Lancaster Accelerate Product Development with Centric PLM

Tradition, Trend and Timelessness

Since 1990, Lancaster has created handbags, leather goods and accessories that blend traditional materials and techniques with a timeless sense of design. The brand’s mission is to empower women to express their personalities through high-quality handbags designed to accompany them everywhere they go. Each Lancaster product offers luxury at an accessible price point, allowing customers to carry through their personal identity whenever a new trend inspires them.

Today, Lancaster is a leader in leather goods in its native France and 60 more countries around the world. The company produces 1.5 million items per year across its Lancaster, Element and Lancaster Spirit lines, which are sold through a network of more than 1,000 retail outlets.

Accelerating Product Development

To optimize their way of working and seize new market growth opportunties, the Parisian company chose Centric PLM. “In today’s leather goods market, quick development is essential,” explains Thomas Tchen, Lancaster’s founder and CEO, “so it was imperative for us to accelerate our design, creation and development process.”

To achieve its multinational, multi-brand vision, Lancaster embarked on a rigorous technology selection process to ensure that the brand found the best possible partner.

“Today, innovative technologies like Centric Software PLM are vital tools for traditional companies like Lancaster,” continues Tchen. “These solutions allow us to create products more quickly, to adapt our overall product offer for different markets and, at the same time, also to eliminate delays in the development of individual products. We chose Centric PLM on the basis of its usability and flexibility and also because it is the PLM solution that best fits our industry.”

A Mandate for Mobility

Centric Software’s suite of mobile applications, which synchronize product data with PLM and empower collaboration across different departments and devices, was also a significant factor in Lancaster’s decision to implement the solution.

explains Tchen. “The modern world is mobile, with teams travelling to trade shows or visiting customers and partners overseas. In a market as competitive as leather goods, it is essential to use the right tools to capture market share; the mobility of Centric PLM allows us to share information in real-time and to refine our product development strategies and assortment mix by geographical area.”

A key mobile business case centred around the use of Centric Software’s interactive catalogue application, Collection Book, which is used by sales teams to present products anywhere, especially when on traveling. “The ability for salespeople to access collections in real-time, no matter where they are in the world, using Collection Book presents a real commercial advantage and helps to streamline and accelerate our sales process,” explains Davide Ravizza, Lancaster’s Commercial Director.

Driven by market demand for new styles, the time between product conception and sale is shrinking. Digital transformation has become essential for companies who wish to remain competitive. Working with Centric Software, Lancaster has been able to both expand its global footprint and reduce the time it takes to bring new products to market, as Ravizza explains, “To meet the needs of our international customer base, we have to be capable of delivering new products and new colorways at any moment, and Centric 8 helps us to respond to this challenge.”

True PLM Partners

“Today, there is a genuine partnership between the Lancaster and Centric teams,” says Tchen. “We continue to work closely together and this collaboration delivers real added value for both companies.”

The next stage of this joint journey? To strengthen that partnership even further. “Our aim is to become more involved with the Centric Software user community and to engage and share best practices with other customers. I am extremely satisfied with our choice of Centric, and I would not hesitate to recommend them and their solutions to other businesses,” concludes Tchen.