Microsoft's Operational Efficiency Enhancement with K2 Software
Applicable Industries
- E-Commerce
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Retail Store Automation
Services
- System Integration
- Testing & Certification
About The Customer
Microsoft Corporation is a multinational technology provider with a global presence. It has a vast eCommerce division that manages content and promotions across the company’s website and digital store. The eCommerce team is responsible for keeping the global website updated with information and content for all product lines. This involves managing thousands of content updates and promotions across global e-commerce sites. The team also handles merchandise promotions for all of Microsoft’s product lines across its global online stores. The eCommerce team does not have a dedicated set of engineers and often partners with a services team to meet the needs of the business.
The Challenge
Microsoft’s eCommerce team was facing a significant challenge in efficiently managing content and promotions across the company’s website and digital store. The content publication process was complex, involving multiple levels of approvals and collaboration between various teams to keep hundreds of pages updated across more than 240 regions. The process was managed via Excel spreadsheets, with content, images, and other publishing information tracked in different spreadsheets. In some cases, there were over 200 spreadsheets to track updates for a single page on the website. Content approvals were handled manually, often leading to bottlenecks and delays in publishing timelines. Furthermore, Microsoft’s legacy solution made it difficult to easily track publishing tasks and provide visibility into publication statuses. The company also faced challenges in managing merchandise promotions, which was a manual and time-consuming process.
The Solution
Microsoft turned to K2 Software and its Professional Services team to deliver an automated solution to handle the publication process for the global team. With K2’s SmartForms and workflow engine, Microsoft now has a streamlined publishing process that allows regional marketing managers to submit content via an online portal. Pre-production approval tasks are automatically routed to the right group based on region and content is automatically queued and scheduled for entry into the content management system (CMS). This has resulted in a decrease in publishing errors by as much as 30% in some areas. For merchandise promotion management, Microsoft again turned to K2 Five and its Professional Services team. They were able to quickly deliver a unique, customized solution for handling the diverse number of promotions and campaigns managed by the Site Merchandisers across the globe. Merchandisers can now quickly submit promotional information via a centralized online workspace, reducing errors and saving time.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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