Centric Software® is pleased to announce that emma & noah has selected Centric PLM™ to power efficiency and drive sustainable growth. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, outdoor, 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.
Founded in Düsseldorf in 2018 with the foundational principle of sustainable quality, emma & noah offers a huge range of baby products for the new generation of parents. It is a direct-to-consumer brand creating durable products of timeless design, with its main categories of sleeping bags, sleepwear and woolen outdoor products. Its customers are based in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, with majority of sales through its online store, followed by popular bricks and mortar retailers, as well as e-commerce marketplaces.
Like many fast-growing emerging brands, emma & noah face challenges with disjointed processes and systems, time-consuming manual tasks, limited project visibility, an over-reliance on spreadsheets and a need to rapidly onboard new team members.
“After having grown the brand rapidly in our home country over the past years, we are planning to expand internationally this year,” says Aline Gallois-Trautmann, Founder of emma & noah. “Entering two new European markets brings challenges to our processes on the product side that we want to be ready for.”
Nadja Sack, Design & Product Lead at emma & noah, shares how scaling collections, managing complex design workflows and maintaining a focus on quality drove the decision to adopt a modern PLM solution.
“Since I joined the team four and a half years ago, we’ve gone from six to 20 team members,” says Sack. “We are developing our own patterns, designs and products and are working with multiple international suppliers. As the business expands, we want to become even more efficient.”
emma & noah took a methodical approach to its PLM solution selection. It defined a clear scope of requirements and assessed multiple solutions before selecting Centric SMB, Centric Software’s cloud-based PLM solution for small and mid-sized businesses. The reasons for its choice—best of breed functionality, the highly-visual, easy-to-adopt user interface, innovative sustainability features and Centric Software customer references.
“A key requirement for choosing a PLM was that it had to meet our scope definition, as well as being really easy to handle,” explains Gallois-Trautmann. “The product design team is highly visual, so it is very important to have a tool that is aesthetically appealing, enjoyable to navigate and enhances their creativity.”
emma & noah anticipates company-wide ROI with improved communication across the board. The product development team will be the first to use the system and look forward to reaping the benefits of Centric PLM’s ‘single source of truth.’
“Having all product information in one place with a clear seasonal overview will keep cross-functional teams aligned, saving us all time, increasing efficiency and boosting collaboration,” says Sack. “Every product will be centralized in PLM, making communication with our suppliers seamless and reducing the risk of errors.”
Gallois-Trautmann shares the importance of Centric PLM integrating with other business tools across the company. “It is essential for us that the PLM integrates with our other systems, like our ERP, so we have a good landscape of solutions working seamlessly together,” shares Gallois-Trautmann. “Digitalizing the product lifecycle will also improve product traceability and ensure we are compliant with regulations, especially important in the children’s sector, where continuous testing is required. With Centric PLM we will strengthen our quality management, inspection processes and sustainability efforts.”
The team is optimistic about the rollout and partnership with Centric Software as Gallois-Trautmann explains, “We have high expectations that the implementation will run smoothly and we really value having a true partnership, rather than just a traditional vendor and buyer relationship.”
“We are delighted to partner with emma & noah and admire its commitment to creating high quality, sustainable products for young families,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “We look forward to supporting emma & noah’s rapid growth and future innovation.”
