Belle International Holdings Limited (Belle), a leading Chinese footwear and sportswear retailer, has selected Centric Software to provide its Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution.
The Belle Group’s business is broadly divided into three main segments: footwear, sportswear and apparel. In addition to its own private label brands which includes 6 of the top 10 ladies leather footwear brands in China, Belle distributes top global brands such as CAT, Clarks, Nike, adidas and Converse. In 2015, Belle’s total number of company-managed retail outlets reached 20,873 in mainland China. Belle also manages nearly 200 retail outlets in Hong Kong and Macau.
As one of the largest and most well-known retail groups in China, Belle has been developing a new retail strategy including the acquisition of new apparel brands such as Japan’s Baroque group and strengthening the digitization of supply chain management.
“Belle has very large and strong in-house IT team to support retail management, but after acquiring Baroque, developing its Chinese business and adding more new brands, we realized that our internal IT team needed more supply chain and apparel product business knowledge,” explains Alan Ma, IT Director, East China Belle Group. “The IT team needed a professional PLM system to support supply chain management from design to production. This is the first time Belle has chosen an outsourced IT solution, but we realized how much we needed a PLM system to ensure data accuracy, speed time to market and reduce costs.”
Following the advice of a PLM consultant and comparisons with other vendors, Belle chose Centric PLM on the basis of its user-friendly interface and the company’s professional expertise.
As Ma says, “Centric PLM is very flexible and almost feels like a customized system for us, even though it is an out of the box solution. It’s extremely configurable and user-friendly. It’s very competitive compared to other PLM systems we’ve investigated on the market. The Centric team is professional and reliable, and we’re happy to work with them.”
“Belle is looking forward to great success with the implementation of Centric PLM,” says Ma. “With the Centric team’s knowledge and experience in fashion PLM, we aim to improve our own IT team’s knowledge in apparel and supply chain management in order to support our aggressive new retail strategy.”
“Belle owns 5 factories in mainland China, and we also believe Centric PLM will help with internal and external collaboration between our different sites. We see this as a long-term partnership with Centric, starting with the apparel division of our business,” Ma concludes.
“We would like to welcome Belle International as our latest partner in China,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “Belle is a well-known name with an impressive portfolio of brands and we are honored to partner with them in their digital transformation and new retail strategy.”
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