Hilti accelerates digital transformation with Sitecore Content Hub

Customer experience is top of the agenda for Hilti Group — the company prides itself on its customer relationships and direct sales model. And Hilti Group’s digital assets, including videos and images, information sheets, and product documentation, are a vital part of the customer experience, helping to keep customers and employees informed and up to date. “Our digital assets need to be current, easily accessible, and secure so we can always provide the information our customers need and keep our webshop updated,” said Katharina Haugg, IT Project Manager at Hilti Group. “If critical materials are outdated or unavailable, it could harm our brand image.”

With these assets increasingly important to the customer experience, the company’s legacy solution no longer met its needs. A poor user experience, inadequate searchability, and complex taxonomy updates all resulted in data quality and adoption challenges. Software updates were complex and lengthy and often affected system performance, which limited access to assets.

The system also only served central marketing and sales, leaving local teams to manage their assets independently using separate systems.

To get more from its digital assets and boost productivity, Hilti Group needed a new, centralized solution that was easy to use and maintain, quick to search, and simple to update. It also needed to provide the company’s local marketing teams with the ability to access and share assets.

Hilti Group selected Sitecore Content Hub following a proof-of-concept exercise in late 2020. The digital asset management solution was implemented in April 2021 and went live with 80,000 assets the following December.

“We chose Sitecore Content Hub for three main reasons,” explained Haugg. “Firstly, as a Software-as-a-Service solution, we wouldn’t have to worry about infrastructure, updates, or availability. The solution also had a great user interface that was really intuitive. And lastly, it was easy to configure to suit our needs without the need for time-consuming development.”

Sitecore Services assisted with the implementation. “The close and open collaboration with Sitecore Services was key to the success of the deployment,” added Haugg.

Hilti Group’s marketing and sales teams across 100 countries now all rely on Sitecore Content Hub to manage, track, and share digital assets. Seamless integrations with other systems including Hilti Group’s product information system and content management system help ensure consistency and efficiency. Marketing campaigns also rely on the Sitecore solution, with public URLs linking directly to the relevant content. “The Sitecore solution provides us with a single source of truth for all marketing and sales materials,” explained Haugg.

Thanks to an integration with Active Directory, only authorized users can access legal or restricted documents, while Sitecore Content Hub’s project management function is helping to foster collaboration between content creators, product managers, and external agencies.

Hilti Group has increased competitive advantage with easier access to digital assets, as Haugg explains, “We’ve improved the customer experience and employee productivity, thanks to the enhanced searchability, security, and accessibility to digital assets that Sitecore Content Hub offers. The solution has also proved extremely popular with both central and local marketing teams, with positive feedback and a great adoption rate.”

In particular, with assets shared seamlessly across geographies and with external agencies, local marketing teams are now more efficient and self-sufficient.

Meanwhile, the IT team is no longer concerned with system availability, infrastructure maintenance, or updates.

The solution’s capabilities were put to the test in January 2022, when Hilti Group underwent its largest ever product release involving the launch of 4,000 assets. Using Sitecore Content Hub, the release was seamless and a resounding success.

“With Sitecore, we have a future-proof digital asset management solution that will support the company as it evolves and grows,” concludes Haugg.