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5 Reasons Why Eyewear Companies Need PLM

2 MIN READ
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Today, eyewear is as much a fashion accessory as a medical must-have. It’s another way consumers can express their style. No matter what kind of eyewear you are buying, whether reading glasses, optical frames fitted by an optometrist or new sunglasses, both consumers and retailers are wanting more collections at frequent intervals.

Without a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, it’s impossible for eyewear companies to keep up with consumer demand using only email and spreadsheets to manage design, development and production activities. Keeping to this archaic system can be problematic, costly and risky.

The eyewear industry works in several different ways:

  • Eyewear manufacturers producing their own private label right through to stocking shelves in store-front opticians
  • A manufacturing eyewear company designing and producing eyewear for a range of brands
  • A company who has licensed out their brand to an external manufacturing company
  • Retailers selling a variety of different types of eyewear and/or other goods

No matter which type of business model or supply chain set up you have, a PLM system is essential for eyewear design, development and management. It can transform your business and give your teams the time to design, create and innovate as well as streamline development, manufacturing and go-to-market.

Here are 5 Reasons Why Eyewear Companies need PLM

1. Manage Product Complexity

There are similarities to fashion product development when creating eyewear with a high variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Whether managing a large brand portfolio or a private label eyewear company looking to expand internationally – these additional complexities become impossible to manage with spreadsheets and email chains. PLM revolutionizes product design, development and sourcing workflows in order to easily manage added product complexity, with the same number of staff and resources.

A technology solution like Centric PLM™ centralizes all product-related data into one digital place. The accessibility to real-time product information across internal teams and external suppliers is a huge time saver. As a result, it gives all the right people access to the same data they need to boost cross-team collaboration and optimize workflows. Easily source and create “what if” cost scenarios of hundreds of frames and styles. Manage product specs, track compliance information and automate updates across all products, categories and groups of products.

Streamlined workflows and visibility into all product-related information with Centric PLM means products are more quickly and easily approved. Expanding product offerings and making decisions about new styles and ranges to add is much easier.

Download white paper: Spreadsheets vs. PLM: How do you know when it’s time to switch?

2. Lower Production Costs

It’s important to keep a tight hold on costs during the production phase. Lowering production costs increases product margins to maximize product profits. How does Centric PLM reduce costs?

  • Easily compare suppliers and costing: Reduce supplier risk, compare pricing, materials and delivery costs and be in a better position to negotiate with suppliers.
  • Leverage buying power to reduce waste: Poor visibility into material management leads to over-ordering and high wastage. Data transparency consolidates raw material needs across multiple brands in order to bulk buy and benefit from lower costs, while being conscious to order only what is needed.
  • Digitize sampling: Work within Centric PLM 3D connector and viewer to digitize, comment and iterate sampling as much as possible. Therefore reducing both cost and time spent creating and shipping physical samples.
  • Data-informed decision making: Through data visibility, gain deep knowledge into product performance to understand your products from bestsellers to carry-over deadstock from previous seasons, in order to adjust current and future production runs.
Eyewear PLM
3. Speed Time to Market

There is a dramatic shift in what consumers want and how they want it and eyewear is no different. Working to bring a higher variety of innovative products to market empowers brands to respond to consumer demands sooner.

PLM gives deep-level access to product detail which optimizes day-to-day workflow while a top-level overview of different brands and styles accelerates product development and production. Use this visibility to spot costly and time-wasting bottlenecks and take action to keep products moving.

4. Reduce the Risk

A PLM solution centralizes data that teams can easily access and removes a workflow burdened by administration, enabling teams to focus on their actual jobs. Manufacturers must reduce the risk of losing unhappy brand partners because samples are not sent out on time or orders are missed. Minimize the risk of squeezed product margins because of spiralling production costs that negatively impact yearly growth and overall product profits.

It’s inevitable to have employee retention problems and inability to attract new talent if teams are drowning in data. However, with happy, more focused staff, companies can work strategically to grow, innovate more products and bring them to market faster. All with better collaboration and communication across teams.

5. Maximize Profit Margins

Investing in technology and boosting efficiency empowers teams to innovate and create, all while working towards common business goals. Channel efforts into producing high quality eyewear, while staying competitive and responding to consumer demand.

With the development of more products, that cost less to make and come to market sooner, watch as your product margins widen. PLM is not a luxury, it’s a necessity to keep up with today’s fast-moving marketplace. Centric PLM is more than just a software platform, it’s the step to digitally transform your business and go-to-market strategies.

Why Centric Software?

Deep industry knowledge: Centric PLM has fashion, retail, consumer goods and manufacturing best practices built-in and is a highly configurable solution, that can be structured according to your unique business goals. Configure your dashboards for different roles, whether you want to see workflows, product categories, reporting or financials.

Works for any set up: With a range of modules designed for each stage of development, Centric PLM is for any company across the eyewear industry. It’s the foundational product development technology for companies that are managing multiple brands, private label eyewear or those licencing out their brand.

Agile deployment: Reduce your investment risk and start to see the benefits of PLM in a matter of months. With deployment in 3-4 months, start using Centric PLM for your current collection.

Centric Software is the market leader in PLM solutions, giving companies the digital tools needed to stay competitive, innovative and closer to consumers.