CAMPBELL, Calif., U.S.: Groupe Chantelle, the French lingerie giant, has selected Centric Software's Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source and sell products such as apparel, footwear, sporting goods, furniture, home décor, cosmetics, food & beverage and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Chantelle is a family business created in 1876 and has been owned by the Kretz family since 1900. Today, Chantelle has 4,000 employees worldwide and owns six brands − Chantelle, Passionata, Chantelle X, Femilet, Livera, and Darjeeling. The company has subsidiaries in 16 countries throughout Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America, and factories in northern Africa, Asia, and France.
Chantelle was facing business challenges within their Digital and Customer Care department. It was clear they needed to improve collaboration between teams worldwide, increase flexibility, speed responsiveness and ensure product availability.
"We had a product data management (PDM) solution for about 20 years, but no PLM. We knew we absolutely had to implement this technology," says Virginie Diquero, Organization Project Manager at Chantelle. "We needed a more efficient and faster way to transfer images, content and data of our complete collection offer to our sites."
Chantelle's existing PDM did not allow them to easily manage collection assortments and they needed that functionality quickly. They were also looking for PLM to provide a foundation for marketing efforts.
Chantelle's brand teams were working in silos and using tools like Excel and Google Drive to share important business information including budgets, collection plans, merchandizing strategies and more. Centric PLM will be deployed throughout the company across all brands, at the head office in France, in their factories and international commercial subsidiaries.
Choosing Centric PLM was a simple decision for Chantelle. "We have known about Centric for a long time. They are number one in the market and Centric PLM meets our needs for developing collections, marketing presentations and product catalogs and image management, says Diquer. "We want Centric PLM to be with us over the long term."
Chantelle expects PLM to streamline the product development process, enable more effective control of the material certification process, support planning and improve stock management accuracy. With supply chain challenges such as rising costs and transportation disruptions, PLM will eventually be rolled out to some of Chantelle's suppliers.
Chantelle products are complex, as each bra model requires more than 80 different materials and is available in approximately thirty sizes. To date, Chantelle has nearly 80,000 active SKUs. Centric PLM will enable Chantelle to better control the entire supply chain.
"Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is also a priority for Chantelle," says Cathy Sellier, Master Data Manager at Chantelle. "We recently created a zero waste, fully recyclable bra, based on the circular economy model and we want to communicate our CSR initiatives more effectively. To do this, we need easier and faster access to data and Centric PLM can help us."
"Chantelle is an icon in the lingerie sector and we are proud to partner with them on their international omnichannel strategy," says Chris Groves, President and CEO at Centric Software. "With Centric PLM, Chantelle will be empowered to seamlessly manage supply chains and achieve ambitious CSR goals."
