Bridisco are the UK's largest independent electrical distributor, selling through catalogues and 29 trade centres. They create 8 large catalogues per year under 4 different brands and various brochures and leaflets using the Matrix CMS.

The system has been a great success since it's installation in 2000, "Matrix CMS provided a cost effective, comprehensive solution for storing data for multimedia usage as well as streamlining our catalogue production process" says Karen Phillips, Marketing Services Director.

Brand Names	Bridisco, Micromark, Power Lekrik
Employees	785
Turnover	£140 million
Website	www.bridisco.co.uk
Users	12
Products	15,000
Pages per annum	6,000

Unusually for catalogue production, they create their catalogues using PCs rather than Macs. Because the Matrix CMS can run on either the MacOS or Windows at both client and server ends, this doesn't create a problem. Also they re-use pages quite a lot between catalogues, changing only prices and product codes. To make this as quick and easy as possible, the Matrix CMS places the brand specific information onto different Quark layers so they can be turned on or off depending on the target brand.

Bridisco were our first customer to utilise the CMS feature of bi-directional data updates, which allows all changes in the Quark document to be reflected in the database as well as changes in the database to be reflected on the Quark page.

Draper are one of the biggest and best known tool companies in the UK. Nearly 100 years old they're still a family owned business, in fact the daughter-in-law of the company's founder produced, almost single-handedly, the Company's first type-written catalogue in 1953.

Draper decided to replace their existing catalogue management software in 2005 and Matrix were fortunate to be shortlisted for the new system. "We faced three of our strongest rivals in the CMS marketplace" says Matrix MD, Nick Speakman, "coupled with the fact that the incumbent system was still highly regarded by many of the staff in Draper, we are extremely pleased and proud to have won this contract".

Brand Names	Draper, Knipex
Employees	300
Turnover	£56 million
Website	www.draper.co.uk
Users	6
Products	40,000
Pages per annum	1,500

"After the demonstrations it was a conclusive win for Matrix across the criteria set, although it was clear there was room for development." says Project Manager, Keith South. "The principle reasons for choosing Matrix came down to these; Ability of the system to cater for promotions as well as our catalogue. The simplicity of the data management was preferred, especially graphics. The system comes complete, no extra modules to bolt on, an increasingly frustrating occurrence with other systems where, for instance, the ability to import data becomes an additional module. Cost, given that the system ticked all our boxes and was cheaper.... it's difficult to ignore, even though cost was not a driving factor. Finally Matrix take the view that CMS needs to be catered for each individual customer. The amount of customization in our case was significant, and came out on budget to the penny."

Draper use the Matrix CMS in a completely Mac environment for creating their main catalogue. Also having grasped the full-power of the CMS they produce items as varied as promotional leaflets, product data sheets, order forms, award sheets and of course providing content for their e-commerce site.

ec2i are an internationally renowned design, image and data agency. With over 30 years serving the industry, formerly as Essex Colour, they have established a reputation that is second to none. After using one of our competitor's CMS for a number of years, ec2i decided in 2004 to start using the Matrix CMS.

"At EC2i we use the Matrix CMS both as an aid to our own productivity in producing catalogue pages for our clients, and for those clients to be able to efficiently access and organize their marketing collateral. In both cases the system has proved to be a winner." says Technical Director Steve Wallis.

Brand Names	N/A
Employees	30
Turnover	£5 million
Website	www.ec2i.biz
Users	10
Products	100,000 across 10 customers
Pages per annum	5,000

"Our clients love the straightforward interface, and the freedom they have in creating a visual representation of the catalogue page without the need for specialist software. Our designers enjoy the ease of translating the visual straight into Quark, and spending their time designing, rather than hunting for the right images and text and then applying text styling. In short Matrix CMS has proved to be a robust and effective software solution for the design and construction of catalogue pages."

Read more from ec2i's Technical Director, Steve Wallis, on how ec2i use Matrix CMS in their daily workflow, in this news article.

Evans Cycles positions itself as the UK's largest quality cycle retailer, providing maximum choice and value to the UK's cycling community. Operating 31 stores nationwide and the UK's largest cycling mail order and e-commerce service, their product range spans every cycling discipline including mountain biking, road cycling, leisure riding, children's bikes, BMX, commuting and more.

They currently use the Matrix CMS to drive product content to the website; product body copy, specification, filter attributes, catalogue category information, images, associated files, etc. They invested in Matrix as a central repository of product content within the business, fully integrating their print activity with the system. Using a combination of PCs and Macs in the design and catalogue administration process, the cross platform nature of Matrix instantly appealed.

The Matrix CMS platform provided a cost effective solution for storing and enriching their product content and the integrated web services server allowed them to use the system to drive data to their e-commerce platform.

"Developing the website has been a complicated and problematic process, but the support from Matrix has been fantastic throughout the project. Now that the system is live, Matrix continue to be responsive, adaptive and flexible, enabling us to quickly and easily add additional functionality to the system and product content to the website, all of which have contributed to increasing traffic and boosting conversion rates" says Evans Cycles Digital Channel Manager, Simon Wren.

Brand Names	Evans Cycles
Employees	700
Turnover	£60 million
Website	www.evanscycles.com
Users	4
Products	13,000
Pages per annum	1,000

Their bi-annual catalogue has long been an integral part of their business and they currently they distribute one 132 page summer catalogue and one 68 page winter catalogue, supported by a multitude of targeted direct mail and magazine insertions throughout the year.

"As the web dust begins to settle, our attention is moving toward using Matrix to simplify the print production process. As the content is held in one central database, descriptions of products are entered once but can be re-used for print and online needs. Product managers will be able to easily maintain a close relationship with the catalogue production team throughout all stages of page creation, allowing us to improve communication and efficiency, ultimately creating more compelling catalogues and print pages."

Gloss are one of the UK's leading digital media services companies renowned for creativity in design through print, photography, website creation, CD-ROM production, content and asset management. They produce catalogues for a large number of clients in areas as diverse as holiday brochures, stationery supplies and furniture. They had been quite happy with their previous Catalog Management software, however they did have issues with the speed of response to bugs found in the system and were concerned that there were no signs of a Mac OSX version, or any integration with Quark 6.

Because the Matrix CMS works with all versions of QuarkXPress from the latest versions back to version 3 and is compatible with Mac OS and Windows versions from OSX and XP back to OS 9 and Windows 98 SE, this provided Gloss Solutions with the security they had been seeking.

Brand Names	N/A
Employees	12
Turnover	£1.2 million
Website	www.glosssolutions.com
Users	6
Products	40,000 across 2 customers
Pages per annum	2,500

The Matrix CMS is able to provide this level of compatibility because instead of using obscure proprietary databases, we use 4th Dimension which is the industry standard in cross-platform, client-server, relational databases, also we either write our own Quark XTensions or use such industry standard tools as XTags and XCatalog.

The system implementation took just over 2 months, and now all Gloss Solutions' catalogues are created using the Matrix CMS. "We've been delighted with the Matrix CMS" says Steve Bonelle, Production Director, "The system works with your current workflow as opposed to you having to work with it, plus the guys respond quickly to any requests for changes we might have and the telephone support is fantastic".

JD Williams is the UK's leading direct home shopping company, with over 2 million customers and 4,000 employees and operates over 20 successful catalogue brands ranging from fashion catalogues such as Simply Be, Shapely Figures and VivaLaDiva through to specialist catalogues like Petfood 'N' Stuff and Crafting Direct.

JD Williams have been using the Matrix CMS since 1997 and are currently our second largest user, with a 75-user system and the system has been a great success. "Matrix has developed a Catalogue Management System to facilitate our page production from product selection by Merchandise through Design to Print Production. Giving us the opportunity to eliminate manual handling and duplication from our page production", says Project Manager, Simon Lewis "Matrix has done this with enthusiasm, empathy and patience making them an ideal development partner. Our system will better enable us to meet the challenges of business and technology."

Brand Names	JD Williams, Simply Be, Heather Valley, Fashion World, Comfortably Yours, Classic Detail and others
Employees	3,700
Turnover	£420 million
Website	www.jdwilliams.co.uk
Users	75
Products	30,000
Pages per annum	10,000

Because they produce a high number of "dormancy" promotions, JD Williams have made extensive use of the built-in page design feature of the Matrix CMS. This allows non-design users such as product managers or buyers to build a mock up of how they want the page to look, without requiring any design skills. This page mock-up is then used to build a page in Quark or InDesign following the layout, imagery and typography chosen by the non-design user. Also because of the high number of titles JD Williams create, their version of the CMS contains one of the largest typographic style libraries, in order to maintain brand identity whilst re-using the same printed text.

Maplin are the UK's largest retailer of electrical components for the home market. Established over 30 years ago, selling mainly through their large, detailed catalogue, they now also boast a large retail presence with over 100 stores across the UK.

Maplin were one of the first companies in the UK to use a Catalogue Management System with one of our competitor's products. They had tried the system for 2 seasons with very little success and by April 1996, because of problems with the software, faced the very real prospect of not being able to create a catalogue for the first time in the company's history.

Brand Names	Maplin
Employees	1,375
Turnover	£70 million
Website	www.maplin.co.uk
Users	25
Products	12,000
Pages per annum	3,000

They contacted Matrix Software and we were able to help them to replace the existing system and get a catalogue ready for that autumn.

Since then, working in partnership with Maplin we have continued to add and adapt the system to Maplin Electronics' requirements over the years. "Matrix software is very responsive" says David O'Reilly, Commercial Director "and they always look to provide us with an appropriate solution to our content management needs."

Maplin Electronics are our second most long-standing CMS customer. This relationship has been so successful over the years as we have always been able to provide them with solutions to meet the ever-changing demands of their business.

NG15 are the UK's leading experts in creating catalogues for the electrical, power systems and industrial MRO (Maintenance Repair and Operations) markets, with clients such as Cooper, Rexel and Newey & Eyre. Setup by two electrical engineers, part of their success has been due to the fact they understand the products they're working with and therefore also instinctively understand their clients requirements.

The complexity and technicality of these types of catalogues is something which lends itself to "database publishing" and computerization. If you are handing over this intricate industrial data to a designer, it's very easy for mistakes to be made and any updates or changes to the complicated tables, which these products use, can introduce further errors. If you can eliminate these errors and the resultant rounds of proofing required, it's very easy to save lots of production time and also get a much more accurate catalogue at the end of it. A fact that Shaun Cranstone of NG15 echoes, "The Matrix system has worked great for us, it allows us to create pages in just 20% of the time of conventional catalogue creation", says Shaun

Brand Names	NG15
Employees	15
Turnover	£2 million
Website	www.ng15.co.uk
Users	10
Products	N/A
Pages per annum	5,000

The resultant savings have meant that NG15 have been able to win new, and retain existing, clients by offering not just their usual high quality customer service but also offer a page rate none of their competitors can match.

NG15 use both the CMS's web interface to allow their clients to remotely brief pages and also the online asset shop, so that clients can retrieve images, logos, PDFs and other digital assets remotely.

Otto are a subsidiary of the world's largest catalogue retailer Otto Versand, who in turn are the second largest online retailer after Amazon. Otto UK's 9,000 staff generate revenues in excess of £1 billion (almost US $2 billion) per annum through approximately 3 million seasonally issued catalogues under household brand names such as Freemans, Grattan, Look Again & Kaleidoscope.

Brand Names	Oli, Grattan, Freemans, Look Again, Kaleidoscope and others
Employees	4,200
Turnover	£500 million
Website	www.ottouk.com
Users	150
Products	30,000
Pages per annum	12,000

They had been using Pindar's CMS software for a number of years with moderate success but felt that there were several issues with the system that needed to be addressed. Faced with the prospect of either a costly software upgrade or replacing the whole system, they decided to swap over to the Matrix CMS. Also because the Matrix CMS was so competitively priced they were able to increase the number of users of the CMS from 30 to 150, within the same budget constraints.

Work began on the system in January 2004 and by July 2004 all Otto UK's brands had created a full seasonal catalogue using the new software, all staff were trained and all integration with Otto UK's other computer systems was complete.

The Otto UK CMS is Matrix Software's largest installation to date.

Rapid are widely recognised as one of the UK's leading suppliers of electronic components, electrical products, and industrial supplies to education and industry.

Brand Names	Rapid Electronics
Employees	140
Turnover	£35 million
Website	www.rapidonline.com
Users	10
Products	50,000
Pages per annum	3,000

After 20 years of trading, Rapid introduced their first colour catalogue in April 1999 using the Matrix CMS and a year later had to move to a larger, state-of-the-art distribution centre to cope with increased demand. Their catalogue now runs to approximately 650 pages and contains 32,000 different products.

As well as producing separate catalogues for the industrial and educational markets, Rapid's catalogue production team also produce a wide range of mailers and promotional material using the Matrix CMS.

Redcats are part of the French PPR group of companies which includes such brands as Gucci, Stella McCartney, Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen. Redcats turn over in excess of €4 billion per year worldwide and are probably best known in the UK for their Empire Stores brand. They also produce catalogues such as La Redoute, Daxon and Vertbaudet in the UK to target more specific markets.

The first Matrix Catalogue Management System was created in 1994 for Redcats and the latest version of the CMS is still being used successfully by them today.

Brand Names	La Redoute, Vertbaudet, Daxon, Enjoy, MetroStyle and many others
Employees	2,700
Turnover	£400 million
Website	www.redcats.com
Users	25
Products	20,000
Pages per annum	7,000

During the last decade and more Matrix has become an integral part of Redcats' data management, and production workflow. "We have had an excellent working relationship with Matrix from day one - the CMS has helped keep us abreast of ever increasing technology and business demands. Adaptability and flexibility are key in this industry." says Kevin Hubbard, Creative Services Manager at Redcats.

Indeed Redcats not only pioneered the use of the Matrix CMS, but have been early adopters of every new technology the CMS has contained.

Routeco plc are the UK's largest independent distributor of Industrial Control and Automation Products in the UK. Based in Milton Keynes, they have a network of 19 branches nationwide.

Up until 2005 Routeco had been using the Stibo STEP system remotely to create their catalogue but due to the high costs, and lack of control in using the system, sought a more cost effective in-house alternative. "Before producing the latest catalogue we evaluated a number of different suppliers. We had a small team working on the project so we were looking for a flexible solution with first class support" says Tony Usher, Routeco's Marketing Director. "Matrix delivered all this and more and we are now producing other publications based on the same data to supplement our main catalogue"

Brand Names	Routeco plc. Routeco GmbH, Routeco IT Limited
Employees	250
Turnover	£85 million
Website	www.routeco.co.uk
Users	3
Products	6,000
Pages per annum	1,000

The Matrix CMS was the chosen replacement and was immediately set the task of producing Routeco's annual catalogue which features over 6000 products. Using PCs to enter the complicated technical data for the products and Macs to paginate and proof the pages the whole process went very smoothly, enabling Routeco to meet their publication deadline first time. Also, for the first time the data on the system could be exported into Routeco's eCommerce site quickly and seamlessly.

Routeco are evaluating other opportunities to use the data with Matrix which is now proving to be an invaluable asset to the business "We're moving towards creating mailers, bespoke catalogues and other marketing material. We're doing this with the same number of staff for a fraction of the cost" says Tony Usher, Marketing Director

Spicers are Europe's leading wholesaler of Office Supplies and Office Equipment. Owned by DS Smith plc with a global turnover of £2 billion, Spicers UK have a turnover of £330 million.

Spicers were early pioneers of Catalogue Management Systems, installing their previous system from Pindar back in the mid-90's. This system continued to meet all their requirements until 2007 when they were faced with the decision to either upgrade the existing system to Pindar's new Agility system or look for a replacement solution. It's never easy to replace a system when it's working well and people have grown accustomed to it, but Matrix was chosen as the most full featured and cost effective solution available. In fact it was not only less expensive to implement a new Matrix CMS system than upgrade to Agility, it was less expensive than another competitor's on-site pre-installation, consultancy charges!

Instead of just replicating what had gone before, Spicers saw the implementation of the Matrix CMS as an opportunity to improve working practices."Using our extensive knowledge of catalogue production and the skills of Matrix we have taken the time intensive tasks and turned them into systematic processes. Being able to duplicate a quark layer, bespoke price that layer, add layer specific company information (like phone numbers, web addresses etc) and layer specific printer identifiers all as one process. This gave us massive time savings at pricing stage in the studio and allows our customers more flexibility which is always a good thing" says Steve Hughes, Publications Systems Manager. "The CMS has become a more helpful production planning tool. Using our status driven workflows and the powerful reporting the CMS will tell us if we are on schedule to meet our production milestones and print deadlines."

Brand Names	Spicers
Employees	1,200
Turnover	£330 million
Website	www.spicers.co.uk
Users	40
Products	20,000 +
Pages per annum	15,000 - 20,000

The system has proved to be a big hit both within Spicers and with their massive dealer network. "Both the client and web interfaces are intuitive and easy to use. This has been extremely important with the introduction of electronic briefing, internally and externally with our customers, for the production of all catalogues and mailers." says Steve.

The improvements are such that the system is expected to provide a return on investment in a little over 12 months and differences in working approaches have been a big hit. "With Matrix, you take your system where you want, not where the vendor would like you to go." says Steve, "The support is outstanding and most of all they are friendly, approachable, programmers with exceptional knowledge of publishing for Print and Web."

Established 21 years ago, TTS are one of the country's leading suppliers of educational resources for schools and parents. They are part of the RM group and might be recognised by some high street shoppers as they are the company that provides materials for Tesco's "Resources for Schools" vouchers.

Until the implementation of the Matrix CMS system, TTS created their 24 catalogues and numerous flyers manually. This took all year including an agonising 6 months for the product managers.

The Matrix CMS system has revolutionised the way in which TTS Group manage and produce each of their catalogues. Not only has the implementation of the Matrix CMS system reduced the time needed to produce a catalogue by 40% but it has also produced substantial financial savings. The results were so impressive that the team won a Research Machines Innovation Award.

During the second year of using the Matrix CMS, massive time savings have been shown including product managers saving 2 months on catalogue production times. This has allowed them to invest that extra time with their customers instead. It is expected that the resulting extra 540 customer visits will give a return of another 100 own products for TTS, increasing their product base and strengthening customer relationship.

Brand Names	TTS, MES (Musical Educational Supplies), Special Direct, SpaceKraft
Employees	300
Turnover	£18 million
Website	www.tts-group.co.uk
Users	13
Products	9500 +
Pages per annum	4,000

As the financial rewards from implementing Matrix CMS have been so great, TTS have seized the opportunity to stride ahead. A second phase development is now already in place providing Page Space Analysis before briefing page is completed. The in-house designers are now able to produce 25% of pages internally and the cost saving from this feature alone is expected to repay the investment of the Matrix CMS in less than 2 years.

Matrix have used their experience from other clients to suggest further improvements in workflow such as the recent Page Space Analysis development. "Matrix are always on hand to advise on best practice and respond to our request for enhancements promptly." says Charlotte Parry, Catalogue and Design Manager.

Established in 1994, Zebra are one of the most highly acclaimed pre-press companies in the country having won PrintWeek's "Pre-Press Company Of The Year" for the last four years.

Zebra provides a full range of prepress/reprographic solutions from retouching to proofing and internet-based services. Zebra acquired Blaze Creative in 2007, increasing the company's head count by twenty percent and enabled Zebra to provide extensive experience in the pre media production of directories, as well as additional IT and account management services. Zebra's round-the-clock production provides its clients with fast turnaround times and competitive, quality-led prepress applications.

Zebra were approached by one of their existing clients with the requirement for a catalogue management system and set about evaluating which system would be best suited to the task of working on dual sites. Unlike most catalogue management systems Matrix is uniquely well suited to dual sited catalogue production. It contains a web browser interface to allow access to the system over slow internet connections and also allows for assets to be intelligently "mirrored" and managed on multiple sites. In fact after home shopping the second biggest market for the Matrix CMS is at companies such as Zebra who help third parties with their catalogue production.

Given these factors, choosing Matrix over competing systems was an easy and obvious decision. "We understand the pressures of working in a production environment" says Matrix MD Nick Speakman, "plus we've got 8 systems which work across multiple sites, so this depth of experience has given us a competitive strength. Plus we treat each system as a unique entity, building the bespoke elements required on top of the core Matrix CMS system, which gives the client exactly the system they want." In fact this approach proved to be one of the best aspects of the system from Zebra's point of view. "Matrix have been extremely proactive in building the bespoke solution we required. As with all products of this nature it is an ever evolving process and having the knowledge and understanding available at our fingertips, has made the production process more streamlined than we first thought possible." says Zebra's IT Director, Paul Samuels.

Brand Names	Zebra
Employees	30
Turnover	£5 million
Website	www.zebraprepress.co.uk
Users	10
Products	N/A
Pages per annum	3,000

The system has been a great success. Zebra's clients are delighted with the system and the workflow which has allowed those clients to add product text, choose images and brief pages remotely, prior to Zebra making up the pages. This workflow has saved massive amounts of time in proofing, reduced errors and speeded up production by 70%.