How FANUC scaled content production across 22 subsidiaries 

About FANUC

FANUC is a Japanese enterprise and a leading supplier of control systems, robots and machine tools. The company holds a Guinness World Record for the biggest produced robot, and just recently celebrated a milestone of producing their one-millionth robot. FANUC has a global headcount of more than 9,000 people.

Industry

Industrial manufacturing

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Goals

• Improving marketing efficiency
• More precise feedback
• Increased transparency

Favorite features

• Reviewer groups for focused feedback discussions
• Workflow templates for setting up projects quickly
• Review summaries for tracking the status of each review

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With over 60 years of experience and 30 million products installed worldwide, Japanese enterprise FANUC established itself as the leading factory automation supplier. The company’s robots help to manufacture a wide range of products – everything from cell phones to cars.  

And as their Head of Marketing and Communications, Thomas Arens, explains, “probably not a day goes by without you using at least one of the products made by FANUC robots”. 

So how does a company with a global headcount of 9,000 people and over 20 European subsidiaries organize and scale its marketing processes? The answer is: with great organization, a strategic mindset, and the help of a powerful content approval platform.  

To get all the details behind FANUC’s marketing approval processes, I sat down with their marketing leader, Thomas Arens. 

We talked about some of the biggest challenges he faced when joining the company, and how he organized the team to make sure their marketing operations run smoothly. Plus, we touched upon the company’s core values and why Filestage fit like a glove for his team’s needs. 

So let’s dive in!

Eliminating email ping-pong 

Four years ago, before the company implemented Filestage, FANUC’s marketing department was experiencing lots of challenges getting approvals on different marketing assets. With around two dozen subsidiaries in Europe alone and the need for approval across different departments, the team was struggling to keep their approvals fast and organized. 

Arens says, “There used to be a lot of email ping-pong going on to approve a single marketing asset. We have multiple approval levels from within the marketing department, and other stakeholders, which made it difficult to make sure everyone is leaving their feedback on the same (and the latest) version of the file.”

Plus, whenever a reviewer would go on a vacation, they would experience another drawback. Arens says, “We would have people returning from vacation and commenting on version nine of the file, while others already made it to version 11. We felt like we had no control over our feedback and approval processes and were losing a lot of time and nerves trying to sort it all out.”

Improving transparency with Filestage

FANUC cares so much about delivering precise and transparent work to their clients. And just like in manufacturing, the company tries to make sure they prioritize preciseness and transparency in everything else they do. Including marketing operations! 

Filestage helped us improve operational efficiency and transparency. We were looking to avoid mistakes in our approval process and to always know who approved which file. And with Filestage we found a way to double-check these things.  We take transparency and preciseness very seriously. And Filestage fits like a glove as it allows us to track our files through the feedback workflow. This way, we always know who commented on which versions of the file.

Thomas Arens, Head of Marketing & Corporate Communication at FANUC Europe

Creating custom approval workflows with different reviewer groups

Since Arens and his team started using Filestage four years ago, there’s definitely been an evolution in how they use the tool. But one thing remained the same – setting up custom workflows with multiple reviewer groups is the first step in setting up a review process for each marketing asset. 

Arens says, “We really like how we can freely create as many reviewer groups as we need in Filestage. We can narrow down one reviewer group to just the marketing department and have focused discussions about the file in the comment section. When we reach agreement within the team, we send the file to the next reviewer group and start a new focused discussion with the next group of stakeholders. 

“This gives us full control over who reviews which content, and who takes part in which feedback discussion. We can openly discuss the file, be critical, and once we know we’re on the same page, other stakeholders can give their opinion. Forming different reviewer groups for different stakeholders also helped us minimize frustration with the amount of feedback each reviewer group receives.”

Using workflow templates for efficient approval processes

To make sure they reach approval as quickly as possible, Arens’s team often uses Filestage templates. In some cases the team needs additional approvals from the sales team, other times from the technical team or an external agency. And for each of those cases they have preset workflow templates.

We use different templates for collecting approval from various departments. The templates help us organize different types of approval processes by adding as many specialized reviewer groups as needed. This speeds up workflow set up for each of our projects.

Thomas Arens, Head of Marketing & Corporate Communication at FANUC Europe

Here’s an example of one simpler and one more complex approval workflow at FANUC: 

Approval for a translation of a marketing asset

1. Reviewer group: Uploading assets for marketing review
2. Reviewer group: Adding the requester – often other subsidiary to review the files

Approval for a marketing asset created by an agency

1. Reviewer group: European marketing department (or different regional corporate marketing team)
2. Reviewer group: Technical check with a specialized department 
3. Reviewer group: Sales team 
4. Reviewer group: Final feedback with filtered comments for the agency 

Here’s an example of a similar workflow involving an external agency in Filestage. ⤵️

Prioritizing quality in every aspect of the business  

As a company that cares deeply about providing high-standard products to its customers, FANUC’s biggest focus, and one of the company’s core values, is quality. And for a company that just recently celebrated a milestone of producing its one-millionth robot, this requires a serious effort. 

To make sure they live their core values in every aspect of their business, all their leaders, including Arens, are looking into various solutions to help them maintain that quality.

Together with passion and respect, quality is one of our company’s core values and we try to instill it in everything we do. In this attempt, Filestage is a good partner as it allows us a good quality control for all marketing assets.

Thomas Arens, Head of Marketing & Corporate Communication at FANUC Europe