SOURCE: Aberdeen Group
February 07, 2008 10:00 ET
Best-in-Class Fashion, Apparel, and Footwear Companies Leveraging PLM
Companies With Established PLM Implementations Improving Sell-Through, Increasing Sales, and Reducing Discounts
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
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analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
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context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
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© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
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