The customer is the key role in the Consumer Goods industry. Companies must know what the market wants, able to rapidly change the products and business processes to adapt to the latest trend. What we know as “The Brand” is changing, in that there is now a complete mix of brand owner and private label products that are in a constant battle for the consumers' attention. This market fragmentation drives exponential increase in product variants, resulting in much more complex product portfolio and life cycle management. Increasingly stringent government regulations require complex business processes and traceability procedures to be implemented. Facing shorter product life cycle and shrinking profit margins, progressive Consumer Goods manufacturers are relying on Product Lifecycle Management solutions to address these challenges. Thanks to PLM, companies have higher chances of market success by effectively managing thrusts coming from the market that impact creative, planning and supply processes.

What can a PLM solution do for consumer & retail businesses?

• Increase product appeal and consumer experience by utilizing cutting edge product design, virtual shopping, and store configuration tools
• Strengthen branding by enforcing the usage of brand definition, logos, messaging and other marketing standards utilizing templates and workflows
• Increase development pipeline volume by reusing product information from one project to another in order to develop variants more quickly
• Close the gap between what is produced and what the market wants by maintaining traceability from ideation to commercialization and obsolescence
• Positively impact decisions related to calendars, materials, cost and quality by performing virtual product qualification early in the development process
• Integrate regulatory compliance into product development process to reduce the chances of last minute changes and product recall
• Drive material costs down by publishing material specifications across brands, regions and categories to create efficient procurement processes
• Enable low cost design or manufacturing outsourcing by creating a centrally managed global virtual work team and using a single repository to store all product information throughout their life cycle.