5 Strategies to Fast-Track Retail Time-to-Market with Agile Cross-Team Collaboration

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It’s well known that faster time-to-market is a critical competitive advantage for retail, consumer goods and fashion brands. With accelerated speed to market, companies meet customer trends as they rise and peak — rather than on the tail end when profitability falls short.

Companies of any size relying on manual workflows and outdated methods for product development, production and supply chain management face the challenge of keeping up with fast-changing consumer demand. As companies scale, expand their stock-keeping units (SKUs) and try to accelerate, these problems compound further.

Email threads are too cumbersome and key product details easily get lost in long exchanges. Spreadsheet versions are unwieldy, prone to data errors and can’t connect internal and external data fast enough to capture actionable insights. Siloed teams make aligned decision-making, collaboration and approvals much slower.

Visual, Integrated Product Development Solutions Overcome These Hurdles

Research by McKinsey & Company found that integrated digital solutions for merchandising alone could result in up to 50% faster time-to-market, an 8% increase in full-price sell-through and 20% lower manufacturing costs.

Integrating innovative tools like Centric PLM™ and Centric Visual Boards™ across all product development teams and processes accelerates time-to-market. Here’s a closer look at how modern solutions empower teams at every step:

1. Reduce Supply Chain Bottlenecks

Supply chain issues are one of the most significant contributors to lengthened product timelines. With supply chain tracking in modern product lifecycle management (PLM), teams access real-time updates and alerts on inventory levels, shipping statuses and production progress.

With these insights, teams proactively manage potential delays, pinpoint alternative supplier options and adjust production priorities if necessary. By spotting and problem-solving issues early, production flow is less interrupted by supply chain snags and products get to market faster.

2. Close Communication Gaps and Eliminate Team Silos

Disconnected teams that can’t access real-time data on products inevitably experience a slowed communication process or miscommunications. Modern digital tools like Centric Visual Boards provide a shared visual workspace where team members across departments (from planning to design to production to merchandising) collaborate and problem-solve without the inefficiencies common in emails and spreadsheets.

With unified data on a centralized platform, everyone works with the same up-to-date information. Key stakeholders across teams review designs, provide feedback and approve decisions in a single interface, speeding up every step of the process.

3. Navigate Demand Uncertainty

Predicting consumer demand in the highly changeable retail, fashion and consumer goods markets is a complex process requiring data visibility across internal and external sources. Advanced analytics and forecasting tools in Centric PLM analyze data and connect dots that would be hard to spot on a spreadsheet. Teams make data-driven decisions based on historical trends, real-time market insights and predictive models.

As an example, data may pinpoint a newly trending green colorway. With real-time trend data, planning, design, merchandising and production teams collaborate to source material and adjust production volumes of products featuring this color. This level of accurate insights reduces overproduction, improves sell-through rates and gets the right products to market when they’re most in demand.

4. Accelerate Approvals and Streamline Workflows with Automation

Manual approvals are a significant bottleneck in product development workflows. With Centric PLM, the product approval process is secure and automated, including:

Sample approvals
Compliance checks
Sustainability tracking
Product specifications

With automated workflows, teams ensure critical tasks are completed faster and with fewer errors. For example, a product designer can submit a sample for review and the system automatically routes it to the appropriate stakeholders for approval, tracking progress and sending reminders when action is needed.

This streamlined process reduces the time spent on administrative tasks, allowing teams to focus on creative and strategic efforts that drive product success.

5. Visualize How Your Collections Align with Trends

Keep a constant pulse on emerging trends with tools that enable teams to visualize entire collections and see how they align—or misalign—with current consumer preferences. Centric PLM users mix and match designs, colors and materials in a virtual environment to see how collections fit into broader trends.

With this depth of visibility and agility, spotting misalignments in collections or product lines is simpler and corrections are made much more quickly. Centric Visual Boards connects strategy and creativity, driving informed decisions that balance innovation with market appeal and timing.

Ready to Explore Cross-Team Collaboration that Accelerates Decision-Making?

In our new eBook, we dive deeper and share actionable strategies and insights to accelerate time-to-market, transform product development and meet consumer demand with agility, ensuring brands achieve target growth.

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