Cube x Hartman

Specialist in plastics.

Once made big with rock-solid plastic folding chairs. Hartman was one of the first to have outdoor furniture at all. Enjoying the outdoors became a trend and founder Frans Hartman cleverly capitalised on this in 1968. The high-quality products did not go unnoticed abroad either and Hartman crossed national borders as a leading manufacturer in the field of garden furniture. The fact that a beautiful summer day was described on national television as 'It's Hartman weather' says enough about the brand's reputation. And the notion is still going strong nowadays.

Total supplier of garden furniture.

When the market changed in the late 1990s, Hartman also added materials such as teak, wicker and aluminium to its range. However, they have always retained the title of specialist in plastic garden furniture. Distinctive and good in plastic, therefore, but also a total supplier of garden furniture and garden textiles.

In 2016, Hartman launched a new plastic tub chair. The company went back to where they dominated. However, in a different, contemporary form. They make the plastic products themselves, from Losser. Their own factory, to respond flexibly to consumer demand. Something to be proud of. They are now also working on the production of a new plastic lounge set concept, which can be put together entirely according to your wishes. The range is wider and more specific than ever. That calls for scalable applications.

Updating digital landscape.

Since 2021, Cube has had the opportunity to help build even greater accessibility to the beautiful products Hartman has to offer with its rock-solid image. In collaboration with the team from Hartman, a DMP was realised and new consumer websites for various countries were developed. Here, customers are informed and inspired. Stefanie Sijtsma, Director International Marketing, and Sophie Damveld, Online Marketing Specialist, are involved in the project and points of contact for Cube.

Challenging product management.

Stefanie: 'Even in the first conversation, which was purely exploratory, Cube immediately understood what we wanted. And that's clever, because we have quite a complex product management. We sell garden furniture, garden cushions and parasols, and we do this in almost 40 countries. Our head office is in Enschede, from where we do the purchasing, product development and marketing for the basic materials. We also have branches in Germany, England, the Czech Republic, Spain and Norway. At these offices, we have sales departments and marketing is organised locally. So basically, the entire basis is laid from Enschede and in the countries concerned they make the translation to the local market. Every customer has different collections, conditions, prices, etcetera...' Hartman produces its own plastic products, but products made of other materials are produced in the Far East. Containerised purchases are also made. In the digital landscape, everything comes together.

Connecting systems.

Sophie: 'Cube has ensured that the back end, where we enter all product data and content, works optimally. The data management platform (DMP) and data asset management system (DAM) that Cube has created is the basis for the content of all outlets. Those two systems are actually the foundation. Organisationally, that works really nicely. Before this, we had all kinds of everything on all kinds of disks.'

'Our wish was a new digital landscape, in which we could quickly and easily access products from the DMP. Through the custom-developed DMP, underlying links were made with the PIM, CRM, DAM and marketing automation systems.'

Modular construction.

Stefanie: 'We were very specifically looking to connect the platforms, such as the PIM, DAM and the website, through a building block module. We wanted a stable basis that we could put a brick on top of every time. Because, of course, we are constantly developing. That way, we can continue with it for years to come. Sophie: 'Indeed, growth opportunities. Cube took a really good strategic approach and took us step by step through what was sensible.' Stefanie: 'And in doing so, they also looked at the existing technology. So what can we already do with what we already have in place, without rebuilding everything?'

'Cube was also very realistic in what could or could not be done. They didn't promise something that then turned out to be too good to be true. They were also not just focused on the website, but the whole picture, with the DMP and DAM included. We also wanted to update the complete digital landscape and make sure everything looked better.'

Working together in the same language.

Sophie: 'Cube just really understands where we stand in this. Sometimes we would explain it and say to each other afterwards 'Would they have understood it?'. We ourselves often didn't even know exactly how we wanted it and what was possible. And then again they came up with something exactly as it was intended. We really spoke the same language. In that sense, we encountered few surprises. The cost estimate was often mentioned right away and this also matched the outcome. Honest, open and very collaborative. That's how we can describe the cooperation.'

Growing step by step.

'It's a project we did split up very much. Step by step. Cube made sure it remained manageable. Now that the consumer website is in place, we will pick up the brand portal, i.e. the B2B part. And after that, we actually want to develop further to get good APIs out of that again and better connect to customers. It's nice that the digital landscape is steady and can gradually grow with us.'