Centric Software® is pleased to announce that Bad Birdie golf, the premium golf wear brand, has selected Centric PLM™ to drive growth and streamline vendor communication. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona and established in 2017 by founder Jason Richardson, Bad Birdie was created on one premise—the state of current golf wear was boring. A few years later, retail stores have opened, pros have been signed and their product line has expanded from printed polos to high performance shorts, pants, headwear and golf layering pieces across men, women and children. Bad Birdie’s merchandise is sold through their own vertical retail and digital channels, as well as, across their premier wholesale partners in green grass, vertical golf and brand driven sporting goods.
Bad Birdie has experienced rapid growth since inception. The company outgrew its previous software used to primarily create tech packs, but with 300+ new stock keeping units (SKUs) per season, Megan Garrity, Production Manager, knew a new end-to-end solution was needed. Teams were juggling shared docs and spreadsheets season after season and eventually could not keep up with their growth. She says, “Managing all of the data and sending tech packs through email was not sustainable.” Garrity also notes their current system requires manual input, downloads and emailed attachments.
Garrity interviewed over 10 different vendors, evaluating the platforms and functionality, with the selection panel asking numerous questions to determine fit for not just product development, but for other departments including customer experience and sales. The vendor field was narrowed to three, with Centric PLM ultimately coming out on top.
Having an innovative product lifecycle management (PLM) platform that is also configurable to grow with the business is essential these days. Garrity mentions, “As a growing SMB customer, one key factor we loved was the ability to integrate the other platforms that Centric Software has to offer.” Bad Birdie’s current strategy with Centric PLM is to connect the platform with their ERP system to streamline the workflow.
Transparency is a huge benefit for many brands today; being able to see approved colors and fabrics and pull up a season in one central location gives all teams access when they need it most. Garrity explains another much-anticipated function of Centric PLM. “Once we are fully up and running on the vendor platform, it should probably take out at least 80% of our emails; being able to cut down all the back-and-forth; to have all the communication be within Centric will be a huge relief.” The team will only need to send one email to vendors directing them to the lab requests in the system. She continues, “We can see when the vendor checks it in, when they receive it and when they’re working on it.”
Garrity summarizes, “We fulfilled our goal which is to have end-to-end product management and improve internal communication as well as externally with our vendors to streamline workflows.”
Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software says, “We are honored that Bad Birdie selected us to fuel their growth. We look forward to partnering with them as they continue to expand their business.”
