Centric Software announces that Conair Hair Brush and Accessories (HBA) Division, with brand names like Scünci and Conair, is now implementing Centric Software to provide an improved product lifecycle management (PLM) solution. This builds on the success Conair’s Allegro Division and IT team achieved when implementing Centric software in 2016.
With an annual revenue of over $2 billion in sales, Conair is a global leader in the manufacture and distribution of personal health and beauty products, homeware, and small electronics. Allegro, a division of Conair that produces makeup cases, beauty travel bags and related accessories, implemented Centric Software PLM in 2016. Following Allegro’s positive experience with the system, Conair IT team proposed to HBA Division they also consider adopting this solution for their PLM needs. The feedback from Allegro Division on their Centric experience was critical in this second implementation decision.
Mark Grimes, Marketing Director at Allegro, explains that Allegro decided to select a PLM system in 2015 because their operations had become very complex.
“Once upon a time we had two or three lines that we sold through catalogs to the majority of customers, but over the last ten years that evolved into a situation where we were doing customization for almost every major retailer we work with,” he says. “So instead of two or three lines, we were doing thirty or forty. We were working in Excel, in our self-constructed databases and in email. This made it very difficult to keep ‘one version of the truth’ and to document and store information in a way that would be easily accessible to everyone who needed it.”
Allegro Division, working with Conair IT team, considered a number of different vendors, but eventually selected Centric in early 2016.
As Grimes explains, “During the evaluation process, the Centric team was always available to answer questions and met with us several times. They sent us a list of other customers that we could speak with and we even did site visits with a couple of Centric customers to see how they were using the system in real life. Because the system would be heavily used by the design department, we needed a system that was ‘design-friendly’ and didn’t look just like a giant spreadsheet. The flexibility of Centric’s solution was also huge, compared to the competition.”
Allegro implemented Centric PLM in just nine months and the system is primarily used by its design, marketing, sourcing and merchandising teams. Centric is used by Allegro’s US-based team, as well as a small team in China. The second phase of the project is underway, which involves extending the system to vendors. As Grimes reports, users are very happy with the system.
“Now when people look something up they know that they can trust the information because there is only one place to find it. We previously had a problem with photos that didn’t match products and some items had no photos whatsoever. Now when the product is created we have not only its photo, but the entire evolution from inspiration to design drawings. It’s vastly easier to access information and accuracy is much better because we’re not working with ten different spreadsheets.”
“Everyone is very happy – it puts all the information at your fingertips.”
Allegro’s experience caused Conair IT to ask other divisions of Conair to consider whether Centric could work for them. IT are now working with the HBA/Scünci Division on a separate implementation of Centric PLM. Conair’s CIO, Jon Harding commented: “IT was the catalyst here to provide Allegro Divison the opportunity to pick a solution that really fits their PLM needs. The success of this first implementation was brought home to me when we setup the review of what Allegro did with Centric Software for the HBA Marketing team...Allegro Marketing were the very convincing software sales people this time around!”
As Grimes concludes, “Our relationship with Centric has been amazing. They really understood our needs. Without being in our faces, the team made sure that we proceeded through each stage of implementation and didn’t get stuck. The hair brush and accessories group are now going to implement Centric, which opens up opportunities for easier collaboration with that division. We’re extremely happy that we chose Centric to partner with and so pleased to have got through the process successfully in a short amount of time.”
Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software, says, “We are proud that Allegro is having such positive experience working the Centric team and Centric PLM. We welcome the news that Centric is being extended to another division of Conair and look forward to helping enhance collaboration between different divisions.”
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