How Bystronic professionalized its digital touchpoints

Process growing number of inquiries

Bystronic is a leading global technology company in the field of sheet metal processing with headquarters in Switzerland. The focus is on automating the entire material and data flow of the cutting and bending process chain. While being a global leader in the sheet metal industry and steadily growing, new challenges for the various stakeholders needed to be solved.

Partners or members of the press sent daily inquiries that could be dealt with using standard workflows, such as sending emails and sharing content via links and downloads from the website, but not with the desired efficiency. Especially when inquiries were unspecified or unclearly formulated, this meant an increase in communication costs. It cost Bystronic employees extra time, which was actually needed for their key tasks. The optimal solution would be if these persons could source the desired materials themselves. Not only would that lighten the workload of Bystronic employees, but it would also optimize the image perceived by its stakeholders.

Provide the Chinese market with video material

Because of its three subsidiaries in China, the European company was also confronted with challenges of a quite different nature. Among other things, the well-known Vimeo and YouTube video portals did not function in the Middle Kingdom for political reasons. For Bystronic, however, it was essential to supply the Chinese hubs with exactly the same materials as the other hubs. Good product videos are becoming increasingly important and their popularity is growing among partners, employees, and especially among the sales staff.

But how could these barriers be circumvented without having to buy an expensive special solution? Bystronic opted for the classic uploading of content to the corporate website, which, however, was not the best solution from its point of view. Limited analytic capabilities also meant there was no information available on what content was downloaded by whom. However, such information is as valuable as gold for such a large company.

Professional media presence before the first day of trading on the Swiss Exchange (SIX)

In May 2021, the time had finally come for the successful medium-sized company to go public on the Swiss Stock Exchange. During the preparations, there was also a discussion about the existing press center that, as a rule, functioned perfectly from a technical standpoint but was neither flexible nor up to date. A cost-intensive agency solution was never envisaged, but the wish for the international group to have a professional media presence was heard again and again. The Corporate Communications department, in particular, knew the importance of such a service as a company offer. In addition, it meant a further easing of the burden for the company’s own staff.

Of course, there are special solutions for all these challenges. However, the question of costs and benefits arose each time. Large budgets have to be specially approved and need a project manager who is ultimately bound to these undertakings for some time. What company likes to go without its valuable employees for such a long time and at such a cost?

How Bystronic was able to cross these items off its wish list

What were Bystronic’s actual aims? To create a CI-compliant, professional user experience for the various stakeholders and to bring about a measurable reduction in the workload of the company’s own employees.

Through a discussion with the Swiss Digital Asset Management software maker Picturepark, Bystronic became aware of the content portals offered by the strategic partner Smint.io. With their new Portals Content Experience Platform, interested companies can quickly and easily combine their existing data and make it available via a visually appealing front end. What is special here are the frequently requested use cases – media center, brand portal, press portal, or partner portal – in which Smint.io has specialized and are aimed precisely at these particular stakeholders.

The starting point at Bystronic was the wish for a media center, which was required as a service by the Corporate Communications department. With the media center, the technology company can now not only respond to inquiries faster and more efficiently thanks to self-service, but in the future, it will also be possible, through login options and various user groups, to track who has downloaded what and when.

In addition, the modern media center allows Bystronic to meet yet another challenge: It is now also able to provide the Chinese market, which is very important for the company, with videos and other necessary content. At no additional effort or cost.

Due to the possibilities offered by the Portals Content experience Platform and the rapid implementation of the media center, Bystronic finally expanded its digital touchpoints to include a press center. Thanks to the open architecture of “Portals” CXP and the platform’s ease of use, this was all possible within a few days. With the media center and press center portal solutions, Bystronic now offers its stakeholders service in a modern framework in line with its branding.