Ask practitioners in the cosmetics sector what they think are the drivers of change in their industry and the answer comes back pretty quickly: consumer demand for complete sourcing clarity. I recently caught up with a prominent executive from the cosmetics sector to find out more.

Today, consumers — especially Gen Z ones — are more conscious than ever about the effect of what they buy or consume on the environment. As a result, they have high expectations about the brands they buy from around transparency of ingredients and guidance on how best to safely recycle what they’ve just purchased.

This is nowhere more true in the cosmetics world, where concerns about potentially harmful ingredients or allergens and ethical concerns around the supply chain are a priority for buyers. Consumers now pay closer attention to the information provided by cosmetics brands across their labeling, from physical packaging to online resources. Indeed, being clear about these aspects is even starting to be seen as a differentiator; a 2019 survey by NPD Group found that skincare brands pledging ingredient transparency are gaining new traction in the market, over half of American women consciously now seek out skincare products that have organic ingredients, while 46% say they will only now pick products without sulfates, phthalates and gluten, a six-point increase from 2017.

Dealing with Multiple Market Contexts

Clearly, the public is paying very close attention to product information, and know what’s in products and how ‘natural’ they are — research which often starts online. It’s a trend that regulators are supporting too: they are putting more and more pressure on brands to ensure they provide complete, accurate and up-to-date information on all of their products, and that they make no unauthorized or false claims about them.

This ends a long period of self-regulation, and authorities have signalled they are going to be more proactive in keeping consumers safe. The challenge for international cosmetics leaders, is that this changes decades of practice, especially around labeling. There’s a big push now to keep it consistent, transparent, consumer-friendly and on message, which can be tricky if each market has its own special regulatory requirements, different cultural reference points and ways of wording safety messages.

So ensuring that each product carries exactly the right label content for the intended market and target consumer group is the mission now, from eye liner to sunscreen. Unless the cosmetics company has a clear line of sight across both evolving market requirements per country and how these affect each product and its different forms of labeling/customer information, however, the risk of wrong or out-of-date information getting through could be significant. Risks to consumer safety, reputational damage, potential fines and loss of revenue if products are rejected or withdrawn from affected markets all need to be avoided...

But labeling encompasses a lot! It’s everything stated on the product itself, which could be designed or embossed directly onto a bottle to promotional inserts in magazines and product information published online. This adds up to a lot of collateral to coordinate and control for accuracy, currency, quality and compliance. But if these different elements are handled by different teams, or wheels have to be reinvented time and again, the demand on resources but also the danger of something going wrong are considerable.

Centralized Quality Control

To alleviate spiraling workloads, mitigate risk and keep pace with evolving requirements without compromising label quality, cosmetics brands should consider introducing some form of central control and visibility across everything that is going out to the market, anywhere in the world. This means creating a single source of labeling truth that acts as the foundation for all forms of future labeling, so if anything changes — to you as a company, to the product or its ingredients, or to regulatory requirements — this can be managed in a controlled and robust way from a single, central vantage point.

Hence the useful approach of centralizing and organizing the construction and quality control of global labeling. When introduced correctly, this can also help transform the processes involved, for instance in discovering label inter-dependencies if requirements or other conditions change, as all global label activity is mapped and tracked. And great shortcuts like ‘phrase managers’ for different languages can reduce the translation burden too, by eliminating repetition of routine tasks such as the construction of common directions for use in each target language/country.

Offering What The Ethical Consumer Is Demanding

In cosmetics, the ability to treat each labeling item as a composite of pre-approved text or artwork components eliminates unnecessary process duplication, leaving your skilled professionals free to focus more of their time on the elements that do need to change. As well as substantially reducing the safety implications, cost and reputational damage associated with product recalls, doing your product labeling will help to safeguard the brand and maintain public confidence in the quality and safety of its products — as we’ve seen, increasingly an operational necessity in our highly competitive, global market.

Want to know more?

Whether you’re in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, medical device, chemical, or cosmetic industry, our experts are ready to help you transform your labeling and artwork management with the help of our innovative software, leading the way in the labeling and artwork software space. Get in touch today to see what we can do for you at enquiries@kallik.com or call +44 (0) 1827 318100.

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has impacted not just developments and processes in the cosmetics industry but most importantly, the global economy, in various ways. Most notably, it has influenced consumers’ purchase decisions and spending habits.

A recent Mintel research report shows that coronavirus will also affect clean beauty ingredients, labeling, formulation, packaging, and shelf-stability for years to come. Other sectors that have been in constant change are beauty retail, order fulfillment, and manufacturing.

Clean beauty and sustainable innovation

Prior to the pandemic, natural consumers avoided preservatives and artificial ingredients in BPC products, however, with new concerns regarding shelf-stability and sanitation across consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) categories, consumers are already more willing to accept these ingredients. As long as the labels provide evidence of efficacy and safety, both from a health and environmental perspective, consumers will focus less on preservatives and artificial ingredients. (GCIMagazine.com, 2020).

Packaging in a ‘new era of transparency’

Consumers, even during this pandemic, are not only looking for clean beauty, but for recycled and sustainable packaging that has a minimum environmental impact. Current regulations and technical constraints make incorporating recycled materials into the many types of plastic packaging the cosmetics industry uses, a challenge nearly impossible to meet.

Why is it so hard? All cosmetics products manufactured and supplied in the UK and across the EU are governed by the Cosmetics Regulation (EC) No.1223/2009 and its amendments.

The guidance document acknowledges that although there are ‘’no specific regulations governing the inclusion of recycled content in cosmetics products’’, packaging purity and stability have to exist to ensure the safety of final products. With the novel coronavirus invading and changing the normality we are all used to, just last month,  the European Commission adopted its latest Circular Economy Action Plan for Europe, which sits at the core of a wider European Deal published late last year.

Christine Lawson, sustainability and technical affairs manager at CTPA, said that the guidance is also important for how labeling and artwork should now be better incorporated in the packaging process in order to produce a ‘’fast-moving and incredibly innovative’’ cosmetics and personal sector.

‘’It will inform and help companies build-in decisions from the early stages of product development to create the most sustainable ways of presenting products with minimum environmental impact and enhancing circularity of resources,’’ Lawson said.

Product formulation and labeling changes

We see changes in the way consumers now understand the notion of natural, bio, and organic from their trusted products’ labels. They will further push the idea that natural isn’t always better, especially when it comes to ingredient safety and shelf life. From an ingredients perspective, the pandemic has enabled the creation of formulas that will rely on safe synthetic ingredients, which could potentially improve shelf life.

Mintel analyst, Clare Henningan, discusses the importance of keeping pace with the evolving requirements of post-COVID-19 labeling quality and processes without compromising brand integrity and visibility. The time is now for brands to consider introducing a better-developed form of central control and transparency across everything that is going out to the market globally.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, one of the major opportunities that cosmetic brands will have to focus on is waterless formulas, which could appeal to consumers’ safety and environmental concerns. But formula changes will result in cosmetics businesses undertaking what could be a monolithic re-labeling project. In a time where efficiency and cost optimization is key to survival, cosmetic businesses would be advised to take on these sorts of changes by first creating a single source of labeling truth – of approved, current content components, which form the basis for all forms of future labeling. If anything changes to the brand, the product or its ingredients, to the manufacturer’s information, or to regulatory requirements, this should be managed in a controlled and robust way from a single to a central vantage point.

Opportunities for accelerated & automated label construction

We will all need products that mitigate risks of contamination by utilizing touchless formats and offering extended shelf life, making them stand out as safe and dependable. Brands that can demonstrate dependability, transparency, and willingness to take action to ensure product safety will be able to survive the already existing tough competition and the economic uncertainty and consumer shifts caused by this virus.

Having an enterprise labeling management solution isn’t just about centralizing the construction and improving the quality of control applied to global labeling. It can also help transform the process involved in changing brand standards, adding additional transparency, and making necessary product improvements. This is especially important during these challenging times, as consumers become more concerned with safety implications and ingredients visibility.

With coordinated control and end-to-end visibility of all labeling activity globally, brand owners are better able to spot any labeling and artwork issues ahead of time and apply changes quickly and efficiently. With time being such a critical factor during the current pandemic, trusted labeling will help to safeguard the brand and maintain public confidence in the quality and safety of products produced.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 data has already shown us that there will be winners and losers that surface in the onslaught of all this uncertainty.  Cosmetics businesses are already threatened by changing buyer behavior, with consumers focusing less on unessential beauty purchases and more on hygiene and personal safety.

The cosmetics businesses that can rapidly adjust to new consumer expectations while increasing transparency and safety of their products will come out on top. A dedicated, intelligent control around label construction will enable cosmetic businesses to increase efficiencies, improve visibility, and reduce regulatory errors for better brand control that align with new consumer expectations.

Want to know more?

Whether you’re in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, medical device, chemical, or even the cosmetic industry, our experts are ready to help you transform your labeling and artwork management with the help of our innovative software, leading the way in the labeling and artwork software space. Get in touch today to see what we can do for you at enquiries@kallik.com or call +44 (0) 1827 318100.

These are unprecedented times. Across the globe we are at war, not with a human enemy but a virus. Families are losing loved ones, or separated from them. Businesses are struggling, many of which have been forced to close, leaving their employees in financial difficulty. The news is a constant barrage of fear and negativity, and at the moment there is no proven vaccine for COVID-19, although there are over 100 in trials. We simply don’t know when the pandemic will come to an end, and this uncertainty is difficult to manage as businesses and individuals.

The role of pharmaceutical and medical device companies has never been so critical. They are equipping healthcare workers on the front line with essential tools, such as protective personal equipment and ventilators, and are in a race against time to find a successful vaccine. It is essential then that the employees of these organizations are able to perform at their absolute best, to bring their A game to everything they are doing, regardless of the role they play in the organization. But with the certainty that surrounds us all right now, how do we support people to do their best?

1. Don’t go quiet

Lack of communication will only make your employees feel even more uneasy in these strange times. Now more than ever, people need to be communicated with on a frequent basis. Each business’ employees and the different groups within those businesses will have different needs. It's essential to keep your ear close to the ground and understand what sort of communication is needed across the business. Use those informal ‘grapevine’ connections to help you understand if there are any particular rumors or gripes which need to be quelled. Give careful consideration to how, when, and what you will communicate and document this in a communications plan. And remember: it's okay not to have all the answers.

2. Create a sense of togetherness

There has been a significant shift to remote working in order to support social distancing, and for those people used to working in office environments surrounded by colleagues, it's easy to feel isolated and disconnected. Those who are still in the workplace, such as those keeping production lines running, will be doing so under challenging conditions and may be feeling the strain of these changes. It's important to provide people with the opportunity to connect with each other, formally and informally, using whatever tools and technologies they can. Those regular team meetings, which will now be held on Skype or Zoom, have never been so important. Consider how you use these to their full potential, to create a feeling of togetherness. Here at Kallik, we have been hosting weekly quiz socials using video conferencing to help our teams feel connected with each other, and also to bring some light relief to the working week. Consider how you can encourage teams to socialize even whilst being distanced from each other.

3. Keep it human

It’s a weird time. Each one of us has been impacted in some way, big or small, by COVID-19. Leaders and managers need to demonstrate good emotional intelligence and empathy with their teams. With school closures, parents are now having to home-school their children whilst also holding down a full-time job. Some people may be caring for loved ones who are unwell, or who cannot leave the house. There may be others feeling very anxious about what is happening. To ensure you continue to get the most out of your teams during this critical time, you need to be tuned in to the challenges, worries, and concerns of your team and consider what steps you can take to help them be most effective, whilst also ensuring that you put their health wellbeing first and foremost. Listen to what your teams are telling you, and importantly, check-in with how they are feeling. 

Want to know more?

Whether you’re in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, medical device, chemical, or even the cosmetic industry, our experts are ready to help you transform your labeling and artwork management with the help of our innovative software, leading the way in the labeling and artwork software space. Get in touch today to see what we can do for you at enquiries@kallik.com or call +44 (0) 1827 318100.

A Challenging Year for the Chemicals Industry

2020 has not been kind to the chemical industry with the challenges it has presented. The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent collapse in demand for oil has had a profound effect on the energy industry in particular. While the energy sector comprised 16% of the S&P 500 in 2008 according to Bespoke Investment Group, the energy industry today makes up a mere 2.5% of the S&P 500. The market has shifted in ways unprecedented a mere year ago.

The pandemic has also spotlighted the need for more sustainable solutions in the pending climate emergency. New sustainability legislation will undoubtedly move the goalposts for lubricant manufacturers. The proposed ‘Euro 7’ regulations will likely, according to FleetPoint, arrive in 2024/2025 and stipulate a 15% reduction in fuel consumption compared with 2019 numbers, followed by another 15% by 2030. Research is allegedly already underway to formulate low and ultra-low viscosity oils, helping to enhance fuel efficiencies.

Inefficiency is Everywhere

In an ever increasingly competitive world, speed to market is crucial; oil and lubricant manufacturers must stay ahead of the curve. The recent lack of demand need only increase efficiency so that no resources go to waste. Furthermore, new products require new labels, which must undergo a stringent review and approval process. It is vital that chemical companies do not allow this to slow the rate of new product introduction (NPI).

Companies which operate on a global scale with a large range of products must be able to manage the challenge of localisation. European products will need translations for over 20 languages on each pack, and translations will need to be updated in alignment with regulatory changes or formulation changes. 

The lack of consistency in the approach to managing packaging and labeling across regions can lead to intensive, time consuming, manual processes, as well as duplication of effort which can be costly. It is not only market behaviour which factors into this, but more pertinently the differing regulations and languages between regions which make for a complex operation. 

Moreover, product and label regulations can often be subject to change. Keeping on top of this manually through a process of email approvals and file digging can be incredibly time consuming. However, compliance is non-negotiable, with recalls incurring huge costs. Adherence to regulations can be ensured through adequate auditing of each stage of the approval process in one central location. Compliance need not hinder efficiency.

Dealing with third parties also hinders agility. Many chemicals companies outsource their artwork creation and updates to external agencies. Not only is the use of these agencies extremely costly, even if the change could be as minor as updating a claim statement or adding a new regulatory symbol, but it adds another handoff in an already complicated process. The artwork agency could take several weeks to create the artwork, and further rounds of amendments will likely be required after review internally which would lead to further back-and-forth.

Throw into this a complex network of third party printers, scattered across the globe. Chemicals companies who manufacture consumer facing goods such as engine oil will need to produce glossy consumer facing labels, which need specialist printing capability. Ensuring these globally distributed printers only have access to the most recent approved version of a label is key, but using manual processes such as emails to communicate changes means the chances of the wrong version being printed are high.

Potential counterfeiting must also be considered; the chemical industry is continually a victim of this. In order to combat this, many oil companies have created their own unique proprietary fonts which have been designed in a way which makes them difficult to copy. This makes their labels difficult to replicate, but it is entirely possible in a manual process that these fonts could be substituted for something similar, or worse, that the native artwork files could fall into the wrong hands.

These inefficiencies cost the chemicals industry not just in financial terms, but in terms of opportunities and competitive advantage. In a highly competitive sector that is already struggling, chemical companies cannot afford to continually make these errors and decrease their potential. The COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing awareness globally of the need to reduce oil consumption to combat the climate crisis have only emphasised the requirement for greater efficiency and innovation when it comes to chemical product management and labeling.

Automation and Control Drive Speed to Market

An intelligent cloud based end-to-end label management software provides the answer to many of these challenges. Not limited to the chemical industry, a true label management solution can prove highly beneficial to all highly regulated industries through cutting costs, decreasing compliance risks, and returning control to the company. Increased efficiency allows chemical companies to reach their full potential and excel in a highly competitive industry.

Perhaps the most significant way to increase efficiency is through automation. Artwork automation, foremost, vastly reduces and in some cases can regate the need for costly artwork agencies. Artworks can be produced and managed in-house, with little manual input. Changing a claim on a label, or even creating a brand new localised variant to tap into new markets is straightforward and can be achieved in minutes instead of weeks. Even before artwork creation, there are huge opportunities to automate the collation of the label data. 

Through the use of intelligent rules, regulatory requirements for labeling can be pre-configured so that every label will always be populated with the correct regulatory content. This drives quality and compliance into the artwork creation process, reducing the number of rework cycles and getting labels approved more quickly. Furthermore, automated approval routing can drastically speed up the long winded approval process, whilst ensuring that the right people are involved. Automating as many manual tasks as possible allows employees to dedicate their time to more pressing or value-add tasks. Each of these factors enables companies to increase NPI, something which will prove highly valuable in the aftermath of COVID-19.

The standardisation of artwork assets and their containment to one central location supports ease of access and anti-counterfeiting. A centralised structure which is accessible across the globe at all times promotes cross-regional collaboration and allows for global consistency of resources.

Furthermore, third party printers can be granted access to the same software, ensuring that they always have the most up-to-date version of labels and artworks, minimising errors and compliance risks. This subsequently contributes to the quality and consistency of products.

With a fully audited end-to-end system, every step of the process is accounted for, making it easy to identify errors or discrepancies. This also increases the ability of managers to monitor performance, having employee’s tasks and approvals set out in front of them. By having all of these steps tracked and visible for reporting, it is easy to see the status of a label and identify any bottlenecks in the process, enabling managers to take action where required to remove any blockers to finalising critical artworks.

Don't Get Left Behind...

The chemical industry is only just starting to realise the value of having an end-to-end labeling and artwork management system, which can transform artwork and labeling processes by removing manual tasks and giving control and visibility of the entire lifecycle. Given the current challenges faced by the chemical industry today, now is the time to seize this opportunity. Working with a software provider who has real experience delivering to your industry, speaks your language, understands your labels and has a blueprinted methodology for global implementation projects for chemicals companies will make your journey to a more efficient artwork management process a smooth and successful one.

Want to know more?

Whether you’re in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, medical device, chemical, or even the cosmetic industry, our experts are ready to help you transform your labeling and artwork management with the help of our innovative software, leading the way in the labeling and artwork software space. Get in touch today to see what we can do for you at enquiries@kallik.com or call +44 (0) 1827 318100.

Highly regulated industries are continually being hit with more stringent rules and changes, particularly when it comes to their artwork and labels. As product portfolios grow and businesses penetrate new markets, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify and respond to the changes that these new regulations entail in a timely manner. 

This has a subsequent impact on speed to market, for both new and existing products, and can also result in product recalls if this process is handled inadequately. While your business needs to get products to market quickly to remain competitive, it is essential that this process is also quality-driven in order to maintain regulatory compliance.

Basic artwork management is not enough

Historically, there has been a major focus within these markets on artwork management, where artworks are approved, stored in an asset manager and version controlled. However, Gartner notes that ‘what has typically been called labeling and artwork management in the past is only artwork management that governs artwork activities for the final product packaging’. 

Enterprise labeling and e-labeling technology has subsequently emerged to ‘address the distinct needs of specialized labeling, product traceability and transparency’. It has become increasingly clear that an artwork management system is not enough to achieve speed to market. 

Enterprise label management will take your business to the next level in terms of speed to market and compliance. More and more businesses are discovering the benefits of a single, end-to-end enterprise labeling and artwork management (LAM) solution that both encapsulates and compartmentalizes the entire labeling process. Compliance is guaranteed through the ability to access audits from every step of the process, identifying problems instantaneously and preventing long-term issues such as recalls or wider compliance shortfalls.

In a highly competitive business world, the ability to quickly locate labels affected by regulatory changes and make swift amendments to them is of greater significance than ever for companies that operate on a global scale. When thinking about sharpening your label and artwork management process to drive business growth, there are three key areas to focus on:

1. Structure your data to drive traceability and quality 

In order to appreciate the value of managing and structuring your data correctly, it is helpful to consider the consequences of not doing this. Imagine that you have 10,000 products in your portfolio, and 50% of these are sold in a market where you are required to place a specific regulatory symbol on all labeling. The regulator requires you to use a different version of this symbol and you have 6 months to implement this change across all of your products. How easy would it be to find all labels and artwork which use the old symbol, update them with the new symbol and send them for approval? For most organisations, just the task of finding the impacted artworks alone can take months, due to the fact that their data structures do not allow this traceability.

Data needs to be structured in a way that allows the individual elements of an artwork or label to be managed independently of the artwork itself. Phrases, translations, symbology, imagery and all other aspects of the label need to be individually stored in centralized asset and phrase managers. This enables version control of each constituent part, as well as the ability to pre-approve each component, so you know that you're building your label with correct and compliant data. The value of this method of label data storage cannot be overstated, as it provides a basis for simplifying and optimizing the rest of the labeling process. It enables common components to be standardized and reused across all artwork and labels, and getting the data right upfront means the artwork creation process is much smoother.

2. Enable collaboration across the value chain

Once all of your label components are contained within a single location, the relevant data can be structured into a label dataset. At this stage, you can select each of the components (images, phrases etc) that your label requires and determine where they appear with the confidence that each component has already been pre-approved. 

Collaboration is key here; stakeholders across various teams such as product, marketing, regulatory and legal may be required to contribute to the label dataset. Automated routing should be in place to ensure that the people who need to give their input or approve artworks are given the opportunity to do so. Furthermore, the system you use for this needs to be readily available across the globe with 24/7/365 uptime to ensure that all timezones are catered for; cloud hosting makes this possible. 

Preventing delays at the artwork creation and approval stages is paramount to speed to market, and digitizing the data collation and approval process ensures that new artworks get to the relevant approvers as soon as possible. If the data is correct the first time and it goes straight to the people who need to see it, your new label will require far fewer rounds of approval. Speed to market is not just about how quickly the label itself is changed; it is ensuring that approvals are correctly executed the first time around too.

3. Automate traditionally manual & time consuming processes

Of course, speed to market can be improved beyond centralizing the process to one end-to-end system. Having all of your labels in a central location is one thing, but finding every label that uses a specific component is another. 

The enterprise labeling solution you choose needs to enable you to easily identify all labels that are affected by changing regulations. Take the example of the post-Brexit change from the CE mark to the UKCA mark on products sold on the UK market: the affected labels can be identified automatically through setting a simple search criteria. Perhaps in this instance the search would include (1) All UK labels (2) containing the CE mark component. This sort of search function can return search results in a matter of seconds, giving your company an accurate representation of the task at hand. 

Apply this process to tens of thousands of affected products that would otherwise need to be identified manually, and the value of this function becomes very clear - even finding just 100 impacted labels manually is an incredibly time-consuming process. In the pursuit of speed to market, the ability to easily locate labels with any given components is essential regardless of your company size.

Another clear way to speed up the process of getting a product to market is to automate artwork creation. Many businesses outsource their label artwork to external design teams, disconnecting an otherwise streamlined, end-to-end process. In the case of technical labels predominantly found in the chemical and life science industries, labels can be generated completely automatically with the right LAM solution; once the relevant components are chosen, the software will create the label for you using pre-defined templates. New artworks can be created in seconds, instead of weeks.

Digitizing your labeling and artwork management process will support revenue growth
 

An intelligent enterprise labeling and artwork management solution provides numerous competitive advantages across highly regulated industries. Kallik’s market leading solution, Veraciti™, is already helping our customers across medical devices, chemicals, cosmetics and food & beverage industries achieve huge efficiencies in their labeling processes. At Kallik, we’ve seen our customer’s project completion times cut in half, with an average label and artwork generation time of less than 60 seconds, monumentally improving speed to market. Find out more about our impressive statistics here.

Medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical firms, chemical and cosmetics companies use Kallik to deliver trust in their labeling, confidence in their brand and integrity in their process. If you want to find out more about how we can support your label and artwork management transformation in your business, please get in touch at beth.peckover@kallik.com. We’d be more than happy to help.

The European cosmetics market is extensive, reaching an annual consumption value of over €76 billion. With many of the largest conglomerates owning dozens of brands, each with their own extensive product ranges catering to different market segments, there is a complex web that must be carefully managed and regulated. 

Beth Peckover, VP Operations at Kallik, discusses the complex regulatory landscape for cosmetics firms and argues potential upcoming changes in the European market should spark a rush for greater digital management.

The cosmetics industry is a highly competitive, complex space to do business in – from formulation and testing through to design and go-to-market strategies. Yet many cosmetics firms still struggle with injecting agility, visibility and end-to-end management into critical areas of their business. These areas may function day-to-day without major issue, but introduce any unexpected change and it can bring the entire business value chain to a halt.

No more so than through the simple label. Picture a typical cosmetics product, such as a skin-care cream. The product is covered in labels, logos and regulatory symbols, then packaged in a box covered in similar assets and branding. For many products, they may also include an enclosed supplementary leaflet. The individual assets and phrases used in this will likely number in the dozens – each carefully designed, reviewed and approved. It’s easy to see from this that any amends or updates will have a significant ripple effect, which will be multiplied across each individual affected product line.

The winds of change have reached the cosmetics market

Since the EU Cosmetics Regulation came into force in 2009 – replacing the older Cosmetics Directive – cosmetics firms looking to sell their products into the EU markets have faced a consistent set of rules to comply with.

We’ve recently seen the EU overhaul legislation in other industries traditionally considered ‘highly regulated’, with medical devices the latest to be affected by tighter requirements, and an ongoing consultation on chemical labelling and packing. The cosmetics industry looks set to be next in line – and firms must prepare for the change and disruption this will entail.

With an ongoing public consultation on revising the Cosmetics Regulation to better align with EU sustainability goals, a shake-up – and most likely tightening – of the rules and requirements surrounding cosmetics products is imminent. Critical assets such as labels and artwork are unlikely to be immune.

Tighten asset management and visibility before it’s too late

With this in mind, major cosmetics companies with global product lines numbering in the hundreds or even thousands could face a significant challenge to identify, update and re-issue all affected assets to achieve compliance with any new or amended regulations.

These potential changes are solely for a single region – the EU. Other lucrative markets such as China and the U.S. will have their own regulatory regimes for products to comply with. It is clear a new approach to manage cosmetic product assets on a large scale is required to better handle these challenges.

There are three key ways cosmetics companies can embrace digital asset management to tighten regulatory compliance and at the same time enhance operations:

1. Knock down data siloes and build a single source of truth

A natural first step for any compliance project is to identify any cosmetics products affected by upcoming reforms before actioning the required changes. This is easier said than done, and often uncovers siloed assets, separate translations or region and nation-specific product lines that fall outside of the oversight of a central corporate team. Acquisitions of smaller companies can also introduce similar complexity, throwing new and unexpected product lines, outdated assets or new-language content into the mix.

Combine these issues, and the cost, complexity and timeframe of a compliance project can quickly threaten to spiral out of control.

Enter digital, centralised label and artwork management solutions. With a cloud-based platform that can be accessed by any team from any location, capable of managing all global and local assets within a ‘single source of truth’, cosmetics firms can better understand the scale of the task that lies ahead and avoid any unpleasant revelations further down the line.

2. Ditch the manual processes – this is just too complex to manage at scale

Consider a product range of 100 different cosmetics – each sold into the EU and requiring product packaging and labelling in each of the bloc’s 24 different languages. Each language or product type introduced adds another layer of complexity and scale to the task at hand. Multiple translations, requested and managed by different teams worldwide, can also rapidly increase the risk of duplication.

Add to this the departmental disconnects experienced by many large companies, especially those operating in numerous countries and regions worldwide, and it becomes increasingly clear that label, artwork and packaging assets cannot be easily tracked, managed and amended across every product line without investing significant time, capacity and money.

By introducing advanced technologies such as automation, companies can reduce the manual burden of identifying each individual affected asset, making the necessary changes in-house and running through the review, approval and reissuing process. By adding this digital helping hand, firms can also reduce the risk of human error being introduced – such as misplaced logos being printed on a product label, or outdated phrases used on packaging.

3. Time for a digital facelift for label and artwork management

As digital transformation efforts accelerate across the board, driven by factors from pandemic disruption to new business models and rising customer expectations, cosmetics firms simply cannot afford to stand still and continue with legacy processes and systems. Yet a new breed of advanced label and artwork management systems has arrived to help tackle many of these digital pain-points felt by the industry.

Kallik has extensive experience in helping firms operating in highly regulated industries overcome their compliance challenges, ranging from chemicals to medical devices. Leading global cosmetics seller Mary Kay, for example, uses the Kallik Veraciti™ platform and capabilities such as “Where Used” functionality to better track and manage global assets affected by industry changes or evolving business requirements.

By moving away from legacy methods of asset management, firms can better get to grips with the global picture of their product lines and operations, unlocking the agility and resilience needed to respond to business disruptions such as regulatory change.

The price of inactivity is high – act now…

The challenges brought by non-compliant cosmetics operations are not simple a ‘cost of doing business’ – they can be wide-ranging and cause significant damage. This could range from product recalls and regulator investigations, freezes on selling products into certain markets and even long-term damage to brand confidence.

…and reap the benefits across the value chain

The benefits of digitisation don’t stop at compliance. They extend throughout cosmetics firm operations, adding greater accuracy, consistency and agility – such as the ability to rapidly update large numbers of labels with new product ingredients – to every step of the business value chain.

By acting now, cosmetics firms can establish truly end-to-end digital operations for managing all global assets in a single, secure cloud-based repository.

Want to know more?

Whether you’re in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, medical device, chemical, or the cosmetic industry, our experts are ready to help you transform your labeling and artwork management with the help of our innovative software, leading the way in the labeling and artwork software space. Get in touch today to see what we can do for you at enquiries@kallik.com or call +44 (0) 1827 318100.