Customer Spotlight: HENDI

HENDI unites seven teams in one Inriver workflow, aiming for a 50% reduction in catalog preparation time 

At a glance:

• Food Service
• B2B
• Mid-market
• Netherlands

50%

Target reduction in catalog preparation

7

Cross-functional teams in one workflow

14,000+

SKUs managed across 20+ markets

Summary

HENDI is a Dutch producer and supplier of catering equipment and non-food kitchen supplies, serving professional kitchens across more than 20 markets with a catalog of over 14,000 SKUs. Since becoming an Inriver customer in 2018, HENDI has continued to deepen its use of the platform, but the most significant transformation came when the company tackled a longstanding organizational challenge: siloed product data ownership spread across multiple departments.

With the help of implementation partner XSARUS, HENDI designed and deployed a Visual Workflow in Inriver that connects seven cross-functional teams: from Sourcing and Category Management to Compliance, Photography and DTP in a single, end-to-end enrichment process.

The result: stronger cross-department collaboration, greater process visibility and transparency, and improved product data quality and consistency with HENDI aiming for a 50% reduction in catalogue preparation effort as the program matures.

HENDI is now building on that foundation, with AI-assisted content generation through Inspire already embedded in the workflow and a broader roadmap centred on automation and orchestration across the full product lifecycle.

Outcomes: 

• Improved cross-department collaboration across seven teams working inside a single Inriver Visual Workflow
• Increased process visibility and transparency, replacing email and Excel
• Better workflow governance and accountability, reinforced by the new Request for Change visual workflow
• Enhanced product data quality and consistency across 14,000+ SKUs
• AI-assisted content enrichment via Inspire integrated into the live workflow
• Ambition to reduce end-to-end catalog preparation time by 50%, to be measured through reporting dashboards currently in development with XSARUS

Challenge

HENDI’s product catalog is large and complex. With 14,000+ SKUs spanning over 20 markets and every product requiring rich, accurate data in multiple languages across multiple channels, the demands on HENDI’s product data operations are significant.

Before 2024, the enrichment process was not keeping pace. Product data responsibilities were fragmented across departments — Sourcing, Category Management, Marketing, Compliance, Photography, DTP and the Content team — but there was no shared system to coordinate them. Instead, the process relied on email, Excel spreadsheets and, effectively, one or two dedicated people manually chasing updates and consolidating inputs.

The consequences were predictable: slow turnaround times, limited visibility into where any given product stood in the process, and quality issues that were difficult to catch before data reached the channel. With a catalog of this scale, the bottleneck was only going to grow.

The goal was clear: break down the silos, distribute ownership properly, and build a process that could scale.

“Visual Workflow was the first step. Now we’re extending it further — more workflows, more AI, and a smarter overall product flow.”

-Arlene

PIM owner, Hendi

Solution 

HENDI, together with partner XSARUS, designed a Visual Workflow in Inriver built from a blank canvas, mapping the full enrichment journey from product creation through to publication across distribution channels.

The workflow structures the process into four clear stages: trigger, enrichment, review and approval, and publish. At the enrichment stage, each of the seven teams Sourcing, Category Management, Marketing, Compliance, Photography, DTP/Packaging and the Content Owner, has a defined role and task within the workflow. Inspire, Inriver’s AI content generation capability, is integrated directly at the enrichment stage, automatically generating content to accelerate the team’s work. From there, outputs move through a structured review and approval process before being published to the relevant channels.

Every step is tracked in real time. Teams can see exactly where each product is in the workflow, who is responsible for the next action, and what still needs to be done, without chasing anyone over email.

XSARUS plays an active and ongoing role in the partnership. As one of XSARUS‘s most engaged client relationships, the two teams meet regularly to review progress, adapt the setup to HENDI’s evolving needs, and plan the next phase of development together.

HENDI is also an active user of Print 2.0, managing print output from the same centralized product data, ensuring consistency across both digital and print channels.

In addition to the core enrichment workflow, HENDI has introduced a Request for Change visual workflow to strengthen governance. This workflow makes clear how business users, data owners and stakeholders collaborate whenever a change is requested — reinforcing process transparency, clear ownership and cross-functional alignment across the platform.

Results

The impact of the Visual Workflow is already visible across the organization. Moving from a fragmented, people-dependent process to a structured, automated workflow shared across seven teams has driven measurable improvements in cross-department collaboration, process visibility and workflow governance.

HENDI and XSARUS are now working together on reporting dashboards that will make it possible to measure and monitor KPIs such as time-to-market. This initiative is still in progress and will provide the data needed to quantify future improvements, including progress toward HENDI’s ambition of a 50% reduction in catalogue preparation effort.

Where product enrichment previously relied on one or two dedicated individuals manually coordinating inputs, it now runs through a single Inriver workflow that all seven teams contribute to in parallel. Task visibility has improved significantly: every team member can see the live status of every product in the workflow, removing the need for manual follow-up and reducing the risk of bottlenecks going unnoticed.

Data quality and consistency have also improved, with structured review and approval stages built into the workflow ensuring content is checked before it reaches the channel.

HENDI’s adoption of the Inriver platform is high. With Core PIM, Visual Workflows, Inspire and Print 2.0 all actively in use, the platform sits at the centre of HENDI’s product data operations — and the ambition is to go further. The next phase focuses on extending automation across additional workflows and embedding more AI-driven processes into the product lifecycle, building on the foundation that Visual Workflows and Inspire have established.

Results at a glance

About XSARUS

XSARUS is a digital commerce partner specializing in Inriver implementations and integrations. Their ongoing collaboration with HENDI is one of the most active partnerships in their portfolio, combining platform expertise with a deep understanding of HENDI’s business to continuously shape and evolve the PIM program.