Managing product information successfully
BOGNER hits the slopes with Centric PLM
BOGNER, German skiwear and outerwear company, has successfully gone live with Centric Software’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
As Stephanie Eibich, Brand Intelligence at Bogner explains, Bogner's growth and expansion into new product categories over the years generated unmanageable amounts of data, and it became difficult to get a clear picture of what was happening with products in development. “We didn’t have a PLM or PDM system before, so our processes lacked transparency,” she says. “Product information was scattered between our ERP system, emails and Word or Excel documents. It wasn’t efficient or user-friendly, because people didn’t know where to find information and the product development team couldn’t collaborate effectively.”
Bogner assessed several PLM vendors with the help of an external consultant before choosing Centric Software. As Eibich says, “We finally decided on Centric PLM because it has out-of-the-box functionality and can connect and standardize our operations across a variety of areas, including design, merchandising, materials management, sourcing and sales. It’s a modern, web-based system. As our designers use Adobe Illustrator, the Adobe Connect function in Centric is very important.”
A large number of Bogner's employees in Germany now use Centric PLM in their day-to-day work. Just four weeks after the implementation, the company was seeing results. “People across the development teams from designers to pattern-makers are comfortable working with the system and tell us how much it suits them”, says Eibich. “We are regaining time that people spent looking for information. We’re communicating faster and connecting the whole development of a style worldwide.”
