3 December, 2018

Tommy John Finds Comfortable Fit with Centric PLM

CAMPBELL, Calif., December 4, 2018 – Tommy John, the comfort-focused lifestyle brand known for its innovative range of men’s and women’s underwear and apparel, has successfully gone live with Centric Software’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Tommy John was founded in 2008 by Tom Patterson, a former medical device salesman. Frustrated by the discomfort of wearing traditional men’s underwear, socks and undershirts in his life on the road, he set out to redesign men’s base layers from scratch with a focus on fabric, fit and function. ‘No Adjustment Needed’ is Tommy John’s slogan, reflecting the brand’s commitment to comfort. Tommy John has now expanded its product offering to include women’s underwear and apparel, and sells in over 1000 points of wholesale distribution across the USA, as well as online at tommyjohn.com. The company opened its first branded store at King of Prussia Mall in suburban Philadelphia in 2017, and recently added a second store at SouthPark Mall in Charlotte, North Carolina, with several more stores planned for 2019 and beyond.

Stephanie Schulz, Business Analyst at Tommy John, explains that the company’s rapid growth and desire to expand into new products led them to invest in a new PLM solution.

“Tommy John is ten years old, but in some ways it still feels like a startup, as we have had such high levels of growth and success in the last five years,” says Schulz. “We’ve recently launched our women’s division, and we’re expanding into new categories such as lifestyle, loungewear and athleisure. Using our old combination ERP and PLM system, data had to be exported and managed offline in spreadsheets and emails, which caused issues with data consistency and visibility. It took our teams a long time to update tech packs and make changes on the fly. We needed a solution that could scale with us, matching our growing numbers of teams and products in development.”

Tommy John investigated several PLM solutions, but references from Centric customers swung the balance toward Centric PLM.

“Our consultant had experience with Centric PLM and helped to guide our decision,” says Schulz. “We looked at Centric’s client list and saw how many large, reputable brands use it, and we set up calls with other companies who had recently implemented Centric PLM. Throughout the vendor selection process, the Centric team was very dedicated in terms of walking us through demos and answering all of our questions. On a functional level, we were impressed by Centric’s agility, configurability and welcoming user interface. It’s refreshing compared to the archaic systems we were dealing with before. It’s also very flexible, and we need a system that supports our business processes rather than slowing us down.”

Tommy John implemented Centric PLM in a little over seven months, and went live on the system in May 2018.

As Schulz notes, “The big win is that all of our users have visibility. They’re all connected to one version of the truth within the system. It’s transforming the way we develop styles and create tech packs, as information that was previously offline is now instantly accessible in Centric PLM. Mass functionality is very important, saving our teams time and allowing us to work together at a much faster pace. We’re also excited about the new features that Centric adds on all the time with new service packs and upgrades.”

“The Centric team have been so helpful throughout the implementation and great at coming up with solutions to map the system to the way we work,” concludes Schulz. “We really like the creative and proactive responses from the Centric team, who are always looking to grow and innovate. It’s something Tommy John and Centric have in common.”

“We are proud to have Tommy John as part of the Centric family, and happy to hear that Tommy John is already saving time and working more efficiently with Centric PLM,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “Tommy John is an innovative and dynamic brand with a commitment to making premium products and we are very excited to partner with them as they continue to grow.”

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Tommy John (www.tommyjohn.com)

Tommy John is a comfort-focused lifestyle brand committed to addressing the real problems men and women have with their clothing. Each product contains proprietary fabrics, innovative fit and functionality that eliminate unnecessary adjustments, discomfort, untucking and bunching. Tommy John launched in 2008 with the world’s first patented undershirt with a stay-tucked guarantee, and has since expanded into underwear, socks, loungewear and apparel. Tommy John products can currently be found at over 1000 retail locations including Nordstrom, Men’s Wearhouse, Dillard’s, Bloomingdale’s, the Tommy John stores at King of Prussia Mall in suburban Philadelphia and SouthPark Mall in Charlotte, North Carolina and online at www.tommyjohn.com.

Centric Software (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software provides a Digital Transformation Platform for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (VIP) is a visual, fully digital collection of boards for touch-based devices like iPad, iPhone and large-scale, touch-screen televisions. Centric VIP transforms decision making and automates execution to truly collapse time to market and distance to trend. Centric’s flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality, and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended PLM including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses.

Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM in 2016 and Frost & Sullivan’s Global Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015, and 2016.

Centric is a registered trademark of Centric Software. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.