Centric Software®, the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market leader, is proud to present, for the first time at NRF, its transformational retail planning solution, Centric Planning™. 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.
Brands and retailers continue to struggle with the mounting pressure of shorter assortment cycles, growing omnichannel and SKU complexity, and siloed ways of working. Until now, solution options have been limited; most companies rely on spreadsheets with severe limitations, or on rigid, expensive legacy planning solutions not built for the omni-channel era. To maximize product sell-through, optimize inventory and reach product margin goals, merchandisers, buyers, planners and allocators are in urgent need of tools to deliver real-time insights and drive impactful decisions based upon accurate forecasts and visibility.
“Before COVID, we had a 5.6% operating margin at the end of fiscal year 2020. We closed this past year at 12%. It is a huge improvement in profits,” says Daniel Botey, Vice President of Global Inventory Management at Guess Europe Sagl. “If we had had a lot of inventory, we could not have done it. Centric Planning has been an enabler to truly enable our strategy and increase our profitability in a very, very big way.”
“Centric Planning future-proofs retailers,” explains Simone Pozzi, VP Planning BU at Centric Software. “It is an AI-driven solution that leverages advanced analytics and forecasting for enhanced decision-making and optimized SKU and omnichannel management. Its cloud-native architecture enables high-speed processing and powerful performance, even when handling large volumes of data. It’s flexible, forward-facing and designed by retail experts to maximize user adoption and value delivery.”
Centric Planning’s configurability and scalability makes it suitable for a wide range of brands and retail models, from vertically integrated retailers to wholesale and e-tailers. Companies who have already adopted Centric Planning are leveraging its analytical capabilities to increase margins, by enhancing the accuracy of their forecasts and optimizing their decisions.
“Hand-in-hand with our customers, we continuously expand the range of solutions offered to boost efficiency and profitability,” says Chris Groves, President, and CEO of Centric Software. “Centric Planning is a dynamic and innovative tool that has been fine-tuned in partnership with our retail customers for maximum return on investment.”
