Mizuno Scales Digital Operations and Brand Value with Centric PXM

“We couldn’t grasp the full picture of how many products we had.”

For many years, managing information across Mizuno’s diverse, globally distributed product lines had been a major challenge. Mr. Tsuyoshi Serizawa, Manager of Global Digital & DTC Division, recalls the struggle: with hundreds of thousands of SKUs stored in different formats and systems across departments and regions, there was no unified product master. The result? Incomplete EC product pages, data errors and time-consuming updates.

A fundamental transformation was needed to deliver a consistent global brand experience.

A century old global brand facing modern challenges

Founded in 1906 in Osaka, Japan, Mizuno is one of the world’s most respected names in sporting goods, apparel, footwear and lifestyle products. With operations in nearly 20 global locations and strong overseas growth, the brand has built a legacy of quality and innovation.

To support its expanding direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy, Mizuno needed to unify global operations and create consistent, localized customer experiences, from product content to purchase journey.

But fragmented, manual product information management made this vision impossible.

Fragmented product content across teams and systems

With hundreds of thousands of SKUs spread across product lines and regions, Mizuno lacked a centralized product master. Each team, from digital marketing to e-commerce and IT, operated in silos, using manually maintained spreadsheets to manage product information and digital assets independently.

Teams had to collect product content manually from scattered planning documents, image folders and marketing materials. Delays and quality issues were widespread. E-commerce product pages were incomplete, sometimes inaccurate and it ultimately weakened the customer experience.

“Product information should be the gateway to brand experience. But at the time, the information itself was degrading the experience,” reflects Mr. Serizawa.

From fragmentation to integration: The turning point

In 2018, Mizuno launched a global evaluation process to find a scalable, integrated solution. A core requirement was the ability to manage both product data and digital assets together, with multilingual capabilities for global teams.

“Text and images were managed separately, so teams had to search everywhere. We needed integrated management. And because overseas teams also handle product information, multilingual support was essential,” Mr. Serizawa explains.

After a comprehensive vendor evaluation, Mizuno selected Centric PXM™ as the foundation for its content-driven digital transformation.

Building global infrastructure for scalable product content

Implementation began with select product categories and key sales channels. By late 2019, Mizuno launched DAM-based delivery of product images and marketing assets, followed by PIM-based delivery of product information to overseas subsidiaries using unified global formats.

These steps gave teams worldwide access to consistent, high-quality product content and assets, laying the groundwork for unified brand expression across markets.

In 2023, Mizuno completed its PXM rollout across all product categories in Japan, integrating the system with the official e-commerce store, its digital product exhibition platform and key internal sales workflows. In Europe, deeper ERP integration and automation enabled e-commerce product page generation and continued global expansion.

These efforts aren’t one-off project milestones, but part of a long-term initiative to strengthen global product content management and scale Centric PXM capabilities, forming critical infrastructure for the brand’s future growth.

From siloed systems to strategic content operations

For Mizuno, this transformation wasn’t just about organizing content, it was about creating a foundation for long-term growth and agility. What was once a labor-intensive, fragmented process has become a streamlined, scalable operation.

Mr. Serizawa emphasizes, “A PIM project isn’t about systems—it’s about redesigning the ‘information supply chain’ across departments.”

With Centric PIM™ and Centric DAM™ as the foundation, Mizuno has moved from reactive operations to proactive digital strategy.

• Significant time savings: Less time spent gathering data, more time for strategic content creation.
• Unified search and workflows: Product search is now a standard across departments.
• Fewer errors and rework: E-commerce registration has become more reliable and efficient.
• Stronger brand consistency: Teams worldwide access the same high-quality content.
• Shift from manual to strategic: Marketing teams focus on storytelling, not data chasing.

What’s next: Laying the foundation for AI-powered growth

With Centric PXM now fully deployed, Mizuno is looking to the future. The goal: leverage structured product and transactional data to drive AI-powered content generation, personalization and smarter recommendations across the customer journey.

“Structured data provides the raw material AI needs,” adds Mr. Serizawa. “It will strengthen our D2C strategy and contribute to long-term brand value.”

What began as a foundational transformation is now the engine of brand growth and experience at scale.