Customer
Thule Group is an international group of passionate employees who focus on developing safe, easy-to-use and stylish solutions for active families and outdoor enthusiasts. The Team helps them bring what they care most about when they are living an active life. Thule Group is global market leaders in a number of product categories, including roof racks, roof boxes and bike racks that you use on the car, camera bags as well as multisport- and bicycle trailers. Thule Group has approximately 2,600 employees at 9 production facilities and 35 sales offices worldwide. The products are sold in 138 markets, and sales
in 2023 amounted to SEK 9.1 billion.
Initial Situation
Thule Group hand in hand with its IT consulting and integration partner msg wanted to improve and accelerate processes for the translation of its product range using AI. The manufacturer of outdoor solutions had so far commissioned a service provider to create the necessary product translations in 23 languages. It regularly took several weeks for all the translated product descriptions to be finalized. The content was then stored in the STEP master data solution from Stibo Systems and the products were updated or launched on the market. Sales launches and sales partners worldwide depended on this.
Challenge
This was to end with the launch of the new AI-based translation solution: Updates or releases of new Thule products should be easier and more flexible using AI for translation. Data protection and IT security should of course continue to be guaranteed despite the use of GenAI. At the same time, resource efficiency in the translation process was to be increased.
Solution
To meet all requirements, the AI and master data experts from msg and Nexer* worked with Thule’s technical experts to clarify and record all requirements in detail in a kick-off workshop at the start of the project.
Thule opted for the seamless integration of the new GenAIbased solution to be developed into the existing STEP master data management solution from Stibo Systems. The complete integration in the company’s closed IT environment also ensures that the Thule product data is not used to train general
models. The AI solution is hosted in Europe on Microsoft Azure. This ensures data protection and IT security in accordance with EU standards.
Benefit
AI and master data expert Konstantin Merklinger from msg reports: “We have developed the core of the GenAI translation solution as a standard basic solution. This has the advantage for our customers that we can adapt the software core to the individual customer scenario within a few weeks. Thule can thus create translations of product data in 23 languages in no time at all and receives also drafts of product descriptions and marketing texts”.
Antonio Diaz, Product Information Manager, Thule Group, comments: “We are very grateful for the excellent support and implementation provided by msg. Our expectations for the implementation were not just met but exceeded. The achievement of milestones and the implementation of functionalities
went beyond our expectations.” Thanks to the newly implemented translation process, Thule increases flexibility in bringing its products to market globally. Thanks to the excellent cooperation between the Thule specialist team and msg’s AI and master data experts, the new translation process went live after only a few weeks. Outdoor expert Thule has positioned itself for the future by using GenAI at an early stage. As a trendsetter and early adopter, it is a step ahead, while for other companies AI and cloud are still a long way off.
