How an international chocolate manufacturer centralised its packaging process and cut its time to market by 30%.
The challenge
Large brand organisations often lack a clear packaging process. Artwork is managed locally, market by market. Approvals run over email, with seven or eight stakeholders who are not quite sure who does what. Nobody knows for certain which version is the latest.
The consequences are predictable: drawn-out approval rounds, wrong versions reaching the printer, expensive reprints.
And when a market switches printer or agency, the source files turn out to sit there. The brand loses control over its own assets.
At this manufacturer that played out across 12 markets and 9 languages, with a packaging portfolio that requires 600 artworks a year. Every week lost to hunting for the right version pushed the launch date on shelf further back.
The approach
How do you get every stakeholder into one flow?
We brought every artwork into a single artwork management system. As soon as a localisation was ready, it was routed automatically to the right reviewers, including the central brand guardians. Comments ended up in one place, attached to the file itself. Approving or returning for refinement happened in the system, no longer in an email thread.
The result: shorter turnaround times and far less coordination work for the brand teams.
Does a strict process not limit creativity?
That was the first question from the marketing team here too. In practice, the opposite happens. The process governs versions, roles and approvals. Not the design. Because every stakeholder gives feedback at the right moment, there are fewer correction rounds and more time is freed up for creative work.
Where do the assets live and who owns them?
All final artworks are stored centrally and are accessible to each of the 12 markets. Nothing stays behind at a local studio or printer. The client remains the owner of its own files.
That brings an added benefit: a brand that holds its own assets negotiates from a stronger position with printers. Switching supplier becomes possible without losing files or having them rebuilt.
The impact
- Time to market for a piece of packaging dropped by 30%.
- No more version conflicts: the printer always receives the correct, approved file.
- The workload on local brand teams dropped, as chasing approvals moved out of their hands.
- All assets centralised and owned by the brand, across all 12 markets.
- The process runs on 600 artworks a year today, around 50 a month.
For reasons of confidentiality we do not name this client. We are happy to share more about this project in a personal conversation.
Discover our Packaging process management.
