Fashion retailer Style Union achieved quicker product development better inventory turnover faster time to market and much more with Centric’s PLM
Today, retail brands are not just competing over quality and product but also speed. For a brand like Style Union which sells womenswear, menswear, kidswear and accessories online and across its own stores, an improvement in the product cycle would mean a huge advantage.
The Business Need
In today’s world, speed is everything. To gain an edge, D2C fashion brand Style Union wanted to improve its speed to market. It also was looking to accelerate its growth and prepare for further expansion. Style Union was looking for a digital and collaborative platform that would help streamline the entire product development process enabling the retail brand to achieve its desired goals.
Challenge
Style Union was experiencing rapid growth, and it became obvious that the business required a digital platform that could keep track of the status of products through development. They lacked a single version of the truth that stored everything from styles and materials, to quality checks and upcoming deadlines that could be easily accessed by teams and vendors. Teams were spending too much time on administrative tasks which affected productivity.
The Solution
Since the window to sell products in a store is limited; Style Union wanted to remove any bottlenecks which would slow down product development.
“As Style Union grows rapidly, it is vital that we streamline sourcing and information sharing with all our vendors. We believe PLM will help us to achieve this, whilst improving the productivity of employees and eliminating administrative tasks,” said Ekta Biyani, Co-founder of Style Union.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the strategic process of managing a product’s lifecycle from ideation, and development to sales and even end of life. PLM drives an eco-friendly and ethical business model, streamlining production, reducing errors, and empowering effective team collaboration, ultimately saving time and money; a strategy that’s vital for all consumer goods companies around the world.
Essentially, any company that makes multiple products at once – with people collaborating across different offices, countries, and time zones – uses a product lifecycle management process in some way or other. This may sound simple, but laying out a comprehensive PLM system, keeping in mind the industry of operations for the brand under consideration and its audience is important when devising the plan and executing it.
Enter Centric Software. Centric came with the right people and tools and a promise of creating a seamless approach that can be executed in the shortest amount of time. Style Union selected Centric PLM as the best fit solution because of its proven track record working with the world’s leading fashion brands and retailers. The implementation process took just 12 weeks.
The Impact
Since deploying Centric PLM, Style Union continues to expand rapidly and has plans to open a new store almost every week in the current financial year. With Centric’s scalable, digital foundation in place, the company is able to provide a strong foundation for this growth and empower teams to navigate challenges including inflation, rise in fabric costs and demand uncertainty.
- A strong foundation for the brand that helped them stick to store expansion plans
- Full visibility of product development
- Clear, and centralised communication, accurate information flow
- Ability to see the progress of each product and take action when necessary
- Faster turnaround for inventory and easy management
- Better connectedness between buying, sourcing, designing, merchandising, supply chain and vendors
- Real-time harnessing of data which leads to quicker product development
- Better product delivery with every season
About Centric
Centric Software is trusted by 620+ market-leading businesses creating products for 5,200+ iconic brands.
