sela, one of Russia’s oldest and noticeable lifestyle brands, has selected Centric Software‘s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to support business growth and further eco-friendly product development. 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.
Headquartered in Saint Petersburg, the lifestyle brand has a rich heritage dating back almost 30 years. sela dominates the mid-priced fashion and accessories sector in Russia and other CIS countries, with 124 own stores and 60 partner stores located across Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In 2019, sela joined one of the largest retailers, Melon Fashion Group, alongside three other renowned brands: ZARINA, befree, and LOVE REPUBLIC.
To keep pace with rapid business expansion, sela knew they had to digitalize product development and optimize quality control.
“We wanted more reliable product information with fewer errors, less rework and a way to eliminate our manual and decentralized ways of working,” says Anna Vasileva, Head of IT at sela.
All product development prior to PLM was managed partially in Excel spreadsheets and partially in an ERP system. Consequently, data was disconnected and teams were overwhelmed with admin. They lacked full visibility and traceability of products. This frustration spurred sela on to begin the search for a comprehensive and easy-to-use digital transformation solution that aligned with their business needs.
“Managing products over email and Excel was no longer an efficient system. Having a single source of truth will eliminate non-value-added click-work for our design and product development teams and allow them to focus on innovating and creating more products,” continues Vasileva.
During the selection process, Centric PLM was a clear first choice for sela – they were excited by the prospect of connecting their Shanghai and Saint Petersburg offices (as well as suppliers in China) via one unified, cloud-based system. Important to say, that other brands of Melon Fashion Group also appreciate the benefits of Centric PLM.
“With Centric Software’s Mobile PLM Apps, our teams will capture information and images on the go rather than writing notes and manually entering the information back at their desks, which is a real time saver, especially for fit review sessions. It will ultimately help speed decision-making, improve the quality of the final product and reduce time to market,” adds Vasileva.
“We also plan to track and manage organic and recycled materials directly within Centric PLM for our sustainable garment collection ‘#selacares’,” concludes Vasileva.
“We are delighted to welcome our sixth Russian customer to the Centric Software family,” comments Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “We look forward to furthering sela’s ambitious and eco-conscious growth strategy.”
