July 5th, 2016

Seven Brand Chooses Centric Product Lifecycle Management

CAMPBELL, California, July 5, 2016 – Seven Brand Group, a leading Chinese menswear brand, has selected Centric Software’s PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solution to streamline their design, production and merchandising processes as part of a transformation from a whole to retail business model. Centric is the leading PLM solution for fashion, retail, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods companies.

Established in 1979, Seven Brand Group is renowned for producing menswear that is both classic and fashionable with a distinct Chinese style and quality workmanship. Seven Brand Group has ranked in the top 10 largest and most profitable Chinese garment companies since 2001 and has over 3,000 points of sale across China.

Like many Chinese fashion companies, Seven Brand Group is undergoing a transformation from wholesaler to retailer. As Mr. Ma, Vice-President at Seven Brand explains, “When rethinking our strategy, it became clear that the old research and development cycle was too long and expensive for a modern fashion business. Merchandising is becoming much more important and we realized that we needed to speed up time to market.”

With an outdated product data management (PDM) system that could only support basic R&D processes and a pressing need for better communication between internal departments, the Seven Brand Group’s management team found that Centric was the ideal PLM solution.

“Centric 8 can totally support Seven Brand,” says Mr. Ma. “Our management team will be able to understand performance and track goals. Centric’s flexibility is very important to our design team and provides excellent support for fabric management and merchandising. It’s not just a tool, but a platform that we can integrate with other systems to make the business run faster and better.”

“We are very impressed with Centric’s extensibility, which will be important as our business grows. Centric’s team are extremely professional and their PLM is a very mature solution with a high degree of market acceptance due to their focus on the fashion industry,” concludes Mr. Ma.

“We’re delighted to be working with Seven Brand Group, who lead the way in quality menswear in China. The Centric team is looking forward to supporting Seven Brand as they go through this exciting and challenging period of transformation,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software.

Seven Brand Group, Ltd. (www.qipai.com)

Founded in 1979, Fujian qi licensing Group Co., Ltd. is an integrated company which designs and manufactures menswear, with current net assets of 970 million yuan. The company, which employs 4,000 people in a building of 220,000 square meters with world-class garment production equipment has 3,000 stores across 31 provinces in China. Qipai “Chinese Collar” has become a market favorite, and is internationally renowned for having a distinct style. Seven Brand Group has ranked in the top 10 largest and most profitable Chinese garment companies since 2001. In 2007, Qipai Group was named one of China’s top ten textile brand enterprises by the China Garment Association, China’s garment industry competitive enterprises and the China Textile Industry Association. The Group was also named among “China’s 500 most valuable brands” list in 2012, by the World Brand La. Qipai’s brand value is 10.368 billion yuan.

Centric Software, Inc. (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software builds technologies for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Its 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 Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion and Apparel PLM. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013 and 2015.

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