INOV8 Races Towards Total Digital Transformation with Centric Software

Centric Software® is pleased to announce that INOV8 has selected Centric PLM™ to drive growth and speed innovation. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.  

Founded in 2003 in the British Lake District, INOV8 has become one of the world’s leading brands for off-road runners, hikers and fitness athletes. It is an ambitious sportswear pioneer whose footwear, clothing and equipment keeps athletes within the flow. INOV8 also has the exclusive use of Graphene – the world’s strongest material – in the rubber outsoles and foam midsoles of its shoes, enhancing both performance and durability. The brand trades in 50+ countries and has six of its own brand stores – five in the UK and one in Boise, US.

With big ambitions for future growth, INOV8 recognized the urgent need for a modern PLM solution to unify data in a ‘single source of truth,’ efficiently manage their product lifecycle processes and drive key sustainability goals. Disorganized data was creating a logistical headache for teams who were spending more time on admin than value-added tasks.

“Buyers were spending less time on commercial work because the information they needed was scattered across multiple spreadsheets and emails. There was also an increased risk of errors and duplicated information, which could have had serious financial implications for the business,” explains Mark Hutchinson, Head of Supply, Planning and Demand at INOV8.

INOV8 was seeking a single solution to structure their ‘critical path’ and increase the visibility of product information, including accurate product costs and material data. “As a business with ambitious growth plans, it made sense to streamline product development and empower teams to be as efficient and accurate as possible,” says Hutchinson.

Jonathan Emerson, Head of Information Technology at INOV8 agrees, “Before partnering with Centric there was no structure to our product lifecycle, and staying on top of the associated processes and deadlines was not as smooth as we would like. We knew PLM was the answer.”

INOV8 first started searching for a PLM solution in 2019, but due to changes in leadership, the project was put on hold. Five years later, the company is excited to dive back in. “We didn’t look at any other PLM providers because Centric ticked all the boxes - it’s intuitive, easy to implement and scalable,” praises Hutchinson. “In fact, most of the commercial team were in the first demo session, and everyone nodded in unison when they saw what Centric PLMTM could do for the business.”

Centric will be crucial in managing INOV8’s products from the initial design until the product enters their ERP. Teams are particularly looking forward to using the Calendar module for a smoother production process, as well as the Material Library to make faster and more informed decisions.

“With this functionality, a designer can easily avoid a material that has a fault flagged because it will be logged in the system. There will be full visibility of costs too, which will speed decision-making,” comments Hutchinson.

INOV8 plan to ‘go-live’ with Centric PLM in the New Year, and the top priority will be onboarding their suppliers through the Supplier Portal. They also see their partnership with Centric lasting well into the future, as they explore how the system can best support the company’s impressive sustainability agenda through Worldly (formerly known as Higg) integration.

“Centric is proud to partner with a pioneering, ambitious brand like INOV8, as they embark on an exciting new phase of growth,” says Fabrice Canonge, President of Centric Software. “We look forward to seeing INOV8 go from strength-to-strength, as Centric PLM empowers their business to increase productivity and drive further innovation.”

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INOV8 (www.inov-8.com)

Forged in the fells and mountains of the British Lake District in 2003, INOV8 is an ambitious and innovative sports brand.

It strives to empower the world's physical and mental fitness through more fulfilling sporting experiences, with pioneering products and innovations that keep athletes within the flow. Across its three categories of Run, Walk and Gym, it neither over nor under engineers its products, in the belief that nature knows best.

INOV8’s products and innovations are developed to enable ‘the flow’ – a state of mind and feeling sportspeople get when all distractions fall away, leaving nothing but the pure enjoyment of accomplishment. This allows runners, walkers, hikers and gym enthusiasts to go faster, or longer again. The brand makes purposeful design decisions that strike a precise balance between the body and the environment to enable a more fulfilling sporting experience.

Throughout its 20+ years, it has led the way and been rewarded with many prestigious awards. It continues to proudly call the Lake District our home, testing ground and design centre.

Centric Software® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in consumer goods like fashion, outdoor, luxury, home, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

• Centric PLMTM, the leading PLM solution for consumer goods, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity.
• Centric PlanningTMis an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance resulting in a 110% increase in margin.
• Centric Pricing & InventoryTMleverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion.
• Centric Market IntelligenceTMis an AI-driven platform giving insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitivity and get closer to the consumer, with a proven 12% increase in average initial price point.
• Centric Visual BoardsTMpivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, increasing product portfolios by up to 90% using the same resources.

Centric Software’s market-driven solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition appears regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.

Centric Software is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions.

Centric Software is a registered trademark of Centric Software, Inc. in the US and other countries. Centric PLM, Centric Planning, Centric Pricing & Inventory, Centric Market Intelligence and Centric Visual Boards are Trademarks of Centric Software, Inc. All third-party trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.

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