In the fashion industry, demand is highly variable and changes with consumer trends. Retailers were not prepared for the drastic changes in consumer buying behavior that occurred during the pandemic. For much of 2020, the major fashion item consumers were purchasing was loungewear. Today, fashion firms are moving to less physical and more digital connections, to enable better communication, process integration, and product response. Fashion product development is historically a time-consuming and decentralized process. Digital product lifecycle management (PLM) can help businesses streamline their processes, reduce unnecessary tasks, and save time and costs. Implementing PLM is essential to enable businesses to react to marketplace fluctuations, and not only recover successfully, but also go on to thrive in the new climate and respond rapidly if the virus resurges. Many brands are revolutionizing the way they ideate, design, and sell products with PLM acting as a digital back-bone that enables them to capitalize on three key drivers: agility, efficiency, and innovation, says Lily Dong, marketing director for Centric Software, a digital PLM solution provider. For fashion businesses to succeed in the post-pandemic world, they need to focus on reducing product development times. The use of a digital PLM solution will digitize the work flow, enabling better communication and collaboration. Other benefits include integration with planning tools, and with good data analytics, it will provide visibility into what fashions are needed. Communications with suppliers and factories can be improved by giving them an active participation in the development process. Integration is key for the success of digital PLM. Headquartered in Campbell, California, Centric Software for example, provides a digital PLM solution for fashion and retail companies. It connects all product-related activities and product information, including the entire supply chain on one cloud-based platform, giving internal and external users a single, actionable site in real time. What recovery looks like will vary from country to country as their situations evolve, but there is one key thing thats been made evident by this pandemic businesses that succeed in the future will be powered by digital transformation and will heavily depend on technologies that leverage remote collaboration, says Dong. Centrics PLM enables collaborations across branding, design, merchandising, financial planning, development, specs, sourcing, manufacturing, quality control, and retailing, to cut costs and reduce time to market.4

What do you think of Centric's analysis towards the end of the profile as to how companies will need to respond going forward?