Centric Software®, the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market leader is pleased to announce that Certified B Corporation™ and impact-driven adventure brand, Cotopaxi, has selected Centric PLM™ to drive efficiency and growth. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, price and sell products such as apparel, fashion, home, footwear, sporting goods, consumer electronics, cosmetics, food & beverage and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cotopaxi creates outdoor gear designed to help alleviate extreme poverty, move people to do good and inspire adventure. The brand’s social impact strategy also employs responsible sourcing and manufacturing practices throughout the supply chain.
Becca Taylor, Director of Project Management at Cotopaxi, describes the situation that led to pursuing PLM. “We are a fast-growing company, and working in spreadsheets, emails, and Slack has become cumbersome and inefficient. With no centralized platform for information sharing, there is a constant risk of data integrity and version control. This not only affects the product team but causes confusion throughout the company as to what information is accurate and most up to date. It’s important our resources grow along with the brand, so we needed something more efficient to organize the information and communication, both internally and with our vendors.”
Regarding the PLM selection process, Taylor explains, “Ultimately, it came down to Centric’s proven track record, the 99% customer retention rate and the clear and comprehensive integration rollout plan. Our amazing Centric sales rep was very helpful when I asked him about some best practices—he willingly shared Centric’s expertise even before we had made our final decision. The customer service that we have already received and the professionalism are leaps and bounds above anyone else that was considered.”
Centric PLM will allow Cotopaxi to track the different materials and factory certifications. The platform will allow the brand to showcase the responsible, recycled or repurposed materials in each product, and because the company is a certified B Corporation, leadership will be able to pull relevant data for reporting purposes.
All the information that originates in Centric PLM is pushed out to 20 other company systems including Google Analytics, Shopify, ERP, a sales tool, brand tool, marketing tool, allocation tool and different reporting tools. “There are numerous possibilities for utilizing the data—from assessing the overall sales performance of a category to identifying the top and bottom performers,” says Taylor. “Since this information will be integrated into various platforms and systems, we’ll have the flexibility to extract any desired information all in one place.”
CEO of Centric Software, Chris Groves says, “We are excited that Cotopaxi has chosen Centric PLM to drive efficiency into their workflows and ensure data integrity that feeds multiple other systems. We are proud to partner with a company that has made their social and environmental mission the core of their business.”
