Portwest transforms global product data and accelerates catalogue production with Akeneo
Leading workwear manufacturer reduces catalogue production time by five months and delivers significant cost savings through centralised product information.
Akeneo, the Product Experience (PX) Company and leading provider of Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, today announced that global workwear and PPE manufacturer Portwest is using Akeneo agentic-first Product Cloud to centralise product data, streamline catalogue production and improve operational efficiency across its global business.
As Portwest’s range expanded to tens of thousands of SKUs across more than 130 countries, the systems supporting its product information (spanning ERP, databases and separate asset libraries) were increasingly stretched by the pace of that growth. Product data was maintained across several systems, which made keeping translations and information consistent across markets more time-consuming than the business wanted. Catalogue production remained a largely manual process that could take up to eleven months, while technical datasheets were produced through a long-standing publishing process with limited flexibility to scale.
To address these challenges, Portwest implemented Akeneo PIM as a centralised source of truth for product data, supported by integrations with the publishing solution InBetween. The new platform consolidates technical and marketing information into a single, governed environment, enabling structured data management, automated workflows and scalable content distribution.
Using Akeneo’s reference entities and advanced data modeling capabilities, Portwest can now efficiently manage certifications, compliance attributes and shared technical information across more than 46,000 SKUs. This has significantly reduced duplication, improved data accuracy and enabled batch updates across product families.
The impact has been immediate and measurable. Catalogue production time has been reduced by five months, cutting the process from 11 months to just six, while the number of proofing cycles has dropped dramatically. The same foundation has transformed how Portwest produces sales collateral. Previously the design team output approx. 150 ad hoc flyer requests a year, each built by hand. Now, with product data flowing directly from Akeneo into the InBetween Publisher, that ceiling is gone: in under six months since going live in late January 2026, Portwest has delivered 3,300 bespoke flyers to customers and sales teams, each one localised, on-brand and generated on demand.
The transformation has also modernised the creation of technical datasheets. The once rigid and resource-intensive process is now fully automated, enabling accurate, compliant product information to be generated and distributed globally in minutes across 28 languages. Enhanced design flexibility and richer content have also elevated datasheets into effective sales and marketing assets, rather than purely technical documents.
Justin Thomas, VP Sales, EMEA North, Akeneo said, “Portwest is a powerful example of what happens when product data is treated as a strategic asset rather than an operational burden. By establishing a single, governed source of truth and automating the flow of that data into catalogue production and downstream channels, they have not only accelerated time to market but also unlocked meaningful cost savings and global scalability.”
Beyond operational efficiency, the new platform is supporting Portwest’s continued international growth. Distributors can now generate localised, branded sales materials on demand using governed PIM data, enabling faster market entry and reducing reliance on central teams. Since launch, Portwest’s publishing capabilities have already supported hundreds of requests while significantly reducing internal design workload.
This capability is particularly valuable in markets where localised product information is essential for compliance and commercial success. By ensuring that accurate, translated and compliant product data can be created and distributed quickly, Portwest is able to expand into new regions while maintaining consistent product experience standards.
By moving away from fragmented systems and manual processes, Portwest has established a scalable digital foundation for managing product information. The result is faster content production, improved data quality and a more consistent global product experience all of which reinforce trust in a brand where accuracy and reliability are critical.
