November 10th, 2021

ECCO Chooses Centric PLM for Merchandise-Driven Transformation

Global premium shoes and leather goods brand transitions to Centric PLM to digitally transform merchandising strategy from initial line plan proposal through sales commitments.

CAMPBELL, Calif., November 11, 2021 — Premium shoes and leather goods brand ECCO has chosen Centric Software^®‘s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform to transform their organization from production-oriented to merchandise-driven. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source and sell products such as apparel, footwear, sporting goods, furniture, home décor, cosmetics, food & beverage, and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

ECCO’s first production facility was founded in Bredebro, Denmark, in 1963. Today, ECCO factories are operated in 6 locations across the globe, delivering millions of premium quality shoes to their customers. ECCO also owns and operates four of their own tanneries, which deliver leather not only for ECCO shoes and accessories, but also to some of the world’s iconic luxury brands.

ECCO owns and manages practically every aspect of their value chain, from tanneries and shoe manufacturing, to wholesale and retail activities. ECCO’s products are sold in 89 countries from over 2,180 ECCO shops and more than 14,000 sales points.

Before switching to Centric PLM, ECCO was using multiple Excel spreadsheets, which led to a saturated system landscape rife with offline documents that were not maintained in any centralized online repository. They knew that they needed to adopt a new operating model to meet their ultimate goal: become a leading merchandise-driven brand. That means being able to offer the right product, at the right price, with the right content, through the right channel, in order to better serve their customers.

“Centric’s PLM solution was truly in line with our merchandise strategy,” says Torben Nørgaard, Head of Business Transformation & Strategy at ECCO. “That is to say, to align collection development with financial planning by giving designers, product developers and buyers a real-time view of planned collections, target margins and actual margins that change in response to decisions we make.”

Best practices were critically important for ECCO in their evaluation of PLM vendors, since they had a lot of in-house practices but were new to the direct-to-consumer market. Their hope is to learn from Centric Software’s best practices and expertise in serving the fashion, retail and footwear industries.

Nørgaard continues, “Innovation is a cornerstone in ECCO. We are constantly seeking to disrupt and provide improvements for the footwear and leather industry. We see our partnership with Centric as a two-way relationship, one in which we can learn from each other, constantly challenging and inspiring one another, and helping us to drive innovation together.”

“We hope to improve our sell through rates and capture COGS savings opportunities by digitally transforming the process of planning assortments and creating, sourcing and launching products,” adds Nørgaard, “as well as connecting product development with buyers, merchandisers and sales teams. We can plan for better hit rates, engage stakeholders early in the merchandise and range planning process and drive digital samples as the primary collaboration element.”

“As a company, we can also better meet our financial objectives by connecting costing with early product decisions. Among other benefits, we can get rid of unnecessary combinations of articles and achieve better sales transparency,” Nørgaard concludes.

ECCO’s implementation of Centric PLM will be extended across Denmark, the U.S., Asia, and Europe, as part of the global digital journey the company is currently embarking on. The platform’s user-friendly and intuitive interface will help ECCO to connect the entire product development process, from ideas and digital sampling, all the way to end consumers.

“We continue to see that our innovation partners are finding incredibly unique and new ways to leverage our solutions to support their digital transformation strategy,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “The team and the brand are a great fit for Centric and we share many of the same values, including a focus on product and innovation.”

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ECCO (group.ecco.com)

Since ECCO started its first production facility in Bredebro, Denmark, in 1963, ECCO has expanded steadily. Today, ECCO factories are operated in 6 locations across the globe, delivering millions of premium quality shoes to our customers.

Unique to our industry, ECCO also owns and operates their own tanneries. ECCO’s four tanneries deliver leather not only to ECCO shoes and accessories, but to some of the world’s iconic luxury brands.

ECCO owns and manages practically every aspect of the value chain from tanneries and shoe manufacturing to wholesale and retail activities. ECCO’s products are sold in 89 countries from over 2,180 ECCO shops and more than 14,000 sales points.

Centric Software (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software^® provides a Product Concept to Replenishment Digital Transformation Platform for fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods including cosmetics, beauty and food and beverage. Centric’s flagship Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform, Centric PLM^TM, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, quality and product portfolio optimization innovations specifically for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB focuses on core tools and industry best practices for emerging brands. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (CVIP) offers highly visual digital board experiences for collaboration and decision-making. Centric Software pioneered mobility, introducing the first mobile apps for PLM, and is widely known for connectivity to dozens of other enterprise systems including ERP, DAM, PIM, e-com, planning and more as well as creative tools such as Adobe^® Illustrator and a host of 3D CAD connectors. Centric’s innovations are 100% market-driven with the highest user adoption rate and fastest time to value in the industry. All Centric innovations shorten time to market, boost product innovation and reduce costs.

Centric Software is majority-owned by Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions.

Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, including being named by Red Herring to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Centric also received various excellence awards from Frost & Sullivan in 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2021.

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