June 27th, 2025

Outdoor Research Expands Digital Capabilities to Boost Speed, Visibility and Product Success

By expanding a best-of-breed ecosystem to include Centric Visual Boards and Centric Market Intelligence, Outdoor Research strengthens decision-making across planning, design and go-to-market

CAMPBELL, Calif., June 30, 2025 – Centric Software® is delighted to announce that long-time customer, Outdoor Research, has expanded on top of its Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform to evolve their digital transformation journey by adopting Centric Visual Boards™ for SMB and Centric Market Intelligence™ (CMI). 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, cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Based in Seattle, Washington, Outdoor Research is a leading manufacturer of outdoor gear and accessories, with a strong reputation for high-performance technical products. Since implementing Centric PLM in 2022, the company has streamlined workflows, improved collaboration and gained greater visibility across its product development process.

Now, Outdoor Research is taking the next step in digital transformation with the adoption of Centric Visual Boards and Centric Market Intelligence. These connected solutions empower cross-functional teams to visualize line plans, quickly model assortment changes while accessing real-time market and competitive data, all from a centralized system, integrated seamlessly with PLM. Decision making across both pre- and in-season will be strengthened and accelerated transforming product ideation and development.

“We have a broad product range and limited resources so every tool we use has to work hard for us,” says Caroline MacMillan, Senior Director of Product Development and Operations at Outdoor Research. “Centric Visual Boards let us clearly see the immediate impact of assortment decisions in real time, from material commitments to color distribution. And with Centric Market Intelligence, our teams can quickly access current, reliable competitive data and market trends without hours of manual research, bringing us closer to consumers. Together, these tools eliminate rework, align teams faster and elevate the quality of our decisions.”

The design, planning and product management teams at Outdoor Research will use Visual Boards to align on seasonal line architecture, evaluate color and style scenarios and ensure decisions are backed by accurate data. With Centric Market Intelligence, product managers can validate pricing strategies, assess trends in silhouettes and color and brief teams with up-to-date competitive insights.

Looking ahead, the brand plans to deepen integrations with other systems, enabling even richer data analysis. “It’s not just about having great tools, it’s about how they work together,” adds MacMillan. “With everything linked, we can spot opportunities earlier, align more effectively and spend less time chasing data and more time creating great products.”

“Outdoor Research is a standout example of how emerging brands can scale strategically through digital innovation,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “By extending their Centric platform, they’re connecting internal and external data to power smarter decision-making at each stage of the product lifecycle. We’re proud to partner with them as they build the next chapter of business growth.”

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Outdoor Research (outdoorresearch.com)

Since 1981, Outdoor research has created trusted apparel, accessories and equipment for you to thrive outside. Our award-winning outdoor gear is meticulously researched and tested for outdoor enthusiasts and military users around the globe. Grounded in our values of curiosity, passion, innovation, collaboration, and community, we strive to create space for all in the outdoors. We celebrate wins outside at every level together with our ambassadors, non-profit partners, and employees.

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.