The Solution Consumer Electronics Brands Didn’t Know They Needed: A Visual Planning and Go-To-Market PLM

While engineering PLMs are key for consumer electronics brands and retailers producing white label products, there are still a myriad of non-engineering problems that a global business needs to solve.

An engineering-focused PLM doesn’t go far enough for global consumer electronic brands. It’s perfect for scrutinizing precise details during the CAD product development phase, but unfortunately, it’s largely inaccessible for the non-engineering departments in your business.

Competitive consumer electronics brands pushing innovation need to invest in a global-facing solution: a way to speed product launches, optimize products across portfolios, geographies and channels while enabling cross-department collaboration.

Centric Software®, the innovation-leaders at the forefront of technology, have the solution global brands didn’t know they needed. A visual planning and go-to-market PLM. Read on to find out what value it could bring to your business.

Visually Assort Products Like Never Before

Many brands have been able to streamline their workflows and increase operational efficiency through an engineering PLM, however there is more to product success than just the engineering CAD development phase. So how does a consumer electronics brand ensure the right product mix is on offer for their entire global target audience?

Usually, merchandisers, planners and go-to-market teams optimize products on spreadsheets. Then, to visually illustrate their products, teams spend tremendous time and energy creating presentation decks, with some physically printing out (sometimes hundreds) of life-size product boards for the executive decision makers.

With Centric Visual Planning, teams plan visually, sort merchandise portfolios and build out product lines to optimize product portfolios – all in real time. No more going back and forth between pulling data to draft a presentation, and no more printing out hundreds of life-size boards. Instead, data, illustrations and life-size visual presentation are combined into one elegant digital presentation, with data pulled in directly from a PLM or other enterprise solutions. Executive decision makers can make and see any and all product changes instantly reflected in the visual planning presentation.

Visual planning enables you to do: 

• View line targets and placeholders with information pulled from another enterprise solution like ERP or engineering PLMs
• Build interactive sample plans, complete with product types, specs, sizes, design, components, colour and quantity notes
• Set allocations by channel or region
• Update target values or any information that drives the merchandising strategies

The ability to visually optimize product portfolios across brands, price points and regions in real time is ground-breaking. With Centric Visual Planning, you can bring the same operational efficiency your engineering teams already have, to other parts of the business.

Accelerate Decision-Making

Increase your tech stack and combine your existing engineering PLM with visual planning and a go-to-market PLM, creating the ultimate streamline for all your engineering, portfolio management and launch milestones. Clear the pathway for fully collaborative, cross-team communication.

Tight deadlines can be hard to keep to when a portfolio is constantly going through multiple iterations, changes or updates before an executive team signs off. Visual planning’s ability to feedback in real time drives collaborative decision-making. With all key stakeholders working either remotely or in-person from the same digital platform, the unique ability to make rapid changes speeds the entire decision-making process. Ensure product launches are not thrown out by changes that take days to be reflected in plans, and if need be, weeks to action in PLM.

Drive Go-To-Market Meetings and Product Launches

Successful products do not automatically mean successful launches – team collaboration drives successful launches. A global brand can have the best product, but customers will not wait if it arrives to market late.

Having an agile engineering process is important, but so is having a go-to-market launch strategy unhampered by long meetings, inefficient back and forth changes and inconclusive decision-making. By maintaining all go-to-market data in one place, empower teams to:

• Pull data from multiple enterprise solutions so teams can work with up-to-date product information during go-to-market launch meetings. Teams can view, sort, and analyze products by theme, material, specs and product type to make faster, more informed decisions and keep launches on track.
• Assess product changes with 3D rendering, as well as visual data analysis and reports, removing the need to see a consumer electronics product in real life.
• Adjust go-to-market changes instantaneously to capitalize on time-sensitive opportunities to meet KPIs
• Enable connectivity across all teams, both engineering and non-engineering alike to work cohesively without confusion or interruption.

Connect Artwork, Proofing and Packaging

A complete go-to-market PLM handles complex packaging and proofing requests using the most up-to-date data pulled directly from an ERP, alternative PLM or enterprise solution.

Effectively manage complex private label and branded product portfolios, save time and money and reduce error margins. Enable teams to:

• Automatically track, update and label packaging according to regional compliance specifications.
• Simplify textual product and packaging changes with cloud-based translation software.
• Capture upcoming trends and funnel relevant, real-time data to your art and design teams so they can collaboratively create cutting-edge proofs.
• Create eye-catching look books for product art and package proofs.
• Compare designs seamlessly across items of all shapes and sizes with 3D product renderings.

Bridge the Gap Between Engineering, Marketing and Sales

If you want to scale your business to global status, it’s not just about getting the products right but ensuring you’re bringing the right products to market.

It’s no secret engineering PLMs deal with the centralization and automation of engineering product design. But with visual planning and a go-to-market PLM, it can be so much more than that.

Visual planning and go-to-market PLM is not just a place for all product data to live, but rather a way all teams can access and share the most up-to-date information. It is an effective bridge between product development, marketing and sales.

Enable teams to work autonomously and in synchronization: while product development perfects innovation, design, engineering, revisions and implementations, sales and marketing can perfect their go-to-market presentations, and planners and merchandisers can effectively sign off portfolios or adjust plans in real time – without any time or resources lost.

Do this visually with next-generation, visual planning and go-to-market technology that works alongside alternative PLMs or enterprise solutions.