INDUSTRY RESEARCH

Keep abreast of the latest industry research covering business and technical topics relating to the merchandise lifecycle, written by a variety of thought leaders.

We're constantly updating and expanding this material so we encourage you to become a frequent visitor — and be sure to contact us with questions.

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JUNE 2010

Getting It Right The First Time:
Designing & Delivering Merchandise That Sells

Frequently retailers use Private Label merchandise to highlight their “value message” and gross margin, increasing their product offering year on year. But this growth also has its challenges.

• Product quality, with procedures and processes typically poor, even in the best of cases.
• Dependable suppliers are hard to find, keep, and even harder to collaborate with.
• Multiple, disconnected systems are being relied on to support private label processes.

So what are savvy retailers doing to design and deliver merchandise that sells?

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May 2010

AMR Research Case Study: A Retailer's Successful PLM Extension Brings Design Staff Into the Fold

Authored by research director Janet Suleski and published May 14, 2010, this case study reviews how a leading youth-oriented apparel retailer effectively unified product development and product sourcing processes with the implementation of Creative Design, a new component of TradStone's PLM for Retail solution. Read about how the organization expects to achieve substantial cost and time savings by reducing the number of samples required during the product development process. The report also states: "To date, Creative Design has received good feedback from the retailer's suppliers, which like the ease of downloading tech packs and printing them near instantaneously. Internally other design teams are eager to have the application deployed for their use."

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November 2009

Vendor Assessment: Retail PLM/MLM —
Bringing Quality Product to Market Faster

This IDC Retail Insights report provides a market overview of the broad vendor landscape for retail product life-cycle management and merchandise life-cycle management (PLM/MLM) applications. The world's leading supply chains are no longer limited by distance, language, culture, or trading partner boundaries — they have achieved global supply chain visibility and can control and manage their supply chain from design through fulfillment. Supply chain transparency and responsiveness do not come easily, but can be achieved by employing industry best practices and innovating in areas where market leadership is important. Leslie Hand, IDC Retail Insights research director, says, "Retailers are implementing retail PLM/MLM applications to bridge the gaps in their existing supply chains in order to reduce product cycle times, improve product quality, resulting in higher-performing products and improved profitability."

View vendor comparison graph »

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