Reap Bottom Line Rewards with Game-changing, Digital Collaboration Tools

In one study, 80% of senior executives agreed that collaboration is essential for revenue growth, but only 25% described their organizations as ‘effective’ in sharing information across boundaries. Collaboration doesn’t just happen. It needs to be facilitated and nurtured.But when it happens, the benefits are enormous. According to one study, social collaboration technology can improve productivity related to information-gathering and communication by up to 35% and can raise overall productivity by up to 25%.

Choosing the right solution can be a challenge.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of using single-function solutions and ending up with a lot of disparate systems and messaging mediums. If your teams are simultaneously sending attachments in emails, participating in discussions on Slack and sharing documents in Dropbox, things will inevitably get missed.

Many fashion, retail and consumer goods companies are turning towards all-encompassing, integrated enterprise solutions that can handle all of the communication and collaborative work involved in product design, development and launch in a single digital space, such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions.

Centric PLM™ solutions provide the backbone for product-related processes from concept to retail. By providing the most up-to-date information in real time, PLM solutions eliminate version control errors and provide a ‘single source of the truth’. Because it contains all product-related data, tracks changes made to that data and empowers interactive communication that is visually linked to the product it refers to in real time, PLM is the ultimate collaborative tool, replacing the mix of emails, Excel spreadsheets, PDF attachments and instant messaging that many companies still rely on.

However, for a lot of fashion, retail and consumer goods companies, some processes still take place outside traditional PLM solutions such as the earliest phases of design concept planning and ideation to regional, internal buying sessions from the global collection.

Fortunately, the borders of PLM technology continue to expand. Innovative, game-changing, collaboration tools such as Centric’s Visual Innovation Platform (Centric VIP) that can pull and push data to and from any PLM or PDM systems empower companies to better collaborate, combine expertise and speed group decision-making.

By replacing processes that traditionally depend on paper and physical boards or combinations of Excel sheets and digital images, Centric VIP moves decisions to a fully digitalized, visual experience. Take the pre-PLM process of design ideation. Whether you design and manufacture in-house, use suppliers to create products to your specifications or source finished products, there is likely to be some form of planning meeting where creative team members – artistic directors, designers, product developers, merchandisers and buyers – come together to define early plans and concepts for the latest collection.

 Replacing the physical, paper-based documents created during meetings with digital collaborative touchscreen boards that everyone can contribute to in real time transforms the process of group decision-making. Team members can use master data from Centric PLM or other systems to begin building collections, keeping and discarding ideas, making notes, adding images with a simple drag and drop and taking actionable decisions immediately.

Digital collaborative touchscreen boards can be extremely useful for merchandisers and buyers to increases sales opportunities and improve sell-through for wholesale, retail and e-commerce channels.

Replacing complex systems of comparing and combining Excel sheets, images and PDFs that are time-consuming and generate data errors and version control issues, Centric VIP Digital Buying Board provides unparalleled transparency and real-time visibility in an easy to use space – on a tablet or a web browser – that can automatically roll up buying information and requirements for multiple channels.

By giving greater control to buyers and sales for product allocation by channel, region, wholesaler, store etc., not only do you increase the chances of a successful sell-through and a reduced risk of mark-downs but also pre-buy commitments are rolled up to proactively manage Minimum Order Quantities (MOQ), plan pre-production earlier and eventually better negotiate with suppliers.

Centric VIP is digitally-connected, visual touchscreen boards that are an exciting development in optimizing group decision-making and collaboration beyond the traditional boundaries of PLM or a meeting room or email. Ultimately, fashion, retail and consumer goods companies need to implement digital collaboration tools strategically to be sure that the technology is flexible enough to mirror your particular way of working and brand DNA.