26 August, 2024

IRO Builds Robust Data Foundation with Centric PLM and Accelerates Collection Development

High-end French fashion brand deploys Centric Software’s PLM in record time

CAMPBELL, Calif., August 27, 2024 – Centric Software® is pleased to announce that IRO has successfully deployed Centric PLM™ in alignment with its plans for future expansion. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Founded in Paris in 2005, IRO offers women and men strong pieces with carefully selected materials and cuts, combining inspiration from the streets of New York, Paris and Tokyo. The brand started out as a private label, but quickly won over women in the world’s biggest cities growing to 100 boutiques and 600 points of sale around the globe today.

The adoption of a PLM solution addresses IRO’s rapid growth and consolidation strategy. “With faster collection cycles and shorter development times, we had to be able to monitor our collections from start to finish but didn’t have any tools to track our materials, lead times or suppliers,” recalls Delphine Delente, PLM Project Manager and Studio Manager at IRO. “Many operations were carried out by hand, and we worked with spreadsheets as well as a lot of paper documents.”

The project was completed in just nine months, negating the need to work in two separate systems. The fall collection is on a single platform: Centric PLM. The initial phase focuses on clothing/textiles and will soon expand to accessories.

Within the first few weeks IRO noticed significant improvements: information from the collection development team, whose major contributions come very early in the design and development process, was much more accurate. “This has enabled us to speed up collection development,” notes Delente.

“By entering and sharing accurate information in real time, we can avoid numerous omissions and errors that could have an impact on the rest of the product development process. In an industry where time is of the essence, this is an invaluable asset,” adds Julien Roques, IRO’s Information Systems Director.

“The accuracy of our costing also helps to streamline production,” comments Delente. “We are now planning to optimize margin calculations as well, to get price estimates as early as the collection development phase, without having to systematically call on our production manager. At the end of the collection, the production team no longer has to re-enter all the data into the ERP system.”

Lastly, thanks to Centric PLM, IRO is able to speed up time-to-market. “This advance planning saves us a lot of money. We don’t have to rush to contact our Paris studios to finalize sample assembly because of delays in fabric supply. In the past, we weren’t able to avoid this type of incident and it cost the business tens of thousands of euros,” she explains, before concluding, “In terms of data, Centric PLM has really become the master at IRO.”

Today, even those employees who were the most attached to traditional methods are happy to easily access more information. By appointing dedicated business leaders involved at every stage of the project alongside the technical and IT teams, decisively contributed to the successful adoption of the solution. “Personally, I wouldn’t be able to run the studio without PLM!” laughs Delente.

“We are 200% satisfied with the Centric teams; they have been very responsive, attentive to our needs and efficient,” she concludes. “Without hesitation, I would recommend Centric and if I were to change companies, I would make sure they used Centric PLM!”

“IRO is an iconic design-driven brand and we are delighted to partner with them for their growth trajectory,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “This successful deployment is the first step in a long-term collaboration. We look forward to supporting IRO as they reach new heights in the global fashion stage.”

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IRO (www.iroparis.com) Combining a touch of vintage rock from the 70s and 80s, Parisian elegance and Japanese culture, IRO is inspired by street girls to offer a simple but strong clothing range. The name, IRO, is an anagram of the word “king”, and means “color” in Japanese. A true multinational, the chic brand seeks to entice everyday girls, not just the ones who appear in magazines. Through an eclectic, advanced and modern collection, IRO wants to highlight women and bring out their confident, independent and cool character at the same time. IRO dares unique and refined trends by mixing colors, materials, cuts and seasons. The collections are audacious, like the women for whom these outfits are intended. Women who display unparalleled confidence, know what they want and assert themselves without fear. Since 2010, the famous ready-to-wear brand has diversified its offer by adding a men’s collection as well as a range of accessories. A successful iconic brand, IRO has won the hearts of many celebrities such as Kate Moss, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore and Gwyneth Paltrow.