Breaking Digital GroundBuilding a Centralized Digital Foundationfor MSA-The Safety Company

Acquity Group performs across a full range of capabilities to help MSA–The Safety Company, transform its global brand and consolidate its online presence with the development of a highly optimized digital platform.Since their founding in 1914, MSA–The Safety Company has nurtured a reputation as one of the world’s leading providers of high-quality safety products and hazard detection systems. From basic protective gear to highly sophisticated devices that protect life and facility infrastructures, MSA provides mission critical equipment to the fire service, energy, construction, law enforcement, military, and mining markets, as well as other industries where hazards are present.

Over the past decade, MSA has achieved solid growth—with sales that now exceed $1 billion and a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent over the past two years. Yet despite their impressive trend line and worldwide reach, MSA recognized that their global online presence was heavily siloed and inconsistent across its global locations and markets. The company managed standalone sites for 39 countries as well as product-specific sites, creating inefficiencies throughout the organization’s online marketing program.

In many ways, MSA’s challenge was rooted in a desire to capitalize on new opportunities in the digital marketplace. Previously, the company lacked the tools to centralize data and content, which compromised their ability to push consistent messaging across all sites. The absence of an internal governance structure also limited MSA’s effectiveness in publishing localized content and made it difficult to define its product catalog at the country or regional level. To maximize digital impact, the brand needed a new way to deliver targeted messaging and to focus on customers in specific, global markets.

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Breaking Digital GroundBuilding a Centralized Digital Foundationfor MSA-The Safety Company.

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“We selected Acquity Group based on their reputation as a keadera leader in B2B eCommerce, as well as their proven expertise withmanufacturers and experiencewith select MSA channel and distribution partners.”.Susie SapsaraGlobal eBusiness ManagerMSA

MSAíS ChallengesìBy working closely with MSAís executive leadership we were able to support the companyís corporate strategy and bring it to life in the digital space, creating compelling experiences and significantsustainable advantage for the organization,î said Randy Higgins,Senior Digital Marketing Director with Acquity Group.

Sales Force Enablement To support MSAís business goals,Acquity Group needed to make it easier for digital customers around the world to do business with MSA. Consequently, the project would have to prioritize sales force enablement, equipping internal stakeholders and channel partners with an optimized digital resource for engaging and converting customers.

Customer Focus From the earliest stages of the engagement, it became clear that MSAís customers frequently viewed the company as a safety product source rather than a trusted advisor. This presented opportunities for MSAís new digital properties to reposition the brand as a full safety solutions provider, capable of integrating multiple products and systems to ensure worker safety across a broad spectrum of hazardous situations. Accordingly, Acquity Group focused on supporting and strengthening MSAís global brand enhancement efforts,demonstrating the full scope of the companyís capabilities to new and existing audiences.

Catalog Localization The emphasis of the engagement wasthe consolidation of many different websites into onecentralized platform. But while consolidation was critical, MSA didnít want to abandon or ignore the need forìlocalizationî of its product mix, which had driven them tocreate standalone websites in the first place. Overall, because of varying global safety standards, MSA needed the ability to market to specific global audiences and this meant Acquity Group needed to ensure that the platform would be able to display the right products in the right countriesóin a manner that was relevant to regional customers.

MSA engaged Acquity Group to help the brand unify its backend infrastructure, enabling the company to manage global messaging and product content more effectively. Leveraging Acquity Groupís B2B business and technology expertise and strong multinational capabilities, MSA wanted to transform itself from an international company to a true global leader in the safety products and systems category.

The MSA engagement presented a unique opportunity because it allowed Acquity Group to bring together all four of its core capabilities: Strategy, Creative, Technology and Managed Services. The resulting synergies created potential for enhanced outcomes because Acquity Group would be able to provide thought leadership over all aspects of the project.

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ResultsAcquity Group’s work with MSA transformed the company’s digital presence and helped to reinforce MSA’s reputation as the global leader in the safety solutions sector.

Implemented on the hybris platform and managed by Acquity Group, the new solution allows MSA to efficiently managecatalogs from a single cockpit, at both the local and global levels.The solution also improves MSA’s speed to market by enablingauthorized stakeholders to quickly publish product informationand unstructured content without the assistance of IT resources.

The strategy piece of the engagement equipped MSA with acalibrated roadmap that describes the ongoing evolution of their digital presence. This roadmap provides ongoing guidance for continued innovation and maturation of MSA’s global digital business.

Acquity Group’s work had a meaningful impact on the way thebrand is perceived and on MSA’s global brand enhancementinitiatives, successfully helping MSA to reinvigorate their brandimage internationally.

“In addition to substantially improving the functionality of our digital platform, Acquity Group helped MSA globalize our business in many respects,” said Sapsara, “Building on our own internal initiatives, Acquity Group equipped us with a digital presence that now serves as our flagship for the MSA brand around the world.”

Acquity Group’s involvement across a range of functions andcapabilities was clearly a contributing factor in the project’s success. In particular, the project’s strategic emphasis createdopportunities for key wins both now and in the future. Going forward, Acquity Group will facilitate the launch of MSA’seCommerce platform, further improving the company’s abilityto market solutions to targeted global audiences. Acquity Group will also be involved in the enhancement of MSA’s customer engagement capabilities, spearheading efforts to build communities around interest in MSA’s products/solutions,converting customers to brand advocates while further enablingthe MSA sales force with new mobility solutions.

Development & ImplementationThe development and implementation phase of the project required Acquity Group to deliver across a range of core capabilities including:

1. Digital Strategy One of Acquity Group’s first steps was tofocus on MSA’s existing business strategies. By acquiring a deepunderstanding of MSA’s current capabilities and operations,Acquity Group was able to develop the clear vision for a holisticroadmap, demonstrating how digital could enable MSA’sbusiness goals and create new business opportunities.

2. Creative Services Acquity Group performed a comprehensive creative process to support MSA’s business goals and to enhance the brand’s global digital presence. This process included a competitive assessment and evaluation of MSA’s current sites, as well as collaborative conversations with MSA’s Global Brand and Communications Council to determine the look and feel of the digital brand experience. The insights achieved through these efforts were translated into wireframes and other tools that helped to drive the design process.

3. Technical Services Early in the engagement, MSA selected the hybris platform for its eCommerce and content managementrequirements. This decision was based on hybris’ reputation incomplex product management and its ability to leverage contentas a driver of seamless customer experiences.

Recently named hybris’ North American Partner of the Year, Acquity Group’s end-to-end experience with the platform brought added value to the project. The team worked closely with MSA to design and build out the solution on the hybris platform.

4. Managed Services The transition from technical services tomanaged services was seamless, since Acquity Group was alsoresponsible for hosting MSA’s consolidated site. To facilitate asmooth rollout, Acquity Group built out the architecture for theservers and ensured that the new site performed according toexpectations prior to launch.

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