PLM FOR APPAREL 2015

Given the scale of PLM investment to

date, along with the planned investments
and hoped-for returns on those
investments, there is much opportunity
for apparel and retail executives and
supply chain leaders to leverage the
technology as a whole for a much
broader set of benefits.
BY JANET SULESKI AND ANNA TONCHEVA, GARTNER

PRODUCED BY

SPONSORED BY

www.centricsoftware.com

www.infor.com/fashion

www.cgsinc.com

www.ngcsoftware.com

www.desl.net

www.ptc.com

www.gerbertechnology.com

www.tradestonesoftware.com

AN APPAREL RESEARCH STUDY & ANALYSIS

ABOUT THE SURVEY

Apparel magazine and Gartners 10th annual
survey of the apparel industrys adoption and
use of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
technology provides the industry an
opportunity to look back over a decade of
development and a decade of progress in
designing the PLM discipline and implementing
supporting technologies. In this time, PLM has
definitively moved from its traditional bailiwick
of product design teams to take a much larger
role as a process and technology backbone for
retail, footwear, and apparel supply chain,
second only to ERP in terms of business
criticality in many companies.
The survey was conducted in March 2015 to
seek out industry participants opinions on the
latest PLM investments, future spending plans,
and strategic objectives being set by process
and technology leaders in apparel, footwear,
accessories and home fashions. We offer our
sincere thanks to the 51 companies that
participated and shared information about
their PLM plans and initiatives; without your
participation, making this study available
through Apparel would not be possible.
This year, 43 percent of survey respondents
were manufacturers; 35 percent were
vertically-integrated companies that design
and sell apparel and other products directly to
consumers through their own retail channels;
and 22 percent were retailers that sell
branded apparel merchandise or a blend of
branded and private-label merchandise. Of
the 48 companies that indicated an annual
revenue range, 10 percent had annual sales of
more than $5 billion, 31 percent had annual
sales of $1 billion to $5 billion, 36 percent had
sales revenues of $100 million to $1 billion,
and 23 percent had sales revenues of $100
million or less.
This report is meant to be a useful
benchmarking and research tool to help guide
your companys thinking about the current
state of your PLM process and discipline,
compare your investments to date and how
they measure up to your industry peers, assess
your PLM maturity and map your path to the
next level of PLM maturity. We welcome your
suggestions and feedback for the kinds of
data you would like to see collected and
presented in next years survey.

n the 10 years since the first joint survey between Apparel and AMR
Research (later Gartner), the percent of respondents reporting having invested $500,000 or more in PLM technology has grown a
remarkable 92 percent, from 24 percent to 46 percent of respondents.
Expectations for return on investment have grown as well. In parallel,
both driving the growth and being driven by apparel users functional
requirements, software has evolved from product data management
(PDM) functionality to product lifecycle management (PLM) functionality, and is now wavering at the border between PLM and Product
Innovation Platforms, defined by Gartner as next-generation information technology platforms that facilitate continuous creativity, yielding
improvements to products, product portfolios, and multiple related
supply chain processes throughout their various life cycles. Over time,
this next stage of evolution will drive a new round of investments in
PLM processes, technology and business talent.
Apparel companies today believe PLM evolution will be driven by
factors such as the desire to standardize an expanding list of PLM activities across multiple channels and geographies, reducing time-to-market, improving product quality, and generating better designs. Lower
product costs, which ranked as the No. 2 expected business benefit in
2006, now ranks fifth. Apparel companies continue to watch costs
closely, but with many costs squeezed out of supply chains over the
years and the pursuit of low-cost manufacturing above all other business goals coming under critical scrutiny, this is not the competitive differentiator that it was a decade ago. As noted in our 2014 report, PLM
technology providers will be asked to provide the functionality to support the orchestrated processes that apparel companies are building to
drive value. This, along with the interest in business intelligence and
analytics to make intelligent tradeoff decisions throughout a products
life, the appeal of using social and mobile technologies, and the attraction of cloud-based deployments, will drive functional progression.
This years portion of survey respondents with plans to make further
investments in PLM technology rebounded to 63 percent from 50 percent in 2014. Among companies planning to make future investments,
the portion expecting to invest $500,000 or more jumped to 41 percent
after dropping to 21 percent last year. While companies are planning to
make further investments, the likelihood of those investments happening in the next 18 months dropped slightly from 52 percent to 43 percent. For those investing over the next 18 months, 56 percent are planning to add customized capabilities and 36 percent plan to roll out
additional software modules alongside their installed PLM functionality. For the second year in a row, the top-ranked benefit that apparel
and fashion companies hope to achieve from investments in PLM strategies and technologies is the standardization of processes.
Still emerging is the next role that PLM will play as a true competitive differentiator; just 18 percent of companies describe PLMs role in
their businesses today as a differentiator, and another 16 percent as
being embedded within their end-to-end supply chain processes. Given
the scale of investment to date, the planned investments, and the
hoped-for benefits and returns on those investments, there is a lot of
opportunity for executive and supply chain leaders to leverage PLM for
a much broader set of benefits.4
13

 Order-to-shipment: For example, the creation of the purchase order, visibility to manufacturing status, creation of
the outbound delivery notice or ASN, creation of shipping
documentation, traceability to the dock and invoicing the
(B2B) customer.
Shipment-to-cash: For example, visibility to the location of the
shipment and import status, distribution of product to warehouses or stores, allocation to channels or stores and visibility
to merchandise, inventory and operations execution (MIOE).
Gartner takes the position that, at this time, a PLM for RFA
application and processes must support the design-to-order
span of activities. Company definitions of the scope of PLM, and
PLM applications offered by vendors, may also cover a range of
activities that include order-to-shipment, shipment-to-cash,
product portfolio management and product phase-out processes. The important thing is that your company have a shared
scope, definition, and language for PLM as it evaluates initiatives to improve processes and the application of technology.
Without this, PLM investments are less likely to achieve target
benefits and returns-on-investment.

2015 SNAPSHOT AND EVOLUTION

Defining the Scope of PLM
One of the greatest challenges in tackling PLM within the
apparel industry is that getting a consistent definition for what
companies include in the scope of PLM is difficult, if not impossible, yet essential for getting PLM initiatives right. For the purposes of this research, Gartner defines PLM as a discipline for guiding products and product portfolios from ideas through retirement to create the most value for businesses, their partners and
their customers. PLM applications have traditionally been focused
on the subset of PLM activities that occur from ideation capture
and product data management, and typically conclude at either
tech pack creation or the cutting of the final purchase order,
though this is changing. Our survey focuses on how apparel companies whether they be retailers, vertically-integrated retailers, brands, or manufacturers conduct PLM activities within
their companies and use technology to support those activities.
In apparel, more so than other industries, enterprises have
blurred the boundaries between the discipline and the technology, resulting in confusion regarding what is and is not a PLM
application for these industries. PLM is described by retail,
footwear and accessories (RFA) companies in endless combinations to cover process steps in:
Design-to-order: For example, inspiration capture, line planning, storyboarding, product specification development, raw
materials visibility and management and finished goods sourcing. May include the creation of the purchase order.

Where Are We Now?

The apparel industry has come a long way in 10 years as
measured by investment, deployed technology and benefits
achieved from that technology. In 2006, just 15 percent of survey respondents reported having invested more than $1 million
so far on their PLM initiatives, and half of respondents had
spent less than $100,000. In 2015, 33 percent of respondents
said that their companies had spent more than $1 million on

Figure 1: Spending on PLM Technology to Date

2015 Retailers (N=15)
7%

13%

20%

7%

13%

3%

27%

13%

2014 Retailers (N=22)

5% 5%

9%

9%

32%

5%

18%

18%

2015 Manufacturers & Others (N=24)

8%

17%

13%

4%

17%

13%

17%

13%

2014 Manufacturers & Others (N=11)

9%

14

9%

9%

36%

18%

9%

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

9%

<<$10,000
<$10,000 - <$50,000
<$50,000 - <$100,000
<$100,000 - <$250,000
<$250,000 - <$500,000
<$500,000 - <$1 million
<$1 million - <$2.5 million
<$2.5 million or more

estly from 77 percent in 2006; and 73 percent have implemented or plan to implement collaborative design or CAD sharing
capabilities, up from 57 percent in 2006.
Compared to 2014s survey results, apparel companies have
made the greatest progress in adopting costing (78 percent vs.
60 percent), product portfolio management (57 percent vs. 40
percent), and line planning (59 percent vs. 55 percent) functionality. The adoption of this planning layer of capabilities is
indicative of companies moving to the next stage of technology-enabled PLM proficiency after establishing their operational
foundations with bills-of-material and product data management, costing, and materials management functionality.
Planning in turn lays the groundwork for the future of PLM,
which is evolving today under the influence of social, mobile,
cloud and big data developments.4

PLM initiatives to date. Twenty-eight percent of companies had

spent under $100,000, and 39 percent had spent somewhere in
between those two figures (see Figure 1). Over the past three
years, the figure for the percent of survey respondents that
have spent more than $1 million has wavered a bit, but at its
essence, more than one-third of all responding companies have
taken the steps over time to invest an enormous amount of capital into PLM.
Companies have made great strides in adopting and using
PLM technology as a result of these investments (see Figure 2).
In 2006, 80 percent of companies had adopted or planned to
adopt bills of material/product data management functionality;
today, that figure is 90 percent. Eighty percent of survey respondents today include or plan to include direct materials sourcing
and supplier collaboration in their PLM deployments, up mod-

n= 51

<Currently Use

Figure 2: PLM Efforts and Adoption Status

<Plan to Implement in next 18 months

Bill of Materials/
Product Data Management

52%

Calendar Management

51%

Collaborative Design/
CAD File Sharing

51%

Merchandise Planning/
Management

41%

Product Ideation

41%

24%

Virtual Product Prototyping/

Modeling

24%

Sustainability, social or consumer

safety compliance tracking

20%

18%
20%

37%

12%

22%

27%

35%

20%

39%

20%

22%

37%

51%

25%

Executive Dashboards

12%

28%

45%

Direct Materials Sourcing/

Supplier Collaboration

20%

25%

57%

Workflow/Critical Path
Management

6%

29%

59%

Product Portfolio Management

16

18%

63%

Line Planning

10%

16%

78%

Materials Management

Other, n=18

8%

82%

Costing

Business Intelligence (BI)/

Analytics

<Do Not Use/No Plans to Use

24%

48%
20%

28%
57%

38%
72%

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

42%
28%

Figure 3. Bottom Line Improvements Experienced Through PLM To Date

n= 48

<Ranked 1st

<Ranked 2nd

<Ranked 3rd

Have Achieved Rankings

Greater Standardization of PLM Processes
Reduced Product Development Time

8%

10%
13%

Improved Product Margins 8%

Other 2%

6%

59%
55%

26%
25%

10%

6%

13%

17%

22%

16%

12%

2%

The last of these, using big data or business analytics/intelligence within the context of PLM, appears to be a sticking point
for apparel companies. In 2012, 30 percent of survey respondents had business intelligence technologies encompassed
within their PLM initiatives, and in 2015, 25 percent reported
having business intelligence within the scope of PLM.
Meantime, business intelligence and analytics ranked No. 1 as
the top functionality apparel companies would like to see software and services providers add to or enhance within their
applications (see Figure 7), with 51 percent of survey respondents. This has been a consistent theme throughout our decade
of research, and yet remains an opportunity for apparel companies and PLM technology providers to explore. It may be that
business intelligence, both as a technology and as a role exists
somewhere else, such as within marketing, merchandising, or
demand planning organizations, and needs to be linked to
product design and development planning and execution
process more effectively to drive results.
In our first survey, conducted in 2006, we asked apparel companies what the primary business benefits were that they hoped
to achieve from their PLM implementations. The top three
answers were: faster time to market (23 percent), lower product
18

8%

10% 2% 10%

Improved Product Quality/Fewer Defects 2% 8%

25%
19%

23%

Improved Adoption Rate of Proposed Designs 2%

Reduced Product Costs

19%

15%

Improved Design/Development Team Productivity

(# Designs/Person)
Faster Time to Market

19%

40%

SUM
76%

costs (21 percent) and better designs (18 percent). Reflecting

now over what has actually been achieved, we can see that PLM
has delivered on standardization of PLM processes (as a means
to manage costs and reduce risk), reduced product development time, and improved product design (see Figure 3). Faster
time to market and improved product quality are two areas
where PLM processes and technologies have not yet met the
hoped-for expectations, as we will further explore herein.
Indeed, time-to-market remains unchanged for many products.
The focus on improving planning functions such as costing and
line planning may be a reaction to slow progress on cutting
times-to-market; if benefits achieved lag in one area, a natural
reaction is to invest in other areas showing greater promise for
faster ROI.
Apparel Companies Will Invest in Planning Functions
within PLM
It appeared in 2014 that the apparel industry took a bit of a
breather on PLM investments as companies assessed the next
round of business opportunities. Simultaneously, the last apparel technology trends survey, conducted in late 2013, showed
that improving new product commercialization and launch and

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

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to-end PLM activities, including new product development,

commercialization and launch activities across multiple functions such as design, marketing, sales and supply chain.
Implementations of PLM strategies and technologies have
yielded solid results for many companies, but not always in the
areas where apparel companies hoped they would be achieved.
PLM initiatives have delivered on expectations for process standardization, lower product costs, and fewer markdowns (see
Figure 6). Hoped-for goals for faster time-to-market, however,
have yielded mixed results. While survey respondents indicate
that PLM initiatives have helped reduce product development
time, fewer companies have actually seen faster time-to-market, suggesting that time for other activities such as planning,
sourcing and distribution may have actually increased as time to
design a product fell. Twenty-five percent of respondents
ranked faster time-to-market as their hoped for goal, and 66
percent included it among their top three business goals. But,
only 8 percent of respondents noted faster time to market as
the top business benefit achieved, and only 26 percent noted it
among their top three achieved benefits.4

reducing lead times ranked as the top business initiatives companies were considering for 2014. These goals, linked closely
with PLM processes and applications, were the No. 1 way apparel companies planned to achieve future growth goals. As a
result, the percent of survey respondents planning to make
additional investments in PLM technology rebounded from 50
percent in 2014 to 63 percent in 2015 (see Figure 4).
Additionally, survey respondents indicate a willingness to make
larger PLM investments than last year, with 59 percent planning
investments of $500,000 or more, up from 39 percent in 2014.
The planned timeline for these investments has remained
relatively consistent. The survey data shows that, directionally,
more apparel companies are holding off on investments for
another 12 months than indicated the same last year.
Companies continue to develop highly-focused PLM initiatives,
as they did in 2014, and at the same time are laying the foundation for broader refreshes that will allow them to tap potential advantages from developments in cloud, social, mobile and
business intelligence capabilities and evaluate the evolving
Product Innovation Platforms that will increasingly support end-

Figure 4: Anticipated Investments in PLM Technology

How much more

Plan to invest further

(Among those who plan to make additional investments in PLM technology)

14%
15%
16%

2015
(N=32)

62.7%

23.5%

50%

35%
21%

<No

2014
(N=23) 4%
2013
(N=37) 3%

63%

<Dont know

16%

<Yes

16%

17%

35%
18%

26%

31%

9%

28%

4%

13%

17%

22%

18%

21%

<<$10,000 <$10,000 - <$100,000 <$101,000 - <$500,000

<$500,000 - <$1 million <$1 million or more <Dont know

Figure 5: Timeline for Future Investments

When making the bulk of those investments?

Plan to invest further

(Among those who plan to make further investments in PLM technology)

14%
15%
16%

23.5%

50%

35%

63%

21%

<No

20

62.7%

<Dont know

<Yes

2015
(N=32) 9%
2014
(N=23)
2013
(N=37)

34%
35%

17%
11%

31%

32%

26%
30%

19%
13%
16%

6%
9%
11%

<In the next 6 months <In the next 6 12 months

<In the next 12 - 18 months <More than 18 months from now <Dont know

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

Outperforming expectations is better/improved design and

development capabilities. Hand in hand with that, companies
have seen improved adoption rates for their proposed designs.
Both are evidence that the internal workflows and collaboration enabled by better PLM processes and technologies are
yielding products of which multiple stakeholders approve.
Improved idea capture and sharing and workflow visibility have
been instrumental in reducing the number of design cycles
apparel products go through during the development process,
and are important contributing factors to the reduction in product development time.
Apparel companies continue to ask their technology partners for a wide array of functional additions and improvements.
In 2015 the wish-list rankings changed to reflect the interest in
planning activities, and functions that improve visibility and the
ability to respond quickly when plans go awry remained popular. Among the planning functions, business intelligence/analytics (26 percent), calendar management (26 percent), line planning (28 percent), and merchandise planning (16 percent)
ranked as the top capabilities that survey respondents ranked
first or second as areas they would like PLM software and service providers to improve. Calendar management, costing, direct

materials sourcing, and executive dashboards rated highly

among the visibility capabilities companies crave to more quickly identify and respond to problems such as schedule delays,
supply problems, or misaligned product costs. Areas that slipped
down the wish list in 2015 include workflow and critical path
management (down from the No. 2 spot on the 2014 wish list),
virtual product prototyping/modeling (down from its No. 4 rank
in 2014), and collaborative design/CAD file sharing (down from
No. 5 last year). The 2015 rankings closely correlate to the 2013
survey results, suggesting that in 2014 companies were kicking
the tires of some less widely-adopted capabilities before investing to continue to improve visibility and planning functions and
processes. Comparing the functional wish list to survey respondents plans to add PLM functions to their PLM capabilities over
the next 18 months, we see that plans to improve sustainability,
social, or consumer safety compliance is an investment target
for many companies, yet is ranked well down the functional
wish list. Several interpretations can be made: apparel companies may be satisfied with the compliance capabilities offered
by their PLM technology providers, or they have not yet gotten
deep enough into investments in this area to know precisely
what enhanced capabilities to ask their providers to add.4

Figure 6. Primary Benefits of PLM Strategy, Hoped For vs. Achieved, 2015
<Ranked 1st

<Ranked 2nd

<Ranked 3rd

Hope to Achieve Rankings n= 51

Greater Standardization
of PLM Process

12%

35%

Faster Time to Market

25%

25%

Improved Quality Assurance

& Compliance Testing 2% 22%
and Documentation

25%

Improved Product Quality/

Fewer Defects

16%

Lower Product Costs 6%

18%

18%

Better Design 10% 6% 8%

Fewer Markdowns 4% 10%
Other 2% 2%

10%

6%

24%
16%

Have Achieved Rankings n= 48

Greater Standardization
of Processes
Reduced Product
Development Time

40%
15%

Improved Design/Development
Team Productivity
(# Designs/ Person)

Faster Time to Market 8% 10% 8%

Improved Adoption Rate of
Proposed Designs 2%13% 10%
Reduced Product Costs 10%2%10%

Improved Product Margins 6%6%

Other 2%

22

19%

23%

Improved Product Quality/

Fewer Defects 2%8%6%

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

19%

19%

25%
13%

17%

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Figure 7: The 2015 Functional Wish List

n= 51

<Ranked 1st <Ranked 2nd <Ranked 3rd <Ranked 4th <Ranked 5th
Business Intelligence
(BI)/Analytics

14%

Calendar Management

12%

Merchandise Planning/
Management

10%

Costing

10%

Direct Materials Sourcing/

Supplier Collaboration
Bill of Materials/
Product Data Management

Executive Dashboards

6%

Virtual Product
Prototyping/Modeling
Workflow/Critical
Path Management

2%

4%

Product Portfolio Management

4%

10%

8%
12%

6%
4%
6%
4%

4% 2%

Other 2% 2% 2%

10%

6%

4%
6%

50%

44%

32%

4%

30%
8%

10%

52%

36%

8%

12%

8%

38%

22%

10%
2%

4%

24%

6%

8%

46%

34%

6%

6%
2%

6%
10%

8%

2%

22%

Materials Management 2%
10%
Sustainability, Social,
or Consumer Safety 2% 2% 2%
8%
Compliance Tracking
Product Ideation 2% 2%
8%

14%
6%

10%

4%

8%

36%

22%

8%
6%

22%

6%

SHAPING PLM FOR THE FUTURE

Given the enormous importance of PLM to apparel organizations, understanding the factors influencing the evolution
of the PLM discipline as well as technology is important for
planning future investments in people, processes and technologies tied to this area. True to the maturing nature of the
market, the factors that apparel companies believe will guide
their PLM strategy development are changing. Cost management and reduction once again retained its ranking as the
top influence on PLM strategies, but fewer companies ranked
it among the top three influences when compared with
2014s results. Notably, companies ranking it as the No. 1
influence fell to 25 percent in 2015, compared to 37 percent
in 2014.

24

2%

2%

8%

8%

12%

6%

6%

6%
14%

10%

2%

8%
6%

6%

14%
6%

8%

Line Planning

Collaborative Design/
CAD File Sharing

12%

SUM

Moving up the list as influences are the need to increase centralization of PLM activities, and the increased availability and
adoption of cloud or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment
models. PLM initiatives have helped stabilize and create consistency among PLM activities, which controls business risk and
product costs to an extent. The increasing influence of centralizing activities likely has less to do with literally putting everyone doing product design and development in one place, but
rather creating a center-led PLM strategy that creates integration and orchestration across key activities, but still allows for
managing differences in channels, customers, products, and
markets. Center-led supply chain strategies are becoming more
common in apparel enterprises, and as new product design and
launch activities continue to migrate into the span of control
for supply chain organizations, companies can expect to see

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

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Figure 8. Activities or Investments Planned for PLM Technology & Services, 2015

Plan to Implement in the Next 18 Months

n= 51
Business Intelligence (BI)/Analytics

51%

Executive Dashboards

48%

Direct Materials Sourcing/

Supplier Collaboration
Sustainability, Social, or Consumer
Safety Compliance Tracking

39%
38%
37%

Calendar Management
Merchandise Planning/
Management

35%
29%

Line Planning
Workflow/Critical Path
Management

28%

Other

28%

Product Portfolio Management

25%

Collaborative Design/
CAD File Sharing

22%

Product Ideation

22%

Virtual Product Prototyping/

Modeling

20%

Materials Management

18%

Costing
Bill of Materials/
Product Data Management

16%
8%

more experimentation with center-led models being applied to

PLM. Cloud/SaaS deployments of PLM technology are one lever
for providing consistent functionality and workflows based on
best practices defined at least loosely by center-led PLM teams.
We expect to see a surge of organizational innovation as
apparel companies more clearly define the role of PLM in their
supply chains and then design the organizations needed to
effectively support the chosen strategy. This was the first year in
our survey that we asked companies to describe the primary
role PLM plays in their companies. Among retailers, just 17 percent describe PLM as a business differentiator, a startling figure
in light of the growth of private-label activities and the parallel
growth in design, development, sourcing and launch activities
that retailers must support. Another 22 percent describe PLM as
embedded within their end-to-end supply chain process, and
fully 50 percent describe PLM as belonging primarily to product

26

design, development, and sourcing organizations only. Among

apparel manufacturers, the numbers are similar. If anything,
apparel manufacturers are more fixed at the reactive stage of
PLM maturity, reflecting the struggle that companies have in
being both responsive to customer (retailer) needs and consumer preferences, and bringing innovative designs, textiles,
and even supply chain services to attract and retain customers
and consumers. Evolving PLM strategies will require bold apparel industry participants to create aspirational plans for supply
chain leadership that may precede their companies abilities to
execute on the new organizational design from a cultural, technical, process or talent perspective. The case for doing so will
become more compelling as companies limit race-to-the-bottom cost cutting and increasingly focus on innovation and topline growth for enterprise success.4

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

PTC Windchill FlexPLM :

The Retail, Footwear, Apparel
and Consumer Products Solution

PTC has delivered proven best practices, realized value and

leading technology to two-thirds of the world's top retail,
footwear and apparel companies.
Our clients have leveraged our solutions to streamline
the following processes:
Merchandise line planning
Integrated specification development
Materials management
Global sourcing and costing
Predictive calendar management
Product quality
Environmental compliance
Learn more about PTC Windchill FlexPLM at:
PTC.com/go/retail

Figure 9. Factors Influencing PLM Strategies Over Next Three Years

<Ranked 1st

n= 51

2015

<Ranked 2nd

The Need to Increase Centralization of Product Design and

Development Activities Across Brands, Geographies, etc.

14%

14%

Increased Availability and Adoption of Cloud or

Software-as-a-Service Based PLM Applications

Senior PLM Talent to Oversee or Orchestrate

Your Organization's PLM Strategy

16%

20%

The Expansion of Our PLM Strategy to Encompass New

Product Commercialization and Launch Activities

Government Regulation and Quality Assurance Compliance

39%

25%

Cost Management/Cost Cutting

Tighter Integration of PLM Strategy

into the SC Organization

<Ranked 3rd

20%
10%
8%

25%
22%

8%

10%

8%

12%

16%

6%

10% 2%2%

Sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility 2%4%6%

Other 4%

2014

37%

Cost Management/Cost Cutting

The Expansion of Our PLM Strategy to Encompass New

Product Commercialization and Launch Activities

24%

21%

The Need to Increase Centralization of Product Design and

Development Activities Across Brands, Geographies, etc.

13%

Increased Availability and Adoption of Cloud or

Software-as-a-Service Based PLM Applications

13%

Tighter Integration of PLM Strategy

into the SC Organization 8%

18%

16%

11%

29%

16%

5% 5%
8%

Government Regulation and Quality Assurance Compliance 3% 11%

11%
18%

Senior PLM Talent to Oversee or Orchestrate

Your Organization's PLM Strategy 3%3%13%
Sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility 3%8%

CLOSING THOUGHTS
A dozen years ago, Gartner (then AMR Research) wrote in a
research note aimed to the apparel industry, The fashion business is often wrongly assumed to be fast to market with new
products. A spiral of cost pressures driving offshore manufacturing is exacerbating communication problems across the design,
sourcing and manufacturing chain and keeping the time to market for new products at nine to 12 months for most. The consultants knee-jerk notion that the process is broken is wrong in this
28

case: It is more a problem of poor tools and weak discipline. The

answer for many lies in the technology to support new product
development and introduction. Apparel manufacturers can
start deploying tools against specific business process bottlenecks immediately, but should do so in the context of a wider
product lifecycle management (PLM) strategy.
Looking back across a decade of survey work, we can see
that the apparel industry has made substantial progress in
deploying applications to address specific business bottlenecks,
and also in using applications to standardize processes (to a

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT

Figure 10. Primary Role of PLM in Supply Chain, by Market Segment

MANUFACTURER (n=33)

RETAILER (n=18)

17%
PLM is Embedded
within End-to-End
Supply Chain

PLM is a
Differentiator

PLM is Defined as
Product Design and
Development Only

PLM is a
Differentiator

28%

18%
PLM is Embedded
within End-to-End
Supply Chain

22%

11%

12%
PLM Links Design/
Development and
Sourcing Processes

point), create designs more efficiently, and reduce or manage

product costs. The apparel industry is now showing a greater
appetite for taking a critical look at PLM processes and strategies, which, if not exactly broken, may not be the right ones to
take companies into an increasingly multi-channel, global, connected, data-driven, and cloud-based PLM future. Will the
apparel industry increasingly put PLM into the role of a true
competitive differentiator, or is the PLM discipline as it is cur-

33%

12%

22%
PLM Develops
Expertise, Resources
and Common
Processes

PLM is Defined as
Product Design and
Development Only

PLM Develops
Expertise, Resources
and Common
Processes

24%

PLM Links Design/

Development and
Sourcing Processes

rently constructed better aligned to be a lights-on operational system, more like a manufacturing execution system or a
payroll application essential to business but fundamentally
unglamorous? We hope next years survey will tell us more
about whether the industry wishes to move the PLM discipline
forward as a differentiator or whether a new generation of
PLM organizational structures and Product Innovation Platform
technologies better represent next years big runway success. n

Copyright 2015 by Edgell Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Janet Suleski, Research Director, Supply Chain & Apparel, Gartner
Janet Suleski brings more than 17 years of experience working with retailers and software vendors to her role as research director,
supply chain & apparel, at Gartner, and is a founding member of the retail advisory practice. Janet is primarily responsible for
researching, analyzing and writing about the technologies, best practices and trends in key retail software segments, including
retail ERP, product lifecycle management and business intelligence applications. Prior to her current role at Gartner, Janets research
and analysis focused on fresh item management, point-of-sale, price optimization and customer loyalty software and business
processes. She has also covered inventory optimization, strategic sourcing and procurement, collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment
(CPFR), supplier collaboration and supply chain event management. Janet is a member of Apparels Editorial Advisory Board.
Anna Toncheva, Researcher, RDA Team, Gartner
Anna Toncheva is a researcher in the RDA team at Gartner, where she is designs, analyses and delivers the insights from qualitative
and quantitative research studies. Prior to Gartner, Anna spent more than a decade at IDC as a research
director/economist/analyst. Her focus was to analyze the relationships between IT spending and economic variables, develop
multilevel hardware, software and services forecasts and segmentations, and guide clients in evaluating actionable go-to-market
strategies and portfolio development.
30

PLM FOR APPAREL 2015: A DECADE OF PLM DEVELOPMENT