The retail industry has been growing steadily over the years, an average of 4 percent per year since 2010. Although the market may be facing some short term strain during the coronavirus epidemic, studies suggest this industry will bounce back due to pent up demand.
Most retail operations start small. As the retail business grows, the myopic focus on keeping up with growth can make you lose sight of systems and tools you may have outgrown. Scaling up your business requires new processes and tools; here are a few signs that may indicate your retail business needs product lifecycle management (PLM) software.
1. You’re Experiencing Growth
Growth is excellent; it’s intoxicating. While in the euphoria of growth, it’s easy to miss that your old tactics no longer work. As sales grow, you increase your staff, add new product lines, onboard more suppliers, and so on. While this can initially be handled by adding more staff and spending more money, these become inefficient, costly solutions.
PLM software enables you to manage your growth and complex supply chain using your existing resources. The technology lets you work more efficiently without having to hire more people.
2. Communication Breakdowns
As your retail operation grows, managing the supply chain can become a daunting task. Turnaround times have also been reduced, thanks to customer demands, which puts more pressure on your supply process.
How do you find the right information about materials, release dates, delivery dates, pricing, etc., when all of that information is spread out in your email, Slack, Whatsapp and other communication hubs?
Dealing with samples, revisions, and shipments from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and original design manufacturers (ODM) requires a modern solution. PLM is a central repository for all product-related data and communications, updated in real-time.
3. Timelines Are Speeding Up
Customers are no longer willing to wait to buy a single product from a single source. Nowadays, if your store does not have the product a customer wants, they will buy it somewhere else. The damage is not only in lost sales, but in the retail brand. Consumers expect a well-stocked, efficient inventory catalog that delivers on-time and fulfills their expectations.
Managing the product life cycle requires software that will shorten order fulfillment times, find materials more efficiently, and get products to market in a seamless process.
4. Too Much Data
Data is at the core of decision making. Spotting trends, managing margins, reducing waste, increasing productivity, or any other managerial decision requires data. Gathering data, processing, analyzing, and interpreting it can all be a tedious process if your data is not integrated. Having to configure data from other systems creates frustration, wastes time, and can result in errors along with unreliable data. Ensuring alignment of data throughout the organization is a massive timesaver.
Having a single, whole, effective software solution that can integrate data across different brands, categories, and enterprise systems will save you time and money. PLM software is a perfect solution for managing mountains of data and keeping it coordinated within a team. Click here to learn more about PLM software.
5. You’re Not As Creative
Consumer demands are becoming more diverse; each one wants a product that will be unique to them. These products are also expected to be responsibly sourced, but the consumer doesn’t expect a rise in price for these services.
A rising trend is giving creative freedom to customers when it comes to designs. This requires retailers to integrate their design software with their inventory and supply chain processes to provide a seamless service.
Keeping up with these demands using old tools and processes can be difficult. It’s not easy for growing retailers to handle the day to day tasks and add time-consuming tasks like researching and developing materials and products to satisfy these expectations.
PLM software can free up time so that it can be better spent on things like testing new materials, lowering costs, improving quality, adding more stock-keeping units, and delivering samples even faster.
6. Rising Product and Material Costs
As your business grows, it is likely that your costs will inexplicably increase at a rate faster than your sales. This is unsustainable and could wreck your business.
PLM is a centralized system that can coordinate various groups (merchants, product designers, technical designers, sourcing, and suppliers) on the brand identity, trend interpretation, direction, and the execution of the product. Not only is everyone talking to each other in the same language, but they also share the same tools such as line plans, color and material palettes, trend boards, and standards. This level of coordination and teamwork adds to productivity and streamlines product development and launches.
7. Customer Dissatisfaction
Managing your product from conception to delivery is vital to keeping customers happy. The process might be complicated, with pitfalls and cost overruns, but that won’t matter to your customer. They want the product in their hands within days, if not hours.
Meeting deadlines, creating new designs, providing socially responsible materials, and timely delivery periods are the kind of demands that can win or lose you customers. PLM software helps you manage all of these aspects as part of your customer service strategy.
Read the Signs
You’ve done great coming thus far, but the writing is on the wall. For your retail business to grow further, you need PLM software. With PLM software, you can manage your growing enterprise at a fraction of the cost. The next level of success is waiting for you.