5 Reasons footwear brands need product lifecycle management
Product lifecycle management or PLM for short is a philosophy within product management that advocates for following the process of product development and delivery from the moment of the conception of a product to its distribution. The goal of employing PLM in business is to make all information about a product more easily and readily available in real-time and make communication between different departments and teams easier as well as improve business processes and make them more efficient. All these goals sound great and that’s precisely why footwear brands need product lifecycle management just like so many other businesses in all sorts of different industries. But before you start working with Frontech Solutions EU, you may want to know what exactly your brand can gain from using PLM.
Reason 1: Footwear brands need product lifecycle management to increase the speed-to-market
Innovation and speed are pretty much required in every industry in this day and age. Competition is fierce out there. Whatever you do, whatever product you make, whatever service you offer, you are almost certainly not the only one. So if you want to get anywhere, you need to be better and faster than everyone else. Nowhere is this need for speed more clear than in fashion. When you own a fashion brand, getting something new on the market first is crucial.
This is one of the main reasons why footwear brands need product lifecycle management. If you want to get your brand new, trend-setting footwear on the market as soon as possible, then PLM solutions for footwear and apparel are a great tool to achieve that. With PLM software, you can develop products and get them onto the market faster. It will provide a virtual space for your development teams to work together, making their collaboration easier and more efficient.
In addition to that, it will also reveal any unnecessary or repetitive processes by keeping all the information about them in one place. By cutting such processes, you can significantly increase your speed-to-market.
Reason 2: Keeping track of the different products and variants is easier with PLM
One of the main benefits of using PLM software is the fact that it keeps all your information in one place. This might not seem like a big deal if you own a young and small business. But hopefully, people will like your footwear. This will lead your brand to grow. As your business grows, so will your catalog. You’ll need to keep track of the models you had last year, those you have sold out, those you might put on your next sale, those you’re putting out this season, those that are still in development…
Not to mention, some of your designs will have different variations. You might produce a certain pair of sneakers in different color combinations or the same pair of shoes may come in different materials. Eventually, it will become difficult to keep all those variations in mind.
PLM software will accumulate these data for you. You won’t have to worry about all your SKUs getting scattered over different platforms or going missing. This is why so many footwear brands turn to PLM as they grow.
Reason 3: Footwear brands need product lifecycle management to stay compliant with regulations
Fashion is a creative expression, right? And there are no rules in creativity! That might sound logical, but it’s not quite how the fashion industry works. In fact, there are quite a few rules and regulations on fashion and footwear! These are especially relevant if you’re producing footwear for sports, protection or certain professions, for example. In such cases, you will have to obey strict rules in order to ensure the safety of your users. But even if your brand deals exclusively with fashionable footwear, there are some things to keep in mind. The comfort of your products or the quality of them should be on your mind. Otherwise, your customers may be dissatisfied with you and you will lose business.
But do you know all the regulations that are relevant to the kind of footwear you produce? Well, with PLM software, you don’t have to! You can have a complete and current overview of the rules easily. And with all the data on your own products easily accessible in the same software, you can simply compare the information and track your compliance. Many footwear brands use PLM this way.
Reason 4: Make sure everyone involved is on the same page with PLM
One of the reasons why so many footwear brands need product lifecycle management is to connect different departments and teams, ensure they all have access to the same information and can easily communicate and coordinate with each other. This is at the very base of PLM as an idea.
Product lifecycle management solutions in all industries from industrial manufacturing PLM to PLM system for service industry are focused on keeping track of the product throughout its existence and in doing so easing the process of getting that product from an idea in the mind of a designer to the hands of the consumer. This can be very useful in footwear production. All your designers and developers will share their ideas. Your production will know exactly how to make their ideas a reality. And your delivery team will know when and where to take the products.
Reason 5: Footwear brands need product lifecycle management to follow the processes in real-time
Finally, one of the reasons why footwear brands need product lifecycle management and one of the benefits of PLM software is the fact that you can keep track of things as they happen in real-time. It’s easy to see how relevant this is in PLM solutions for transportation – knowing where all your picks ups, deliveries and vehicles are at all times is crucial. But this can be useful for footwear and fashion as well. Being able to always check on how far along your new collection is or how distribution to stores is going will help you easily keep an eye on what is happening and what you still need to do even though there are tons of different departments and processes happening simultaneously. This will also help you identify places where you can improve your business processes. All this works together to make delivering good footwear efficiently easier.