Stanley Black & Decker has been up to something that reminds me of a massive issue most brands dangerously ignore:
The crippling impact of poor product content management.
(Bet you glazed over just thinking about it. But this is important AND cool, so stay with me!)
The iconic tool manufacturer (behind brands like DeWalt, Craftsman, Irwin, Mac Tools, Porter-Cable and the obvious other two) recently partnered with Syndigo to dramatically transform how they handle product information.
The results are pretty eye-opening:
- 60% increase in data quality
- Reduction in information retrieval time from days to minutes
- Significantly faster product launches
What’s cool to me isn’t really the technology itself, which is solid but nothing altogether new.
I nerd out on what it reveals about a critical failure point in many companies’ product operations.
And how much you’ve got to gain by fixing it like these smart people did.
Most product makers obsess over features, pricing, and marketing — while completely neglecting the unsexy but vital infrastructure of product content.
They end up with fragmented information scattered across departments, inconsistent specifications, and marketing copy that doesn’t even match what’s on the packaging.
This creates a cascading series of problems:
- Retailers get incorrect information, leading to mislabeling
- Customer support teams can’t access accurate specifications
- Marketing materials contain contradictory claims
- Product launches get delayed by weeks due to content bottlenecks
The bigger the business, the greater the impact.
Stanley Black & Decker’s newly rolled-out plan leverages AI co-pilots to automate a whole bunch of critical but time-consuming tasks: copy creation, image analysis, content localization, sentiment analysis, attribute mapping, and natural language search.
The system even flags errors within copy and provides analytics on how products perform on the digital shelf.
This level of infrastructure is what separates really profitable product operations from the ones skidding into bankruptcy — especially when stuff outside of their control gets dicey. (Like, right about… NOW!)
Product Payoff: Lego implemented a similar product content management system after realizing that inconsistent product information was preventing over 20% of potential sales from completing. (And the bigger the business …. yep) Lego’s solution, which centralized all product data and automated distribution to retail partners, resulted in a 14% increase in conversion rates across digital channels and reduced time-to-market for new products by over 30%. The system paid for itself WITHIN 9 MONTHS purely through reduced operational costs!
Action for today: Content efficiencies don’t only help big companies. A good one can help YOU grow. Audit your own product content processes by tracking a single spec change from inception to all customer touchpoints. How many manual handoffs are involved? How many days does it take? How many places have to get updated whenever you change something?
The results will reveal significant bottlenecks and human error opportunities that quietly undermine your product’s success.
Tap that centralized, error-free reply arrow, and let’s chat about streamlining your product content operations.
Or reach out to my brilliant team of product marketing specialists at Graphos Product.