CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
3 June 2008
Implementation Investments
Urban Outfitters Looks to Reduce Cycle Times and Manage Rapid Growth With TradeStone’s Merchandise Lifecycle Management Suite
TradeStone Software announced TradeStone has signed Urban Outfitters, Inc., a leading lifestyle specialty retail company operating under the Anthropologie, Free People, Urban Outfitters and Terrain brands. In order to support the company’s sales growth, Urban Outfitters will implement the full TradeStone Merchandise Lifecycle Management suite (PLM for Retail, Global Sourcing, Global Order Management, Quality Management and Supplier Management) across all of its specialty brands.
Urban Outfitters prides itself on lifestyle merchandising that builds a strong emotional bond with the customer by offering fashion correct products on a timely basis. TradeStone’s technology will provide full end-to-end supply chain visibility from design to delivery, allowing the retailer to effectively manage exceptions and respond rapidly to changing consumer demand. By using Tradestone’s Merchandise Lifecycle Management suite, the retailer can further refine a postponement strategy allowing them to wait until the optimal moment to make a decision on color, style or even store location destination.
“Urban Outfitters is at the strongest position in its history and TradeStone will be instrumental in supporting our continued growth as we roll out the application among 300 employees across all of our brands and to our external supply chain community,” said Barbara Rozsas, Executive Director of Sourcing and Production, Urban Outfitters, Inc. “We looked at more than 10 different software applications and TradeStone Software offered a solution that best met our business requirements. We were also very impressed with the TradeStone executive team who have considerable retail experience and clearly understand our business needs and opportunities. We are excited to begin to reap the benefits that TradeStone’s solutions will provide us.”
Urban Outfitters will also utilize TradeStone to enhance inbound visibility by replacing emails, faxes and spreadsheets with electronic packing lists and case level ASNs. This will provide the distribution centers better advanced planning capabilities. The retailer will also take advantage of TradeStone’s calendar capabilities to review styles and set deadlines as well as improve workflow management. TradeStone’s Merchandise Lifecycle Management suite will layer across the company’s existing product development system, warehouse management system and three different ERP systems.
“TradeStone Software is what Urban Outfitters was looking for when we sought out a more robust, functionally rich solution that meets designers, technical designers, sourcing managers, merchants, financial and logistics team members’ requirements,” said Calvin Hollinger, Chief Information Officer, Urban Outfitters, Inc. “We are confident that TradeStone will allow us to increase our brand offerings within the apparel, accessories and home product areas under a speed-to-market philosophy. With TradeStone’s technology in place, we are building an infrastructure with processes that support both our own brand and market purchases in a uniform, streamlined manner to accommodate dramatic growth across multiple selling channels including stores, e-commerce and wholesale.”
“Urban Outfitters’ unique ability to read the tea leaves of lifestyle changes and translate that into an adapting mix of new and exciting merchandise makes them one of the most innovative leaders in the retail world,” said Sue Welch, CEO, TradeStone Software. “We admire how the company has taken the anthropology interests of their founder and chairman to predict how cultural changes impact the individual consumer and mirrored their product design and merchandising to reflect those interests so that when a new trend emerges, they can respond to it immediately. This deal was a big win for us in a very competitive environment, and is a key validation of TradeStone’s ability to be the technology infrastructure of choice for retailers with aggressive postponement strategies that will reduce cycle times and increase the amount of on-trend merchandise – making goods not only on-market but market leading.”
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