Personal care group, many brands, a vast catalogue: every pack multiplies by market, language and format. The question under the question: which work still needs a person, and which is repetition?
We mapped the families of adaptation, built a base once, priced by job family instead of per piece, and put every supplier on one basis of comparison.
The context
A pack looks like a simple object. Then it multiplies: for every market, every language, every local regulation, every promotion, every format it has to appear in. For a personal care group born in France and present worldwide, with many brands and an enormous product catalogue, that multiplier is the everyday norm. The centre decided the creative work. Local teams did the adaptation where the market needed it, with a different supplier, price list and way of working at every step.
The challenge
The group wanted a production model that held at scale without letting cost grow at the pace of volume. When AI entered the conversation, everyone looked at it from their own corner and nobody saw the whole picture. The question under the question was a different one: which parts of this work still need a person, and which are repetition?
The approach
We looked at the work, not at the tools. A large part of the volume was not ideation: it was the same pack, redone for a different market. Repeating work was paid as new work, and paid differently from brand to brand. So nobody could compare anything. We did not bring a ready-made model. We brought our framework and shaped it to the group, its brands and its way of deciding.
The work
We mapped the families of adaptation, so that the work that repeats had a name and a perimeter. We worked on a base built once, from which we could derive variants without starting from raw material every time. Price moved from the single piece to the job family, and the suppliers’ technology investment found a declared line of its own. We put suppliers on a common basis of comparison. Original thinking kept its price: AI took the repetition, not the ideation.
Keeping it in control
A model is worth what it holds over months. We wrote the rules of use first, with authorised tools and checks on rights and translations, and extended them to the brands’ suppliers through clauses at renewals. On diagnosis and operations, AURA suite automates the repetitive steps and leaves the consultants the work that needs judgement.
The impact
The group now has a common way of deciding. Each family of adaptation has a readable, comparable price, each use of AI has a written rule, and every supplier answers to the same guidelines. We chose the indicators at the start with the group: delivery time, reuse and first-submission adherence. The result of a production model is read after a year of operation. The project started from a measured baseline and a written forecast, so the comparison is possible.
Do you recognise this?
Anyone who manages a catalogue that multiplies almost always thinks the problem is the price per piece, and that negotiating a lower rate will solve it. It is not there. Cost grows because the same work is paid as new every time, and until a common unit of measure exists, you cannot compare one price with another.
It happens in many industries, not only in personal care. Can you say how many of your variants are repetition and how many are ideation? If you ask two suppliers for the same job, do you get two quotes you can place side by side?
If the answer to either is no, it is worth seeing where it happens in your business before talking about how to address it. We do not know your work as well as you do. That is why we start with a short meeting, with no commitment, on a single job family.
Book a short meeting. We look together at one job family in your business and see whether the knot is the same.
Common questions
Why does cost grow faster than the creative work in a large catalogue?
Because the same work is paid as new every time it is redone for another market, and without a common unit of measure no supplier price can be compared with another.
What does pricing by job family mean?
Repeating work is grouped into families of adaptation and priced once per family, not per piece. The supplier’s technology investment gets its own declared line, and original thinking keeps its price.
Which work should AI take?
AI takes the repetition: derived variants, adaptations, versions. People keep the ideation, the master and the judgement.