Accolade® Helps Skin Care Market Leader Integrate Management of Global Product Development Process
October 16, 2007 - Sopheon, the international software and services company, announced today that Beiersdorf AG, a leading manufacturer of skin and beauty care products, has deployed Sopheon’s Accolade product life cycle management (PLM) system to support the company’s implementation of an enhanced, integrated process for developing and launching new products. The solution is also being used to strengthen product portfolio decision-making and reporting.
Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1882 by pharmacist Carl Beiersdorf, Beiersdorf’s original product patents were for bandages and wound coverings. By the turn of the century, the company had expanded into consumer skin care and beauty products. Today Beiersdorf is a $7B global producer of regionally branded consumer goods with approximately 100 locations and more than 17,000 employees. The company has a reputation for strong customer and product focus, an orientation that has helped, for instance, make NIVEA® the best-selling body care brand in the world.
Cosmetics is a highly competitive, global industry. It is also among the fastest-moving markets in the consumer goods sector. The life of a typical cosmetic product is only about four years, which means that ongoing, rapid innovation is a prerequisite to achieving sustained business growth. Beiersdorf is addressing this imperative as a core aspect of its consumer business strategy, labeled “Passion for Success.” The strategy calls for the company to focus on fewer but more significant innovations and deliver them to market faster. Beiersdorf has long regarded continuous improvement of its new product development processes as a key factor in maintaining brand superiority.
Beiersdorf’s adoption of Accolade has allowed the company to advance not only its processes for product creation, but its portfolio management capabilities as well. One principal benefit of the system is that it has given the cross-functional teams engaged in product development across the Beiersdorf organization a common platform through which to access and share project data. The result has been greater transparency and an improved ability to track the progress of projects in the developmental pipeline. Accolade has also helped to raise the efficiency and accuracy of portfolio reporting and strengthen the company’s portfolio management and decision-making processes.
Sopheon partners, Sopheon Vertriebs GmbH and Sopheon Business Applications GmbH, were responsible for the sale, implementation and support of Accolade at Beiersdorf.
Dieter Jaeger, chief executive officer of Sopheon Vertriebs GmbH, said, “Beiersdorf has commanded a top position in the international personal care market for many years, and innovation-led product development has been a hallmark of their success. When we were introduced to Beiersdorf, they already had in place a standardized, global product development process anchored in best practices. With Accolade, we were able to give them a single, user-friendly software system that integrated the management of that process with portfolio management and comprehensive decision-support. Beiersdorf chose Accolade because it could match their specific, demanding process requirements. They have subsequently embraced it because it has proven that it helps to ensure superior process performance.”
Accolade® is a registered trademark of Sopheon plc. NIVEA® is a registered trademark of Beiersdorf AG. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the sole
property of their respective owners.
