ITC Limited :: Newsroom :: Media Releases

ITC Infotech's implementation of Product Lifecycle Management creates seamless supply chains to get clothing lines on the shelves in record time

The European fashion industry is amongst the biggest in the world. With centres such as London, Paris and Milan, the fashion industry in these locations is grappling to find a solution that enables retailers to get their products to market quicker. ITC Infotech is leveraging its success in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), to bring a future-ready solution to market.

Two thirds of the world's top retailers have selected PTC's FlexPLM and have placed their trust in PTC's technology. ITC Infotech has been involved in over 65% of FlexPLM projects worldwide, and primed over 45% of FlexPLM projects. It is now expanding this business in Europe's pre-eminent fashion centres. Through its close association with PTC, ITC Infotech provides FlexPLM services, as well as end-to-end services including Product Lifecycle Management and Service Lifecycle Management (SLM).

ITC Infotech is today a leading PLM services provider in Europe and globally. The company recently implemented FlexPLM at Brooks Sports, a leading US-based running company that designs and markets high-performance men's and women's running shoes, apparel and accessories in more than 40 countries worldwide. ITC Infotech completed the implementation process in a short span of seven months, making it one of the most efficient PLM implementations in the Consumer Products, Retail, Footwear & Apparel sectors.

PLM helps companies speed up their R&D return on investment (ROI). As for retailers, especially those delivering innovative trend-right products to the fashion market, faster delivery has become a business imperative. Maintaining high quality products, building a competitive edge and generating consistent profit margins continue to be significant. FlexPLM addresses the specific challenges faced by companies across the retail, footwear and apparel industry.

Hardeep Singh Garewal, President - European Operations, ITC Infotech said, "In today's very fast, dynamic environment, companies in the retail and fashion industries are increasingly under pressure to address critical issues such as latest trends, design new products and get them to market quickly to ensure that they have a constant stream of new products for customers. An effective PLM deployment ensures that products are brought to market faster. Our close association with PTC and deep knowledge and insights on this sector and PLM enable us to offer unrivalled levels of support in managing a quick, smooth and effective implementation of FlexPLM."

As the industry moves towards Fast Fashion, companies are increasingly looking at leveraging PLM solutions beyond just cost savings. Customers want added functionalities, integrated platforms and intuitive dashboards, to enhance their return on investments made in PLM technologies.

"We have a strong consulting team of business analysts, solution architects and highly experienced technical people on hand to help. We actually go beyond PLM. Our 'extended PLM' approach integrates PLM systems with enterprise resource planning (ERP), helping clients with analytics around the data produced by the PLM systems," added Garewal.

ITC Infotech recently unveiled Style Performance Analytics (SPA), a solution which combines PLM, ERP and BI in order to revolutionize the fashion design process. In a first of its kind IT intervention, the fashion industry can now look forward to utilising IT services to predict future developments. Combining product attribute information from Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools with transactional data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, SPA uses Business Intelligence (BI) tools to discover the styles and attributes that are most popular with customers. This allows designers to predict trends and design as per market requirements.