Customer Talks: Gymshark on Streamlining Data & #HowTechHelps

Do your teams find tracking the product creation process extremely laborious and time-consuming? Are outdated documents and long email trails causing critical delays and errors within your product development?

You are not alone!

Innovative UK-based sportswear giant Gymshark experienced these problems too. But, since implementing PLM remotely last year during a national lockdown, the company has increased its productivity and streamlined data within one source of truth, reaping the rewards of increased visibility, efficiency and accuracy.

We spoke to Justine McCarthy, Development Director at Gymshark, and Annalisa Savio, Gymshark’s Head of Development and PLM Primary Superuser, to see #HowTechHelps the fitness apparel leader overcome key business challenges, and why PLM is a lifesaver for businesses looking to shape up the way they process and share product-related data.

“One of the strongest points of Gymshark and all the businesses that are actually striving and succeeding during the COVID-19 pandemic is to be a data-led company,” says Annalisa, when asked how Gymshark has kept up with consumer demands over the past year.

“The pandemic made us open our eyes and realize if ever this was to happen again, we need to be ‘de-risking’ our business, and making sure we are able to react to anything that’s thrown at us,” adds Justine. “Our PLM system will certainly aid that ability for us to work in a much more agile way if we need to turn things around quicker, or if we need to take different decisions on product or supply chains…the system will actually enable us to do that in a much quicker way.”

Named the UK’s fastest-growing company 2016 in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100, Gymshark’s product team scaled up massively from 44 to 125 people across the UK, Hong Kong and Mauritius in just two years. Not surprisingly, the company began to struggle with managing complex product data.

Following the adoption of Centric Software®’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Gymshark’s product development is much more efficient, with clear information in an organised system that is easy to use for both experienced and less experienced product developers. Juniors can easily learn each step of the process by following PLM, and seniors are able to provide feedback to improve the process even further.

“In this early stage, we are seeing huge benefits in our Materials process, with an estimated 30% increase in productivity. Admin and communication between teams is seamless, and human error has been greatly reduced. We are able to create more accurate Tech Packs, in a much more efficient way,” says Justine.