PTC is pleased to reveal that while acting as a reliable PLM technology partner for more than 1,000 brands in a pandemic year, its Retail Business Unit has experienced strong growth throughout 2020. Through new customer partnerships, enterprise-scale expansions, and cost-effective upgrades, PTC’s retail experts have gone to great lengths to deliver value and digital transformation for their global customers during the disruption of COVID-19. For the 211,000 end users that use PTC FlexPLM it has been a lifeline for business continuity, remote working and collaboration – allowing PTC’s retail customers to bring products to market at rapid speed, as well as managing complex, strained supply chains and reducing costs at a critical juncture for their businesses.
As a key technology partner to the planet’s biggest brands, and household names in retail, PTC’s Retail Business Unit measures its success by the value it has realized for its customers. This year, many PTC FlexPLM users have been able to exceed their own expectations, reducing time to market by up to 45% across different product categories, improving productivity by up to 30%, and slashing millions from their material budgets.
New customer partnerships have also continued, with PTC’s Retail Business Unit signing agreements with multiple brands and retailers new to its flagship FlexPLM platform. All of these organizations have adopted FlexPLM, part of PTC’s broader Retail Digital Transformation Platform – a comprehensive technology suite that integrates FlexPLM with transformative technologies like 3D, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality (AR).
“It was essential that we found a vendor that was forward-thinking and whose reach extended beyond just PLM, with innovations such as 3D capabilities and artificial intelligence,” says Peter Johansson, PLM Project Manager at Stadium, Sweden’s largest sports chain. “We chose cloud-based FlexPLM so that we could implement a streamlined best practice approach to planning, product design and development, sourcing and supplier collaboration, with simple storing and sharing of data across our business, as well as enabling our employees to work seamlessly from home during COVID-19.”
New FlexPLM customers will join existing marquee names such as Adidas, Burberry, Deckers Brands, Home Depot, Lacoste, Marks and Spencer, Patagonia and Ralph Lauren who continue to trust their critical design, development, and sourcing processes to PTC. This year saw the announcement that more people use FlexPLM daily than any other fashion or retail PLM platform, and that considerable margin has grown further. Throughout 2020, multiple existing customers have increased their reliance on FlexPLM, by adding new users in volume, or by increasing their collaboration with supply chain partners – enabled by FlexPLM’s industry-leading reach among vendors and agents, with more than 50,000 supply chain users worldwide.
This calendar year also saw further uptake of PTC’s cost-effective upgrade program, bringing multiple enterprise-scale retail customers onto the smoothest path to immediately leverage the upcoming FlexPLM Version 12 – a milestone release packed with fresh and transformative innovations, scheduled for release in early 2021.
Early insights into the transformative features planned for Version 12, along with PTC’s strong retail performance in 2020, factored into analysts’ decisions to name PTC as a market leader in multiple fashion and retail PLM vendor assessment reports.
To help its customers respond to the unprecedented disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, PTC also opened its doors to customers in new and unique ways throughout 2020. The Vuforia Chalk augmented reality application was made freely available to all PTC customers, to enable both in-house teams and suppliers to continue to work and collaborate remotely. The company also hosted dedicated customer webinars to connect retail subject matter experts with customers who faced new or more acute challenges.
“2020 has been a unique year for every industry, but in retail, the primary reason organizations seek out new technology remains the same: gaining an edge in a hyper-competitive market. And from that point of view, PTC remains the retail industry’s preferred choice of PLM and extended technology partner,” said Bill Brewster, Senior Vice President and General Manager of PTC’s Retail Business Unit. “From faster time to market to digital product creation, the pressures of the retail market have become more pronounced in 2020, and I am thrilled that both new and existing customers, as well as industry analysts, continue to recognize that PTC has the right combination of software and support to deliver value to the world’s most iconic fashion and retail businesses, however complex their operations. I am confident that 2021 will begin with further international growth for PTC Retail, as we reveal Version 12 of FlexPLM and other milestone innovations early in the new year.”
