By Christopher Ryan, June 4, 2018
Competition is fierce within the Retail Industry. With savvy consumers and constantly changing trends, staying competitive means finding ways to quickly meet consumer demand. Today’s consumers want variety, fashion, and quality along with socially responsible product development all at cost-effective prices. Today’s retailers have a strong sense of consumer requirements but often times play catch-up to the latest trends. Consumer trends shift quickly and it’s difficult to strike exactly at the peak due to the timeline and workflow of the retail product lifecycle (design, development, sourcing, sampling, costing, quality, supplier compliance, order, production, and shipment).
Currently, many retail organizations use the following tools to help guide their private label, product lifecycle process – legacy software solutions, homegrown tools or spreadsheets and e-mail tools in an attempt to manage their product as it traverses the entire value chain. These antiquated methods, however, are littered with inconsistencies and redundancies that hinder internal retail teams as the continuity of information and product delivery time fades with each step of the process. These tools are also often on premises, retail internal systems allowing little to no involvement from the supplier community.
When compared to the legacy and homegrown retail solutions of the past, the 2018 Top PLM Software options offer end-to-end lifecycle management on an integrated platform that allows retailers to increase visibility and collaboration for all parties involved in the product’s value chain. This end-to-end approach offers Product Development, Sourcing, What-If Costing Analysis, Critical Path Management and full Supply Chain management that goes way beyond simple specification and RFI/RFQ’s management and helps retailers manage the end-to-end supply chain from multiple aspects.
Today’s Retail PLM Solutions Include but not limited to:
- Product Development
- Sourcing
- What-If Costing Analysis
- Quality
- Supplier/factory compliance
- Supplier Management
- Sampling
- Critical Path Management
- Order Follow-up
- Production Tracking
- Shipment / Delivery
In the current retail marketplace, retailers are finding it increasingly necessary to innovate in order to keep up with the industry giants, such as Amazon and Walmart. Retail PLM Software acts as a great equalizer because it allows smaller operations to scale their business and compete through streamlined product development, sourcing and supply chain automation. This is especially true for retailers who want to increase their assortments of higher margin private label products. With effective PLM management, private label products can be developed, sourced, produced and introduced to the market faster and cheaper than ever before, and as a result, they can be more effective in a time when trends change quickly and brand labels mean less and less.
In summation, if equipped with the top PLM Software today’s retailers can increase collaboration across internal cross-functional teams and their supplier base for improved speed-to-market capabilities and automation efficiencies. Retail PLM enables retailers to reduce new product development time, delivery cycle times, supply chain costs, lost sales due to a reduction in out-of-stock merchandise, and in-store inventory supply. By reducing cycle times and costs with retail PLM Software, the retail industry can achieve greater brand loyalty by delivering innovative, quality products to market ahead of consumer expectations. To learn more about today’s product lifecycle management (retail PLM) tools or for more information about CBX Software please Contact Us or visit us at www.cbxsoftware.com and be sure to follow CBX LinkedIn for breaking news, retail insights and information.
By Christopher Ryan, June 4, 2018