January 14th, 2019

Varner drives global business strategy with Centric PLM

CAMPBELL, Calif., January 15, 2019 – Centric Software is delighted to announce the release of a success story about its customer, Varner.

Founded in 1962 in Oslo, Varner is one of Scandinavia’s leading retail textile companies. Varner acquired several apparel companies over the decades and now owns 10 different concepts: Bik Bok, Carlings, Cubus, Days Like This, Dressmann, Urban, Vivikes, Volt, Wow, Levi’s Stores Scandinavia and Nike Stores Scandinavia. Focused on producing affordable styles, Varner now have 12,000 employees, 1500 stores and over 220 suppliers that cover 500 factories in 16 different countries.

Very aware of their rapid growth and the addition of new concepts, Varner wanted to relieve the pressure on existing IT systems and keep up with future retail trends. They also needed to meet consumer demands across all concepts for high-quality and affordable products, at lightening speeds.

“We’ve had huge success in the last ten to fifteen years and the pressure was on for us to keep reinventing ourselves. We knew that in the next three to four years a lot more business would be moving to online retail,” explains Olav Fyldeng, Head of Business Applications at Varner. “With that, consumers are becoming increasingly demanding, they want affordable, quality products at lightening speeds. We knew we needed to bridge the digitalization gap between IT and the business when it came to product development or we wouldn’t be able to keep up in the race.”

Today, Varner uses Centric Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) across 10 of their concepts to streamline product development and adapt to faster retailing trends. Since implementing Centric PLM, Varner has been able to see a holistic view of all their products which is helping them to shorten lead times with suppliers through better preparation and make profit-making decisions about their product lines. Their first go-live was 30% under time and budget and all concepts have experience fast and enthusiastic user adoption.

Thrilled by the success of Centric PLM so far, Fyldeng explains that the business is already establishing future plans, “Our next step is to add in suppliers shortly. We are driving a total business implementation, not just an IT project and we’re already seeing the benefits of having all of our concepts on one coherent, collaborative system.”

Read the full story here.

About Varner (www.varner.com)

Varner is one of Scandinavia’s leading textile companies, with close to 12000 employees. Our 1500 stores represent us in eight countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Poland, Germany and Austria.

Varner is comprised of the concepts Bik Bok, Carlings, Cubus, Days Like This, Dressmann, Urban, Vivikes, Volt, Wow, Levi’s Store, and Nike Store.

Frank Varner founded the privately owned family business in 1962, which is now owned by the second and third generation and led by Petter, Marius, and Joakim Varner.

About 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 Product Leadership Award in Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM in 2018, 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.