Centric Software announces that Sonae Sports & Fashion, a division of the Portugal-based multinational company Sonae, has selected Centric Software to provide its product lifecycle management (PLM) solution.
Sonae is a multinational company managing a diversified portfolio of businesses in retail, financial services, technology, shopping centres and telecommunications. The division of Sonae Sports & Fashion comprehends seven brands, from fashion to sports and outdoor lifestyle, with international reach, through organic and franchised stores, single points of sale and e-commerce.
According to Margarida Nascimento, Head of Product at Zippy, Sonae Sports & Fashion began the search for a PLM solution to replace multiple applications and in-house systems with a goal of reducing complexity improve team collaboration and speed time to market.
“We want a shared and centralized platform that will allow easy online access to real time and accurate information, thus reducing rework activities and mistakes,” Margarida Nascimento explains. “Improving collaboration is an important business challenge for us. We are looking for better communication between teams, both internally and with vendors, such as a way to link each brand sourcing team with central sourcing teams and local Asian offices to align processes, information and communication.”
“We decided to undertake a PLM project to completely transform product information by integrating people, data, processes and business systems across the whole lifecycle. We are streamlining the way products reach the market,” continues Margarida Nascimento.
“Ultimately, the aim is to speed time to market and reduce collection development lead time by adopting lean processes and cutting the time spent on administration thus, being able to make competitive purchasing choices by taking advantage of the synergies within a centralized system is crucial. We also wanted to concentrate our supplier and factory management, including factory quality control, within PLM.”
Following a competitive selection process, Sonae chose to implement Centric Software’s PLM solution.
According to Goska Wolañska, Head of Operations at Losan, “We evaluated several PLM solutions in the market, but Centric came out on top in terms of sourcing and ordering processes, usability, flexibility and technical assessment.”
“Centric had the best score in the functional areas we needed; a higher ability to self-evolve the PLM solution, due to its configurable approach; the largest customer base of fashion and sports retailers; and a single focus on the fashion industry, while other vendors provide complementary solutions.”
As Goska Wolañska says, “We expect that our Centric PLM project will help us improve our product design and quality, shorten review and approval lead times and reduce rework. This should result in a faster time to market, enhance visibility and increase profitability.”
“During the sales process, the Centric team was highly proactive and responsive to our queries and demonstrated a deep knowledge of product lifecycle management processes and best practices,” concludes Goska Wolañska. “We are looking forward to working with Centric as we build foundations to address our business challenges. We anticipate building a strong and long lasting partnership that can foster the growth of both our companies.”
“We are very excited to welcome Sonae on board as our first customer based in Portugal and our 100th customer in Europe,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “The Sonae Group is a company with worldwide reach and we are pleased to partner with them on a diverse collection of brands in Sonae’s sports and fashion division.”
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