September 17th, 2024

Mizuno Boosts Market Agility with Centric Partnership

Mizuno selects Centric PLM to supercharge its product development processes

CAMPBELL, Calif., September 18, 2024 – Centric Software® is proud to announce that Mizuno Corporation has selected Centric PLM™ to drive growth and enhance market responsiveness. 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, footwear, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Founded in 1906 in Osaka, Japan, Mizuno Corporation is a global leader in sports equipment, apparel and footwear. Combining cutting-edge technology with traditional craftsmanship, Mizuno produces high-quality products for athletes of all levels. In 2022, Mizuno opened its innovation center in Osaka to strengthen its R&D capabilities and accelerate social innovation through sports. Mizuno has two head offices and flagship stores, located in Osaka and Tokyo. The company also sells through its website, multiple retailers and to corporate uniform companies, as well as professional and amateur sports teams.

As part of Mizuno’s growth plans and its aim to be at the forefront of the dynamic industry, the company made a strategic decision to adopt a PLM solution to streamline operations and speed up product development. Ryohei Nakata, Project Lead, Global Apparel Product at Mizuno explains, “With the need to quickly adapt to emerging trends and the goal of continued global expansion, now is the right time to streamline all moving parts—from product development, procurement and quality control—into a unified platform to enable efficiency.”

After analyzing the market, Mizuno selected Centric Software’s flagship Centric PLM solution. “Centric’s extensive knowledge in the sports and apparel industry, as well as their global customer base, were critical factors in our decision to adopt Centric PLM. Centric PLM will provide us the level of visibility and control over the entire product development process that will enable us for future growth, “ adds Nakata.

Centric PLM’s configurable, modular platform will provide Mizuno with key functions that cover line planning, product specification, materials management, calendar management, product sourcing, process management and quality control. Mizuno teams will benefit from real-time product data to boost collaboration, stay agile and make strategic decisions faster.

Nakata states, “We are confident that reducing admin time and improving productivity across teams by removing bottlenecks, streamlining workflows and automating tasks will significantly benefit us. Mizuno has always been committed to delivering high-quality, innovative and on-trend products, and Centric PLM will be pivotal in ensuring we continue to achieve this.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Mizuno to empower them in developing high-quality, market-responsive products,” says Fabrice Canonge, President of Centric Software. “Centric PLM will enable them to grow sustainably and continue to be pioneers for innovation in the sporting apparel and goods industry.”

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Mizuno Corporation (https://corp.mizuno.com/en)

Since its foundation in 1906, Mizuno Corporation has developed products and services and utilized the value of sports under the management principle that “we will contribute to society through the advancement of sporting goods and the promotion of sports”.

We will actively spread the value of sports even in everyday life and contribute to making people around the world happy through the power of sports.

Centric Software® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, 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 giving insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitively 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 Software’s market-driven, best-of-breed 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.