Montane on Track to go ‘Further. Faster.’ with Centric PLM Launch

Centric Software®, the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market leader, proudly announces that Montane, a high-performance outdoor apparel and equipment brand based in the UK, has successfully implemented Centric PLM™.  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. 

Montane has a rich history of innovation and for three decades has created the most innovative, lightweight and breathable ‘bleeding edge’ high performance apparel in the world. It boasts an expansive range of products for both men and women and reaches its global customer base through its e-commerce site and an outlet store in the UK. On the quest to go ‘Further. Faster.’ it has an aggressive international growth strategy, recently opening up to the US, Nordic, Japanese and European markets, and has a second outlet store set to open its doors in 2024.  

“We are confident in our international growth targets, but in order to succeed, we needed more efficient processes in place,” says Marc Davis, Product Line Manager at Montane. “Within the outdoor industry, we are trying to achieve an elevated position and focus on the light, high performance product that has led to planned growth.”

Montane’s journey to adopt a PLM system began in 2022. The power to streamline product development processes, do away with ‘dozens of spreadsheets’ and maximize efficiencies across the company were top priorities. Montane selected Centric Software’s cloud-based PLM solution for small and mid-sized businesses, Centric SMB, and went live with the system in December 2023.

“A PLM system makes data more accurate; it makes workflows more consistent, and it generally makes the whole business run better,” says Davis. “Some of our team had previous experience working with Centric, so we were familiar with its powerful capabilities, and we knew we could trust it to transform our operations.”

Montane’s implementation was a major undertaking as the team manually input all their highly detailed, technical product data to ensure it was accurate from the start. Despite this, the process has been largely plain sailing with teams embracing the system as a positive change.

“Of course, adapting to a new system has its initial challenges,” explains Davis. “But the more people have used Centric, the more they genuinely enjoy it and see its inherent value.”  

Today, the product development and operations teams are using PLM, with logistics and costing slated to come online in phase two.

“We are in the middle of our first live season with PLM and slowly, but surely, transitioning out of all of the old systems,” shares Davis. “The number of spreadsheets that are now discontinued because of Centric is vast, and we are definitely becoming very efficient at quite a quick speed.”

Davis emphasizes the value of the training sessions and responsive support provided by the Centric Software team, and the ability for Montane to be adaptable as the keys to a successful implementation.

“I think businesses implementing a PLM system need to be open-minded to change and know that the business needs to adapt to the system, as much as the system needs to adapt to the business,” says Davis. “Centric PLM is so intuitive and once you understand the solution, the simplicity of it comes out, and it makes life so much easier.”

"We are thrilled that Montane has successfully launched Centric PLM and streamlined their product development processes,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “We look forward to our long-term partnership and to Montane’s continued success as they expand the solution.”

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Montane (www.montane.com)

For over 30 years, Montane has striven to create the most innovative ‘bleeding edge’ outdoor clothing and equipment in the world. Montane has become synonymous with lightweight and breathable clothing and equipment. Our history is crammed full of innovation in the workshop, extreme expeditions to the most inhospitable corners of the planet, extraordinary athletes that push the boundaries of possibility and well-established partnerships with the world’s most brutal endurance events. Combined, these elements tell our story – who are we, why we exist. Further. Faster.

For over 25 years Montane has worked closely with serious mountain professionals working in hostile conditions across the globe as a proving ground for garment design. From the British Antarctic Survey to British Mountain Rescue Teams. Professionals who demand the toughest credentials from their clothing and equipment choose Montane.

The first to truly push the limits of single layer mountain clothing with the Extreme Smock and then, later realising the true value of windproof clothing, creating the first super packable, windproof and breathable windshirt - the Featherlite Smock. The Featherlite Smock was probably the most functional and innovative piece of windproof garment design since Fridtjof Nansen, whilst planning the first crossing of Greenland over 100 years ago, realised that the windproof properties of a garment were the secret to moving quickly and comfortably in the mountains.

The importance of functionality in garments and packs does not stop at product design alone. Fabric technology is critical to producing the best products, Montane works with the world's leading fabric suppliers to engineer new cutting-edge materials that push the boundaries of what is possible with clothing, equipment and accessories in order to create the lightest, toughest and most functional products available on the market.

Montane products are built to endure. We design every element to ensure our clothing and equipment becomes your trusted companion in the mountains. 

Through design we strive for simplicity. Our focus on lightweight construction naturally delivers a timeless look, fusing performance with a modern aesthetic to transcend any trend.

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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Centric Software

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EMEA: Kristen Salaun-Batby, [email protected]

APAC: Lily Dong, [email protected]