearly 300,000 digital assets were migrated from the old system,
reviewed and validated and made available for multichannel use. New
assets are added daily including video, instruction manuals, cut-out
images, 360-degree scene sets, “how to” guides and much more.

Single master asset drives consistency and saves time

Among the many problems with the old solution was the proliferation ofdifferent asset versions. Not only was the system designed with a main
focus on the traditional catalog, the naming conventions, manual processing and repetitive tasks were increasingly labor intensive.
“With the new OpenText DAM, we have a single master asset, fromwhich all others, for example, mobile, web, print, etc., are derived.
They are consistently named, allow us to include additional metadata
to help our PIM solution function better and also allow future searchengine optimization (SEO) development,” adds Millers.
With more than 1,000 suppliers now able to upload assets directly intoOpenText for review and approval, between 300 and 400 assets a day
are consistently added this way, named and made available quickly tomore than 250 internal users and external service providers.
“Managing video assets alongside all our other assets is a great
improvement for us, saving time and driving consistency. Regardless of the format in which we receive the video asset, OpenText
consistently renders a standard MP4 file that we know will work
regardless of the channel,” explains Millers.

“For the first time, Argos
controls its own digital
library and is no longer
reliant on externalproviders. However, wealso wanted our suppliers
to be able to submit assets
to the library, reducing thetime and cost of adding
external assets”
Andrea Millers

Digital Asset ManagerArgos Limited

Argos underpins digital transformation strategy with OpenText

Minimizing manual tasks through automation

In the first few months following launch, system users began to appreciate
the benefits of automation. Removing mundane and repetitive tasks has
been well received. Media Management integrates with Adobe® Scene7®
to provide all the final renditions in the proper formats for asset delivery
to the customer’s chosen channel and device.
“When a new asset is approved in the DAM, following a number of preflight checks, the asset is ready for delivery, saving time, removing
manual steps and reducing the chance of errors,” says Millers.
Assets now have optional text associated with them, in addition tostandard product descriptions managed by the PIM. For example, animage or video may include a second product to illustrate the first
product in use. The DAM solution ensures that text can be easily added(for example, “XYZ not included”) to make sure customers understandexactly what they will receive. OpenText enables Argos to overcome thisfrustrating shortcoming of the old system.

Solid platform for growth, emerging channels
and competitive edge

Now that the new solution is in use, Argos is experiencing the benefits
and suggestions, and ideas to expand the usage are coming forward.
One suggestion is to provide suppliers with the ability to manage theirown asset metadata and not just upload new assets. Argos for Businessis now looking at how it might use the solution too.
“As OpenText continues to invest and develop the solution evenfurther to support our digital transformation, we’re continuously
looking at how we can maximize the benefit to Argos. Together withOpenText, we have an effective and long-lasting partnership, which
will see our digital transformation vision become a reality, providing customers with more choice, available faster,” says Millers.
“Indications are that the solution will provide a full return within twoto three years.”

About OpenText

OpenText, The Information Company,
enables organizations to gain insight
through market leading information
management solutions, on-premises orin the cloud. For more information aboutOpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX)
visit opentext.com.
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