March 17th, 2025

Barker & Stonehouse Selects Centric Software to Accelerate Time to Market and Empower Supply Chain Visibility

Leading UK Fine Furniture and Accessories Retailer Selects Centric PLM to Strengthen Sustainability, Supplier Compliance and Operational Efficiency

CAMPBELL, Calif., March 18, 2025 – Centric Software® is pleased to announce that Barker & Stonehouse has chosen Centric PLM™ to drive streamlined operations and bolster supply chain transparency. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Founded in 1946, Barker & Stonehouse operates 14 stores across the UK, specializing in high-quality furniture and home accessories. Renowned for exceptional customer service and durable products, the company, founded by Charles Barker and Alex Stonehouse, generates an annual turnover exceeding £100M GBP.

As a result of its rapid national growth, the company has encountered growing pains and faced challenges with siloed data across spreadsheets, lengthy lead times and disjointed workflows that hinder collaboration and visibility across the product lifecycle. In 2023, Warren Hampton joined as CTO, tasked with driving digital transformation to overcome these challenges.

“We need a solution to simplify our processes, speed up our go-to-market strategy and integrate our teams seamlessly,” shares Warren. “After hearing about the issues our buying and merchandising teams are facing, I realized ‘I’ve been down this route before.’ Choosing Centric was a no-brainer, I didn’t have to think about anyone else.”

Explaining why Centric Software stood out from the crowd, Warren cites his previous experience with the platform and Centric team.

“We implemented Centric at my former company and I just couldn’t fault it. Everything was on time and under budget and the people there were so happy with it,” enthuses Warren. “So why search again when I already know what works? When you look at a Centric screen, it all makes sense…everyone can use it!”

With Centric PLM, Barker & Stonehouse anticipate significant operational improvements, including enhanced supplier management and better support for inventory and quality control teams.

“Our goal is to streamline the entire product journey and significantly reduce our lead times that can currently stretch up to twelve months for handcrafted items—which is no longer acceptable in today’s market,” explains Warren. “We count on Centric PLM to help us innovate and remain competitive in the industry.”

Another key focus for the company is improving supplier compliance and optimizing sustainable practices to prioritize eco-friendly product development.

“We pride ourselves on our high sustainability standards, but we’re only as good as our factories and warehouses are. With Centric, we can monitor compliance more effectively, introduce more comprehensive auditing processes and gain greater confidence in our CSR achievements.”

Further down the line, the company has plans to integrate Centric PLM with its ERP system and website, creating a unified source of truth for all product data.

“Centralizing product care documents and specifications will simplify operations and improve the quality of our customer support,” notes Warren. “Having accurate, up-to-date information that is easily accessible across all teams will be a game-changer.”

Barker & Stonehouse are optimistic for a successful partnership with Centric

Software and look forward to leveraging the power of PLM to future proof their operations.

“Implementing Centric PLM will be one of our most impactful digitalization projects. The support I’ve received from Centric in the past has been second to none and we’re confident they’ll help us achieve our long-term growth goals.”

“We are thrilled to support Barker & Stonehouse on their digital transformation journey,” says Fabrice Canonge, President of Centric Software. “Our mission is to equip retailers with the tools they need to uphold their commitment to quality and maintain a competitive edge in the market.”

Learn more about Centric Software

Request a demo

Barker & Stonehouse (www.barkerandstonehouse.co.uk)

Barker and Stonehouse is the UK’s largest independent, family-run furniture retailer bringing you the finest in quality, style and value since 1946.

A FAMILY HERITAGE

Britain, 1946. Charles Barker and Alex Stonehouse decided that this drab and dreary ration-book nation needed a little cheering up. To that end they opened the very first Barker & Stonehouse store in Stockton, and began, what has since become, a nationwide network of fine furniture and accessory stores.

BUILT TO LAST

The furniture and accessories we seek out from around the world are made from the very best materials leaving you with a feeling of perfect confidence.

NEVER ENDING CHOICES

Our huge choices of style, colour, texture and pattern gives you the freedom to create

a truly unique interior.

BESPOKE INTERIOR DESIGN SERVICE

In need of inspiration? Our range of carefully selected partner-designers will help transform either one room, or your whole house into a home with ‘wow’ factor.

CARE AND CONSIDERATION

We know that environmental responsibility is something that you really care about. Over the last few years, we have strived to help protect the environment. We hope you agree, by reducing our carbon footprint by 50%, we’ve made a good start.

QUALITY SERVICE FROM STORE TO DOOR

We employ our own in-house highly experienced and efficient delivery team. They’re adept at delivering furniture to homes of all shapes and sizes and can overcome most of the physical challenges of awkward spaces, many stairs and tight accesses, with ease.

Centric Software® (centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-commercialization platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, market, sell and replenish products.

Centric PLM™, the leading PLM solution for fashion, outdoor, footwear and private label, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market.
Centric Planning™ is an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance, including SKU optimization, resulting in an up to 110% increase in margins.
Centric Pricing & Inventory™ leverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion.
Centric Market Intelligence™ is an AI-driven platform delivering insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitivity and get closer to the consumer, with an up to 12% increase in average initial price point.
Centric Visual Boards™ pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time.
Centric PXM™, AI-powered product experience management (PXM) encompasses PIM, DAM, content syndication and digital shelf analytics (DSA) to optimize the product commercialization lifecycle resulting in a transformed brand experience. Increase sales channels, boost sell through and drive margins.

Centric Software’s market-driven solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, appearing regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.