PAUL HARTMANN AG
International websites with connection to a central product database.
HARTMANN is a global provider of medical and care products with core business areas in wound treatment, incontinence care, and infection prevention. The portfolio is complemented by products for compression therapy, first aid, as well as care and cosmetic products. Making this extensive range accessible to customers in a country-specific manner through international websites is one of the main goals that we have achieved together with HARTMANN.
The project
We have been supporting the German traditional company based in Heidenheim for several years in the further development of its websites. This includes the corporate website, country websites, and some brand websites from the B2C sector. HARTMANN operates 24 country websites in European countries alone, which contain all information about the extensive product portfolio in the respective national language. In addition, there are 11 country websites in Asia, Africa, and America.
A particularity in the healthcare sector that needs to be considered in the content management process of all HARTMANN websites are country-specific regulations regarding the "labelling" of medical products. The description and illustration of medical products on a website in Germany are therefore subject to different legal requirements and must be done differently than, for example, in the USA or in France.
Another challenge in this project was to align the publishing requirements of the parent company in Germany with the country subsidiaries. This means systematizing and structuring the content management process across websites in such a way that the distribution of content can be done efficiently. Additionally, HARTMANN should be able to leverage synergies in content creation by reusing content multiple times.
- Industry
- Pharmaceutical Industry
- Technology
- Sitecore Experience Platform
- Services
- Corporate Website
- Digital Marketing
New technical setup
We started with a technical refactoring and renewed the website architectures of the Corporate and Country Websites. HARTMANN manages its websites with the Sitecore Content Management System. We restructured the content distribution process and implemented a so-called 'Shared Content' - 'Local Content Structure'. The content provided in English can now be delegated 'quickly' to country websites, where it is translated and enriched with country-specific extras. The editorial effort is significantly reduced because maintenance is centralized and content can be easily redistributed. In addition, HARTMANN benefits from uniform templates and workflows in the Sitecore Content Management System as well as the local provision of country-specific content. In parallel, we rebuilt numerous Brand Websites that HARTMANN operates in the B2C sector and integrated them into the Sitecore project. An example is the Brand Website for Veroval, a brand known for medical self-tests.
Integration with central product database and fallback system
As extensive as the product portfolio from HARTMANN is, so is the data management in the background. Product descriptions and images are stored internally in a central product database, a so-called Product Information System (PIM system). Through a specially implemented interface, we have connected the PIM system to the Sitecore CMS, enabling HARTMANN to centrally manage product information and provide it correctly for various outputs, such as on country websites. Through the PIM system, HARTMANN can serve not only websites but also other digital marketing and sales channels with product information. In cases where there is no specific country variant available in certain countries, a fallback to another version is implemented. For example, in Burkina Faso, the user would automatically be shown the French-language version that applies to African countries.
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