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How to Orchestrate PLM and Planning for Maximum Value
Many brands still treat product lifecycle management (PLM), planning and inventory as separate functions. Product development lives in one system; planning happens in spreadsheets and inventory workflows operate elsewhere. This fragmentation slows decision making, limits visibility and makes it harder for teams to respond to market shifts.
So, what happens once product development is complete? How aligned is the go-to-market strategy? And if teams are still relying on spreadsheets to make critical decisions, why does this remain the default?
Future-ready brands take a different approach. They extend PLM with integrated merchandise planning to create a connected commercialization platform. Instead of disconnected processes, they operate within one insight-driven environment that links concept, product creation and planning execution. Planning decisions become grounded in real constraints, feasibility checks and cost structures originating upstream in PLM.
Explore how this unified approach works and download the eBook “Plan to Win: Connect Product, Planning & Performance” to see how leading brands unlock speed, accuracy and profitability.
Challenges of Working in Solution Silos
Every role across a retail business experiences the impact of disconnected systems differently, but the pattern is consistent.
Planning leaders want real-time forecasting and scenario planning, yet spreadsheet-driven updates cannot match the accuracy or timeliness of live product data.
Merchandise managers aim for smarter buys and faster assortment decisions, but limited visibility leads to missed targets and delayed reactions.
Operations leaders need predictable supply chains, yet upstream delays or cost changes hidden inside PLM surface too late when systems operate in isolation.
Product development teams want to build assortments that reflect demand, but without a feedback loop from planning, decisions rely on guesswork rather than data.
IT and transformation leaders seek simplified, scalable architectures, but disconnected tools prevent the creation of one actionable source of the truth.
Executives focus on margin protection, accurate forecasting and timely pivots, but siloed workflows slow every step of execution.
When PLM and Planning operate separately, brands experience:
- Strategies that appear viable on paper but fail in execution because they are not validated against real product data
- Margin assumptions based on estimates rather than true BOM structures and supplier costs
- Risks such as cost changes, capacity constraints and lead-time shifts that surface too late to address
- Carryover decisions made without insight into material continuity or supplier readiness
- Manual reconciliation between plans and what product teams are actually developing
- Scenario plans that ignore operational constraints and cannot be executed confidently
Centric Software removes these gaps by integrating PLM and Planning in real time. The result is a connected workflow that strengthens visibility, improves responsiveness and supports profitable decision making across the full product-to-market lifecycle.
Business Benefits of a Connected Platform
Centric Planning™ connects directly to live product data from Centric PLM™, ensuring that plans reflect feasibility, cost accuracy and real development progress.
1. Real-time feasibility evaluation
Planning strategies are validated against live product, cost and supplier data. Assortment and investment decisions reflect real constraints from day one rather than theoretical models.
2. Accurate, execution-ready margins
Financial targets link directly to BOM structures, material prices and supplier quotes. Margin expectations remain grounded in true product costs.
3. Real-time risk visibility
If costs, capacity or lead times shift, teams see it immediately and can act early to protect availability and margin across regions and channels.
4. Smarter carryover decisions
Carryover selections become data driven, validated by material continuity, quality history and supplier capability.
5. Continuous plan-to-actual alignment
Targets stay synchronized with live development data, eliminating manual reconciliation and ensuring decisions reflect the most current information.
6. Scenario planning grounded in operational reality
What-if analysis runs on real timelines, constraints and supplier capabilities so teams select scenarios they can execute profitably.
Together, these capabilities create a connected environment where product, merchandising, supply chain and finance teams work from one actionable source of the truth. Alignment improves, risks surface earlier and planning accuracy increases because decisions are anchored in validated product data.
The modular, low-code platform supports fast deployment and reduces IT burden. A centralized view across PLM, ERP, POS and Planning improves decision confidence and operational clarity.
Advanced capabilities such as AI-powered forecasting, scenario modeling and localized assortment planning become significantly more effective when the underlying data is unified and validated upstream.
Conclusion: End-to-End Planning and Product Execution
By unifying product creation and planning, leading brands gain the speed, accuracy and clarity required to compete. They move from fragmented tools to live, insight-driven workflows that strengthen responsiveness and protect margin.
A connected platform enables brands to:
- Replace spreadsheets with real-time, accurate workflows
- Plan smarter and execute faster
- Forecast with confidence
- Localize assortments while scaling global strategy
- Empower teams to focus on high-impact decisions
Brands using Centric are already seeing measurable outcomes, including improved margins, faster planning cycles, earlier demand visibility and scalable weekly drops supported by live planning data.
Explore these stories in more detail and see how a unified PLM and Planning platform orchestrates connected planning and product execution, download the eBook “Plan to Win: Connect Product, Planning & Performance.”