In the fast-paced fashion industry, brands face challenges in keeping up with changing consumer demands, seasonal trends and competitive pressures.
Traditional product development processes – slowed by siloed data, inefficient workflows and limited cross-team visibility – can lead to missed opportunities, costly delays and inconsistent product quality.
Craftsmanship meets digital transformation
For an established brand like RM Williams, renowned for its commitment to quality and craftsmanship, these common industry challenges presented opportunities to innovate and enhance its processes.
The iconic boot brand recently announced its partnership with Centric Software to implement Centric Product Lifecycle Management (Centric PLM) to achieve several key objectives, including enhancing market responsiveness, establishing a single source of truth for product data and streamlining its design and product development processes. This strategic move aligns with RM Williams’s broader goals of global expansion and delivering exceptional products that resonate with its consumers.
Leveraging technology for global expansion
Paul Grosmann, CEO at RM Williams, shares: “As we continue to scale globally, it’s important to streamline our processes and improve collaboration across teams. Centric PLM provides us with a robust platform to manage our product development efficiently, enabling us to drive further expansion into new markets and categories.”
The selection process for Centric PLM involved a thorough evaluation of several PLM solutions. In the end, Centric PLM stood out due to its user-friendly interface, innovative product roadmap and local implementation support.
Driving agility and market responsiveness
The expected benefits of implementing Centric PLM for RM Williams include improved decision-making for its design & product, merchandising, supply chain and commercial teams globally. Additionally, Centric PLM will improve product data accuracy, reduce errors and shorten time to market.
“Adopting Centric PLM is a natural fit for our commitment to innovation,” says Rachel Allen, chief design & product officer. “We expect to be more agile and responsive to market changes while ensuring we maintain our high standards of quality and craftsmanship.”
Future-proofing fashion with PLM
Modern PLM solutions such as Centric PLM are essential for fashion brands aiming to boost efficiency, speed up time to market and improve market responsiveness. By centralising product data, PLM enhances collaboration across design, sourcing, and production teams, eliminating silos and enabling quicker decision-making.
Integrating supply chain data gives brands insight into material availability and lead times, enhancing coordination with suppliers. Workflow automation, like BOM updates and compliance tracking, saves time for strategic tasks, while real-time insights support data-driven decisions. With optimised collaboration, digitised sampling, and improved supply chain visibility, PLM solutions help brands launch products faster while ensuring quality and sustainability.
Your guide to retail success
For brands and retailers looking toward the future, it’s essential to align their own product development and retail strategies with evolving consumer expectations. Get more insights on this in Centric Software’s e-book, The Right Aisle Strategy for Retail Success, where you will learn how AI-driven technology can curate the right assortments for your customers by analysing trends and consumer behaviour, optimising inventory and pricing, and more, to stay competitive and grow in the fashion and apparel industry.
