Canto Helps Logitrans Enhance Asset Visibility to Better Serve Customers

As a manufacturer that provides customized solutions to many of its customers, Logitrans faces a unique challenge when it comes to marketing its products and supporting the sales process. The company works through a network of dealers around the world who may not always be aware of what items are available since new products are being developed on a regular basis. Without a centralized system for managing digital assets, marketing and sales teams had difficulty locating and sharing information about products with potential customers.

“If we have made a special product for a customer in Germany, there might be customers in the US or China or somewhere else looking for the same solution who don’t know that it exists or has been made before,” explains Anders Grønbech, CIO of Logitrans. “We had an image library in our CMS system, but it was not really working and was not good for search.”

The problem was complicated by the fact that every branch office around the world had its own content system and archives. Content was stored on local drives or multiple cloud storage accounts, so while it was possible to share assets, there was no single source of truth for the organization as a whole.

Another challenge was the lack of structure when it came to uploading and categorizing assets. Since Logitrans has offices in various countries, content was frequently being saved in different languages, which made it much more difficult to search.

After evaluating the situation, Grønbech recognized that a new solution was needed. “We were lacking a central place to store and structure our images. That was the main thing,” he explained. “After that, the second problem was that we needed to add metadata to it so it will be searchable. That was what we started looking for.”

Their search quickly led them to explore the potential of digital asset management (DAM) platforms. They discovered Canto during the evaluation process and were reassured by the fact that several large corporations used it to manage their content across global offices.

“Canto stood out as the solution for us,” Grønbech recalls. “It was our favorite right from when we got the presentations, and they had a huge range of references. I noticed several people saying the support is outstanding. That was really important when we were in the decision period.”

Organizing the Logitrans Library

After making the decision to go with Canto, it fell to Sanne Bruhn-Hansen, Marketing Coordinator of Logitrans, to organize the new file structure for the company’s digital assets. The first step was to transfer thousands of existing files from the original CMS gallery and other storage locations. In addition to images, Canto became the main storage location for PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, and videos.

“We used the (Canto) workspace to categorize all the pictures and put in the right metadata,” Bruhn-Hansen explains. “Then I started building all the structure with the folders and also taught everyone how to upload and how to categorize everything.”

The educational element was important since most people in the company were accustomed to managing files in their own personal folders. This also made it difficult to ensure image quality. Now when photos of new products being manufactured are uploaded into Canto, they can be reviewed and placed in the appropriate folder for future use. Images intended for print materials, for instance, can be separated from those that are simply used to showcase how a product is used. With Canto Connect, the team was also able to integrate the platform with Photoshop and pull approved images directly from the library.

Enhancing Access via Portals

Canto’s versatile Portals feature has made it much easier for the Logitrans team to share images with dealers and orchestrate product launches. The company hosted an in-person event for dealers in which it provided touchscreens displaying images drawn from a Canto Portal to showcase specialized custom products. This also proved to be a good opportunity to introduce dealers to the platform and show them how to use it to find approved images for their own websites and upload files showcasing their customers.

“I just opened a portal that is also meant for dealers so they could see how it will look for them when they get a log-in,” Bruhn-Hansen says.

Language-specific portals have made it easier to distribute content to locations around the world, while dealer specific portals have helped to maintain consistency across brands. With an eye toward opening the library up to dealers, the team built out a solution that allows people logging into the system to choose their language and then be routed into the proper portal without having to search for the right one.

“Until now, it has mainly been internal use and then our salespeople demonstrating it to a few people,” Grønbech says. “These dealers will be the first ones to be invited in this year as users, so it has to be very easy to see and we want it to all look the same.”

“We have portals for French, English, German, and Chinese, and one for the U.S. with different branding because it’s a different brand in the U.S.,” Bruhn-Hansen adds. “They have access to almost the same content on the different portals, but it’s just the branding that is different.”

Telling Better Product Stories

Consolidating various assets into a single source of truth has also made it easier for the Logitrans marketing and sales team to craft better stories about their products that can resonate with customers no matter where they’re located.

“We could spend a thousand hours working on selling our product,” Grønbech says, “but if we could show ten images or videos, we’ve told a story to show how people are going to use the product depending on the situation, whether it’s a standard product or a special product.”

Canto’s link sharing capabilities allows sales teams to provide potential customers with access to those assets without requiring them to log in to see them or giving access to the full library. That makes it easier to quickly identify what customers are looking for and help them find the products that meet their needs.

Increasing the visibility of Logitrans’s assets has already helped the company’s sales teams to connect customers with the customized solutions they’re looking for more effectively. In one noteworthy example, a sales rep in the U.S. office accessed his Canto Portal and discovered a specialized product from the Danish library that a customer had recently requested, which allowed him to close a deal that might have otherwise been lost.

“It was the perfect proof of the impact we thought this was going to have,” Grønbech says. “As soon as we get it out to the dealers, they will also have that experience.”

Canto has made it easier than ever for Logitrans to manage its digital assets and find them when they’re needed most. By investing in DAM technology, the company is now able to better leverage its existing resources and allow its sales and marketing teams to reach more customers.