From Fragmented Product Data to an AI-Enabled Product Information Backbone

Hager Group is a leading supplier of solutions and services for electrical installations in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of electrical products in energy distribution, building automation and e-mobility solutions that enable smart, efficient and sustainable buildings worldwide.

Founded in the 1950s in the Saarland region, Hager Group remains a family-owned company with over 13,000 employees serving customers in more than 100 countries. 

Challenges

For many years, product information at Hager Group was managed in a decentralized way. Different product portfolios followed different data models, systems were isolated, and teams worked with varying processes and levels of experience, often developing their own ways of working.

The company’s underlying product information management (PIM) system had been developed in-house for more than 20 years. While it had supported the business for a long time, it became increasingly difficult to maintain. Inconsistent data models, manual processes and a custom-built translation solution slowed collaboration and made scaling across markets challenging.

“The system maintenance was very time-consuming and simply not sustainable anymore. We knew we had to modernize,” said Niklas Wenz, Product Owner PIM and Information Architect, Hager Group.

At the same time, customer and wholesaler expectations were evolving. The customer journey increasingly relies on digital channels and ecommerce, requiring richer, more accurate and up-to-date product information. 

Solution

To address these challenges, Hager Group launched a large-scale PIM transformation. The company replaced its legacy system with a centralized product information solution that unifies Product Information Management, Digital Asset Management, automated publishing, and external translation services. Through its “1 Spot” initiative, Hager Group established a single source of truth for product information across the enterprise.

A key milestone was the harmonization of the data model. Multiple, separate structures were consolidated into a single global model, which now manages more than 200,000 products and around 1.7 million digital assets.

“We came from separate data models to one structure and one common data model. That was a big achievement for us.” - Niklas Wenz, Product Owner PIM and Information Architect, Hager Group

Equally important was aligning how teams work. Standardized workflows now manage products, assets, translations and publications, while automation ensures content is assigned to the correct channels with minimal manual effort.

The team also introduced a global default principle. A central product information hub maintains English master content that is translated and reused across markets. Smaller markets can now rely on this content, while larger markets can enrich it where needed.

“That global default saves a lot of work and competence in the local markets, especially where only one or two people manage product information,” said Willi Gerd Schmitz, IT Project Manager, Hager Group.

After initially running Stibo Systems on premises, Hager Group migrated to the Stibo Systems Platform on Microsoft Azure at the beginning of 2025. The migration included rebuilding custom interfaces and adapting extensions to cloud-supported APIs.

Data migration, testing and go-live were completed without disruption. Following a brief performance tuning phase, the cloud environment achieved stable operations and an enhanced user experience.

“Overall, the migration to the cloud was not that complex and it was very successful. Since moving to the cloud, we haven't experienced any performance issues. The UI performance is even a bit better than before.” - Willi Gerd Schmitz, IT Project Manager, Hager Group

Driving automation across publications and channels

Today, Hager Group uses the solution to power a wide range of digital and print outputs at scale. The web catalog and the mobile app are live in 26 markets, with additional markets planned. These outputs are generated automatically from trusted master data, including product data sheets, compliance documents, price lists and extensive catalogs. More than 500,000 product data sheets are produced in local languages, with data changes triggering automatic updates that require no manual intervention. The solution also supports standardized exports for wholesalers in industry-specific formats.

“If product data changes or a template changes, the publication is generated automatically. We do not need manual intervention for that,” said Schmitz.

Introducing AI-driven content creation with Stibo Systems ProductGen AI

Building on this foundation, the company is implementing AI directly within its PIM and DAM environment.

AI-driven picture/PDF analysis and classification

Generative AI analyzes images and PDFs to automatically create titles, descriptions and search keywords in English, which are then translated into multiple languages. This enhances metadata quality, making assets easier to find and reuse.

“The big benefit is better metadata. By generating more complete metadata efficiently and at scale, we improve search results and the experience for our users," said Wenz.

Scalable AI-driven product text generation

AI also utilizes structured product data, terminology rules, tone of voice guidelines, and content standards to generate English and SEO-optimized product text. These are then reviewed and validated by content teams and automatically distributed across channels. The efficiency gains are significant.

“For 1,000 products, text generation takes about one hour and 40 minutes, and the costs are very low. That means we can really scale this.” - Willi Gerd Schmitz, IT Project Manager, Hager Group

Summary

With Stibo Systems, Hager Group has transformed product information into a strategic capability, built on a harmonized global data model, centralized governance with standardized workflows, and automated publishing across digital, print and wholesale channels.

The successful migration to a scalable cloud platform, combined with the introduction of AI-driven enrichment and content creation directly within PIM, has further strengthened this foundation.

“What we have now is a strong foundation. We can reuse content globally, scale automation and continue to build more AI use cases on top.” - Niklas Wenz, Product Owner PIM and Information Architect, Hager Group

Looking ahead, Hager Group continues to expand its AI roadmap, exploring automated translation, AI-assisted product data maintenance and AI-based asset creation, while maintaining consistency and control across the enterprise.