December 26th, 2018

“Centric is the first place anyone goes for an answer” From Pain to Peak Performance at Mizuno USA

CAMPBELL, Calif., December 27, 2018 – Centric Software is delighted to announce the release of a success story about its customer, Mizuno USA.

Mizuno USA is a subsidiary of Mizuno Corporation, the sporting goods giant founded by two brothers in Osaka, Japan in 1906. Originally selling Western sports sundries such as baseballs, Mizuno began manufacturing athletic wear to order in 1907 and launched its famous range of golf clubs in 1933. Mizuno opened its first American factory in Los Angeles in 1961 and American Mizuno, known today as Mizuno USA, was born.

Tim Rumer, Director of Product Lifecycle Management at Mizuno USA, recalls that line planning and product development at the sports brand used to be a headache.

“We used to have what I called the ‘ta-da moment’. Product managers would work on their collections and then reveal them at the last moment. No-one had any idea what was in the pipeline unless they were intimately familiar with the category. There was little to no visibility of development. We wanted to know what was in the pipeline and set realistic launch timelines.”

Today, things look very different. Mizuno USA now uses Centric Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) across all of its divisions and 28 product categories. Centric has been adopted enthusiastically by users and has become the standard platform for communication and product development across the organization.

Since implementing Centric PLM, Mizuno USA has ditched painful product development, increased the capacity of category managers by up to 75%, and boosted SKU numbers in one division by an impressive 10.2% in just one year.

How did they get here?

Read the full story to learn more

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Mizuno (www.mizuno.com)

Mizuno USA, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mizuno Corporation, one of the largest specialty sporting goods manufacturers in the world. Mizuno USA, Inc. manufactures and distributes baseball, golf, softball, running, swimming, tennis and volleyball equipment, apparel, and footwear for North America. Mizuno USA, Inc. is based in Norcross, Ga.

Centric Software (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software provides a Digital Transformation Platform for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor, and consumer goods. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (VIP) is a visual, fully digital collection of boards for touch-based devices like iPad, iPhone, and large-scale, touch-screen televisions. Centric VIP transforms decision making and automates execution to truly collapse time to market and distance to trend. Centric’s flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality, and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended PLM, including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses.

Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Product Leadership Award in Retail, Fashion, and Consumer Goods PLM in 2018 and Frost & Sullivan’s Global Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2016 and 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015 and 2016.

Centric is a registered trademark of Centric Software. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.