May 5th, 2025

BEARPAW Selects Centric PLM to Optimize Product Development

Enhancing efficiency and innovation in comfortable footwear design

CAMPBELL, Calif., May 6, 2025 – Centric Software® is pleased to announce that BEARPAW has selected Centric PLM™ to drive efficiency and streamline operations. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Headquartered in California, BEARPAW leads the market with fashionable, yet comfortable footwear. Known for carving out a unique niche in the footwear landscape, BEARPAW operates primarily as a wholesale business while also offering products through e-commerce platforms, dropship partnerships and its own website, BEARPAW.com. The brand’s reach spans 46 countries globally, bringing the comfort and style of BEARPAW boots and shoes to millions.

After years of managing product data through complex manual processes and Excel, BEARPAW recognized the need to adopt a robust PLM solution to support its growing business. “We’ve been managing everything with Excel line sheets. For instance, I work on about 12 different line sheets per day that all need to be updated and sent back and forth between teams,” says Anthony Marling, Vice President of Product at BEARPAW. “It’s been very chaotic. We had something briefly in 2013 that was similar to a PLM, but not anywhere near the capabilities of Centric PLM.”

BEARPAW evaluated several PLM providers but ultimately chose Centric PLM due to its proven track record among footwear and apparel brands, its advanced capabilities and its cloud-based flexibility. “A member of our upper management team worked at another company that used Centric and told us about how great it was and how it helped streamline processes,” Marling adds. “Once we started digging further and looking into Centric, we saw how long they’ve been in business, how long they’ve worked on their system, how many partners they have, and to us, it was a no brainer to choose Centric PLM. Some of the other demos we saw, the systems were cumbersome, or they were local systems, which makes things more complicated, especially when working with an international team.”

The benefits of implementing Centric PLM are already becoming apparent. By introducing a centralized, cloud-based system, BEARPAW aims to eliminate miscommunication and outdated information across its internal and external stakeholders. “We had a lot of Excel sheets so there was a lot of missed information or wrong information happening on a weekly basis,” says Marling. “For example, we have three different versions of a line sheet, one for our catalog version, one for our sales team and one for internal use. If one thing gets missed, they’re out of sync and the catalog is incorrect. The biggest advantage for us is having a single source of truth, our one place where all our information lives.”

Additionally, the streamlined workflow and improved communication facilitated by Centric PLM are expected to accelerate time-to-market for BEARPAW’s footwear collections. ”We’re excited to streamline communication between departments, similar to misinformation, there’s information that’s missed or isn’t gathered as quickly as other departments need it. For example, if we send an email to our international team, they may not get back to us until later that night and maybe I don’t get an answer to their question until the next day, suddenly it’s three days later,” remarks Marling. “Centric is going to solve many communication problems that arise from working between different time zones. We put our information in, the international team puts their information in, and it’s just there.”

BEARPAW also highlights its positive experience during the implementation process. “We absolutely love the team, the people at Centric that we’re working with are amazing,” says Marling. “We’ve learned so much, and our primary focus is to get fully trained, get our overseas staff fully trained and go live before our next fall season.”

Centric Software is equally enthusiastic about the partnership. “We’re pleased to welcome BEARPAW to the Centric family,” says Fabrice Canonge, President of Centric Software. “BEARPAW’s dedication to crafting high-quality, comfortable footwear aligns perfectly with our ethos, and we look forward to helping them streamline their operations and drive innovation in the footwear industry.”

For more information about Centric PLM and how it transforms product development for global brands, visit www.centricsoftware.com.

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BEARPAW (bearpaw.com)

BEARPAW is a lifestyle brand known for its high-quality, comfortable footwear. Founded in 2001 with a mission to help people Live Life Comfortably, BEARPAW specializes in cozy boots, slippers, and casual shoes designed to keep your feet warm and supported in any season. Whether you’re lounging at home or exploring the outdoors, BEARPAW delivers comfort for every adventure.

Centric Software® (centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-commercialization platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, market, 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 delivering insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitivity 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 PXM™, AI-powered product experience management (PXM) encompasses PIM, DAM, content syndication and digital shelf analytics (DSA) to optimize the product commercialization lifecycle resulting in a transformed brand experience. Increase sales channels, boost sell through and drive margins.

Centric Software’s market-driven 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.