SOURCE: Aberdeen Group

 

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - February 7, 2008) - Aberdeen Group's benchmark report "PLM for the Fashion, Apparel, and Footwear Industries: Enabling Speed and Responsiveness, Delivering Higher Profitability" finds that the fashion, apparel, and footwear industry faces intense pressure from demanding deadlines, constant change orders, and complex global supply chains. To address this, Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), reports that the Best-in-Class apparel and footwear companies are 54% more likely than Industry Average to have an integrated Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementation in place. Manufacturers are using this technology to manage the rapid response times and short product lifecycles that are a reality in the fashion, apparel, and footwear market.

"Apparel and footwear manufacturers with mature PLM implementations are seeing improvements in key performance metrics, including higher sell-through on products and increased percentage of full price sales, in additon to reacting more quickly to customer preference changes and minimizing the number of chargebacks due to quality issues," says Jim Brown, VP of Product Innovation & Engineering Research. "Of apparel companies that have had PLM implementations for longer than one year, 65% are seeing YOY revenue growth."

Aberdeen's analysis identifies four themes underlying the capabilities and enablers that Best-in-Class fashion companies are using, including; centralized data, collaborative design, visibility across the supply chain, and integration of product data with business processes, development calendars and project timelines.

The report makes the following recommendations:

--  Implement PLM to centrally and securely manage data
    
--  Develop collaboration capabilities to allow members of the dispersed
    apparel supply chain to share information
    
--  Integrate workflow and business processes with product information
    
--  Automate and integrate project status and timelines, including status
    alerts, making the full context of the timeline and status visible
    
--  Expand visibility to product data, processes, vendor performance and
    schedules
    

The report is made available through the underwriting of Siemens, Centric Software and WWA. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4577.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com