Speeding up fashion product development with a PLM solution

Written by Rennan Reis — Digital Product Analyst at AMARO

The way we deal with product management has been evolving over the years. So, it is not so surprising that the business processes, engineering, software development, design, analysis, and other responsibilities that are part of a company’s operation need a sustainable model to support product development.

Product development is the key to future innovation. However, the main challenge is to develop new products and deliver them to the final consumer in an agile way. Delays and budget can become common problems without an efficient process for managing the different aspects of creating new products.

AMARO already leads in terms of product distribution, from design to sales, with record time above the Brazilian’s fashion company average. Now, the company will synchronize planning, design and development processes. Thanks to Centric’s new product management solution: the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tool.

Point of change: Not a very distant past

Founded in 2012, AMARO is a Brazilian online brand focused on the consumer, which sells the latest fashion trends at attractive prices. Although sales are mainly through the company’s website and mobile applications, AMARO has fifteen physical stores — called Guide Shops — all over Brazil, where customers can sample clothing and make online orders that are delivered from a central stock. Every week, AMARO launches new products in order to provide a constant, high-quality flow of the latest fashion trends for its demanding digital audience.

“We’re still a startup in some ways, and we double revenue and sales volume every year. In the beginning, our processes were organized into Excel and Google spreadsheets, but these documents were fragmented and not optimized for our growing business. Our teams organize information and work in different ways. We got to a point where we needed a single source of information and a common workflow across the enterprise. We needed a solution to consolidate and make information transparent in order to create consistent processes for all users. “- Lodovico Brioschi, COO, CFO and co-founder of AMARO.

Product Lifecycle… What is it?

The product lifecycle includes a series of stages through which every product goes from conception to retirement. It begins with the introduction stage where ideation, conceptualization, design, and testing occur. Some of the key players in this phase include product teams, operations managers, and executives who set technical and financial milestones, determine the features, functionality and product opportunities available in the marketplace.

Before a product moves to the next lifecycle, companies evaluate whether production and quality details have been executed according to specifications and whether more development cycles are needed. The product introductory stage can be expensive and time-consuming, but planning and understanding best practices can keep initial costs and time to market as low as possible.

Getting a product out of the introductory stage can be a complicated process. The next phases of the product lifecycle, though different, are equally complex, with each stage requiring a unique set of strategic planning and coordination.

The stages of the product life cycle can be divided into four defined high-level parts that companies manage to ensure growth:

1. Introduction: This includes market analysis, research, and development, as well as competitive analysis.

2. Scale: The product was launched in the market and is now starting to generate revenue. A decision is made to scale it or not.

3. Maturity: Innovative product companies establish a competitive advantage to maintain and further increase their market share.

4. Scale Down: Product saturation, commoditization, and declining sales force companies to re-examine their production volume and perhaps reap their solution by spending as little as possible and not having more investments in new launches.

What is a PLM software?

PLM software is a digital solution that automates the administrative processes that accompany product development, freeing up teams to focus on innovation. While product lifecycle management can be done using manual processes, with many small to mid-size companies choosing Excel, once the company begins to grow and scale, it quickly sees the need to systematize and automate these processes using PLM softwares. That is important to deal with its overseas suppliers with real-time accuracy. The use of centralized product lifecycle management softwares keep all parties informed of all design and manufacturing details of the products, including the BOM, the suppliers of each part, and the relevant compliance records.

Context, objectives, and challenges

We are growing very fast and the whole company is evolving in an organic way. We knew that a PLM system would help to centralize and organize information that currently exists in different departments and files. We wanted to minimize the risk of losing information due to misunderstandings and make it easier for people to get the information they need.

We are constantly researching and testing new solutions that can support the growth of our business. For this to happen, our employees must be able to do consistent analysis and deliver assertive results, gathering all sorts of information and measuring all of it in one place.

Before the implementation of Centric Software, we had an unstructured process. Since we launch dozens of new products every week, managing it all and its related data is definitely not easy, especially because it is managed by different departments.

Purchasing a PLM solution has become inevitable. It would take years to develop a tool like PLM at home. We have called on technology experts to propose solutions, but also to challenge our ways of working to enable us to better face the future. PLM will allow our buyers and category managers to make better decisions faster, have a single overview of the entire collection, and finally have a planning tool to market all products at the right time, which can be challenging, since our products have different development cycles.

We can point out the following challenges:

• The different sources of information about the unique systems meant that the data could not be easily shared between the groups and led to a high cost of ownership.
• Some legacy technologies made it difficult for factories to collaborate and share information about the product.
• No single material management repository results in data integrity and duplication issues.

Speeding up product development

To optimize our way of working and seizing new market growth opportunities, the company chose Centric 8 PLM. In today’s fashion goods market, agile development is essential, so it was imperative for us to accelerate our projects, creations and development processes.

To achieve a new vision of market expansion, AMARO embarked in a rigorous technology selection process to ensure that the brand found the best possible tool.

Today, innovative technologies like Centric Software PLM are vital tools for the growth of small-to-business companies. These solutions allow us to create products faster, adapt product offerings to different markets, and at the same time eliminate delays in the development of individual products. We chose Centric PLM based on its usability and flexibility and also because it is the PLM solution that best fits the fashion industry.

Driven by market demand for new styles, the time between product design and selling is shrinking. Digital transformation has become essential for companies wishing to remain competitive. By choosing Centric software, AMARO has identified opportunities to optimize its growth and reduce launch time for new products, making it possible to offer our customers new products and new colors at any time.

Tool acquisition opportunities:

• Reduce time to market.
• Speed up the creation and development of products.
• Create a comprehensive and global view of collections.
• Have a global view of our suppliers.

A new chapter for product development at AMARO

After six months of development and testing, detailing workflow processes and identifying entities for tool configuration, we have built a solid foundation for launching the first version of the system in partnership with our Products Head Anay Zaffalon and her entire team.

After the deployment, the system was able to offer the minimum requirements to support the product team, such as creating materials, analysis, and quotations of raw materials, the design of themes, the creation of products and data integration with an ERP system. And finally, definition and implementation for the next steps. The customization phase.

Just as the product lifecycle has its journey, after the deployment the real deal starts. The system starts to grow, new requests for customization keep coming, as well as, new opportunities for improvements. This is the product lifecycle management meaning, keep creating valuable solutions for everyone in the company.