Rapha Racing, a leading high-performance cycling clothing brand has selected Centric Software’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source and sell products such as apparel, footwear, sporting goods, furniture, home décor, cosmetics, food & beverage, and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Founded in 2004 by Simon Mottram to address a growing need for stylish, high-performance cycling clothing, Rapha has been pushing the boundaries of innovation and cycle wear ever since. The Rapha name is synonymous with comfort, performance and style.
Rapha has cultivated a global community of passionate riders who come together under the flagship Rapha Cycling Club (RCC), which includes more than 20,000 members worldwide and 21 Clubhouses across Europe, North America and Asia.
Rapha’s unrelenting commitment to exceptional product quality and customer experience drives them to look for ways to do things better. Because their products are highly complex and technical, with varied BOMs (bills of materials) and components, the need for product development efficiencies led them down the digital transformation path.
“We were struggling to establish a single source of truth across product creation, and we had disconnected systems creating a high level of manual process,” says Miriam Lock, Head of Product Engineering at Rapha Racing. “This was exposing us to human error and duplication of work.”
In early 2021, Rapha published new impact commitments related to their supply chain and product creation process. They also needed a solution to support their social and environmental impacts, while ensuring exacting standard in product design and quality.
“Much of sustainability comes back to the adage ‘you can only manage what you measure,’ so we also needed a consistent way to capture data at the most granular level,” shares Lock.
Rapha conducted a careful benchmarking process to find the digital transformation solution that could support their product development goals, help them deliver the right product information to their customers and drive high quality engagement with the brand.
Centric PLM came out as the winning digital solution for a few reasons according to Rapha. Team members preferred the interface and user experience and Centric’s deep expertise in the fashion and retail industry and the collaborative approach during the sales process gave Rapha confidence in the solution.
“Centric brings best-in-class solutions and encourages an open dialogue with their customers for future system enhancements,” says Alice Marmion, Supply Chain Director at Rapha. “This will make Rapha a stakeholder in their future direction and shows their collaborative approach, which is closely aligned with our values.”
“Centric PLM is going to help us streamline our processes and improve overall efficiencies as well as support product innovation,” says Marmion. “Once Centric PLM is implemented, we expect to see an average time saving of 30%. This will free teams to invest more time into new product innovations, customer relationships, strategic projects and reaching our impact commitments.”
Rapha also plans to roll out Centric PLM with their suppliers. “Ultimately, we plan for 100% of our tier one and tier two partners to be integrated so that both sides can have access to information in real time,” explains Lock. “This will greatly improve our communication, bring efficiency and clarity, and ultimately help us work more strategically and collaboratively.”
“We are thrilled that Rapha Racing has chosen Centric Software as a partner in their digital transformation journey,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “We are proud to work with customers committed to creating the highest quality products, fostering community and achieving sustainable business practices.”
