Gartner's new report, PLM for Apparel 2013: Preparing for the Next Wave of Value

AN Apparel RESEARCH STUDY & ANALYSIS
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PLM strategies are maturing. Early benefits
from cost savings have been achieved and
continue to be supported, and now apparel
companies are increasingly viewing
PLM as providing a critical platform for the
next round of competitive evolution.
BY JANET SULESKI AND LUCIE DRAPER, GARTNER
FOR APPAREL 2013:

The investment level in PLM technology by apparel companies contin-
ued to trend upward through 2012 and into 2013 as retailers and
manufacturers implemented PLM technology purchased after reviving
and updating plans that had been shelved during the worst of the reces-
sion. In making these investments, apparel companies sought to stan-
dardize product design and development processes, cut lead time out of
their supply chains, and enable the rapid capture and sharing of inspira-
tions and trends data to speed product innovation. Retailers and manu-
facturers also began to ask PLM to take a bigger role as a process to react
to end-to-end supply chain data and play a key role in orchestrated
responses to the information. This need has helped set the next stage of
PLM development, as an essential part of a well-coordinated, systemati-
cally integrated and segmented new product commercialization and
launch platform. Before making this next leap, apparel companies are
pausing spending on new software and consolidating the gains they’ve
made from PLM investments to date.
Seventy-four apparel brand manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers
participated in our eighth annual Apparel magazine/ Gartner survey on
PLM initiatives and investments for the upcoming 12 months.The portion
of survey respondents with plans to make further investments in PLM
technology dropped from 67 percent in 2012 to 63 percent in 2013. Among
companies planning to make future investments, the portion expecting to
invest $500,000 or more jumped from 21 percent to 31 percent. The time-
lines for investments have stretched further into the future, with 46 per-
cent of survey respondents indicating that they will make the bulk of their
future PLM technology investments 12 or more months in the future,
compared to 42 percent in 2012. More significantly, the portion expecting
to make the bulk of their future investments more than 18 months from
now increased from 9 percent to 16 percent, a relative jump of 77 percent.
As in previous years, faster time to market remains the No. 1 benefit
most apparel and fashion companies hope to achieve from their invest-
ments in PLM strategies. A new answer option — standardization of PLM
processes — came in second. Standardization of business processes sets
the stage for many benefits not specifically named, such as faster design,
increased staff productivity, expanded material re-use and better visibility
to cost savings opportunities. The portion of companies naming lower
product costs as their No. 1 hoped-for benefit from implementing a PLM
strategy continued to drop, with just 12 percent of survey respondents
naming it as their top hoped-for benefit, down from 24 percent in 2012.
The shift in priority demonstrates the growing maturity of PLM strate-
gies. Early benefits from cost savings have been achieved and continue to
be supported, and now apparel companies are increasingly viewing PLM
as providing a critical platform for the next round of competitive evolution.
PLM: Setting the Stage for the Next Wave of Benefits
Consumer-centricity has been an evolving strategy in the retail and
fashion worlds for more than 10 years, with companies approaching the
challenge from multiple angles: loyalty programs and personalization,
cross- and omnichannel retailing, supply chain planning and execution,
PLM, assortment optimization and store operations improvements.
Ultimately, the goal is to draw companies’ ability to sense, shape and
respond to consumers closer to the time that the demand signal is ana-
lyzed, the trend detected, or the purchase decision made. However, a
12 PLM for Apparel 2013: Preparing for the Next Wave of Value
Apparel magazine and Gartner’s eighth
annual survey of the apparel industry’s adoption
and use of PLM technology shows the industry
continuing to make significant investments in
product design and development technology.
Beginning in 2011, we’ve observed steady
investment strategies on behalf of many apparel
companies as they moved from first- or second-
generation PLM applications to newer, more
comprehensive platforms.
Many companies are now adding targeted
functionality PLM implementations, leaving the
fabric of the core functions alone… for now.The
next wave of developments in PLM technology
is already on the horizon, and work has begun
to re-invent the silhouette of PLM activities for
the next technology season.
The survey was conducted in March 2013
with the goal of seeking out the latest on PLM
investments, future spending plans and
strategic objectives being set by process and
technology leaders in apparel, footwear,
accessories and home fashions. We offer our
sincere thanks to the 74 companies that
participated and shared information about their
PLM plans and initiatives; without their
participation, this study would not be possible.
This year, 46 percent of survey respondents
were manufacturers; 39 percent were vertically-
integrated companies that design and sell
apparel and other products directly to
consumers through their own retail channels;
and 15 percent were retailers that sell branded
apparel merchandise or a blend of branded and
private-label merchandise. Of the 67 companies
that indicated an annual revenue range, 21
percent had annual sales of more than $5
billion; 28 percent had annual sales of $1 billion
to $5 billion; 34 percent had sales revenues of
$100 million to $1 billion; and 17 percent had
sales revenues of $100 million or less.
As the apparel industry prepares for the next
wave of PLM process and technology
innovation, this report is meant to be a useful
benchmarking and research tool to help guide
the way. It provides a way for companies to view
their PLM investments to date and how they
measure up to their peers, and to measure
planned initiatives against the industry as a
whole. We welcome suggestions and feedback
regarding desired data for next year’s survey.
Apparel Research Study & Analysis

Gartner study from late 2011 indicated that, across industries,
50 percent of new product launches by companies failed to
achieve one or more of the key metrics set for the products,
most often unit sales, dollar sales or profit margin. Top reasons
for failure are near and dear to product lifecycle management
activities — product cost issues, being late to market, or expe-
riencing inventory shortages, be they from raw materials sup-
pliers upstream or consumer-perceived shortages when the
desired product is not on the rack or shelf.
The groundwork laid in apparel companies’PLM initiatives
over the past 10 years will help in tackling the challenge of
increasing the success rate of new product commercialization
and launch activities. As part of the larger effort apparel com-
panies have made to use IT to scale efficiencies, enable innova-
tion and make consumer-centricity possible, PLM can play a
crucial role in creating fresh and innovative products and deliv-
ering them to market in a timely and profitable manner. It’s not
just a technology problem; re-making the commercialization
process requires close coordination of product development,
supply chain, and sales, merchandising and store operations
teams. Closer alignment of new product introduction process-
es with sales and operations planning acts as the governing
mechanism of this emerging best practice. PLM strategies and
technologies are now beginning to play a crucial role as both
an input to the commercialization process, to give a pipeline
view earlier to downstream operations, and as an essential tool
to enable rapid, accurate responses to adjustments being made
by commercialization teams using ever more powerful busi-
ness analytics. Next, we assess where PLM investments are
today, what the emerging demands are that are being placed
on PLM, and how the apparel industry plans to invest in PLM
going forward.
2013 Snapshot and Evolution
On the Path to Operational Excellence
The results from this year’s survey provide a solid indication
that many apparel companies have put in place the core PLM
capabilities needed to drive operational excellence. Keeping in
mind that apparel companies with more than $5 billion in
annual revenue formed a larger portion of survey participants
this year than last year (21 percent vs. 10 percent), the 2013 data
show that more than half of survey participants have function-
ality for product data management (PDM) and bills of material
(BOM) management, costing, line planning, collaborative
Bill of Materials/PDM
Materials Management
Costing
Line Planning
Collaborative Design/
CAD File Sharing
Product Portfolio
Management
Merchandise Planning/
Management
DMS/Supplier Collaboration
Workflow/Critical Path
Management
Business intelligence
(BI)/Analytics
Calendar/Exec. Dashboard
Product Ideation
Sustainability, social or consumer
safety compliance tracking
Virtual Product Prototyping/
modeling
Figure 1: PLM Efforts and Adoption Status, 2013
Please indicate which of the following PLM functions your PLM technology effort encompasses
today and which functions your organization plans to add in the next 18 months
Currently Use Planning to Implement in next 18 months Not Using nor Planning to in next 18 months
80% 12% 8%
72% 18% 10%
62% 30% 8%
61% 18% 22%
59% 24% 18%
51% 24% 25%
49% 29% 22%
45% 39% 16%
42% 40% 18%
39% 27% 33%
35% 43% 22%
31% 27% 41%
27% 29% 43%
22% 20% 59%

design and CAD sharing, and product portfolio management in
place (see Figure 1). These capabilities are essential to central-
izing product data, standardizing PLM processes, and provid-
ing opportunities for cost savings. As noted last year, the visi-
bility to product data, BOMs, and line plans, and the gover-
nance mechanism provided by product portfolio management
are playing an increasingly important role in apparel compa-
nies’ sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes. The
linkage between S&OP processes and product design and
development activities enables better alignment of new product
commercialization and launch activities, a pain point that many
apparel companies are seeking to address.
To put these applications in place, apparel retailers in par-
ticular have spent substantial amounts of money. Among this
year’s survey participants, 68 percent reported spending
$500,000 or more to date on PLM technology products and
services. Among manufacturers responding to the survey, 32
percent reported spending more than $500,000 (see Figure 2).
As a result of this spending pattern, it has evolved that apparel
and fashion retailers and vertically-integrated retailers have
surpassed manufacturers in terms of influence on PLM soft-
ware development, something Gartner has addressed in other
research.
Investments in PLM strategies and technologies have yield-
ed results. The No. 1 hoped-for benefit from PLM investments
in all eight years our study has been conducted is faster time-
to-market, and this has panned out in two forms: shorter prod-
uct development times and improved time-to-market. Apparel
manufacturers have seen and measured fewer bottom-line
improvements generated by PLM investments across the board
than have retailers. Manufacturers were most likely to cite
reduced product development time as a benefit achieved (see
Figure 3). As investments in PLM strategies and software by
manufacturers have to date remained low when compared to
retailers, it may be that more investment is needed before PLM
yields larger more sustained business benefits. However, man-
ufacturers’current level of influence on PLM software develop-
ment roadmaps is overshadowed by retailers’ influence, which
may mean achieving additional benefits from PLM will be a
slow process. Survey respondents that are currently imple-
menting PLM applications overwhelmingly expect to keep
those applications in place indefinitely once implemented.
Near-Term Plans are Modest
The operational benefits achieved to date, along with the
foundation supplied by PLM-enabled access to consistent data
and shared views of one version of the truth as a product moves
through development and into the supply chain, provide the
springboard for the next level of PLM maturity. Referring back
to Figure 1, survey respondents indicated that the next wave of
PLM excellence will be supported by work they plan to do on
calendaring and executive dashboards, workflow and critical
path management, and direct materials sourcing and supplier
collaboration. With this work underway, apparel companies
appear to be scaling back on major PLM investments for the
coming year and focusing on selectively adding new capabili-
ties. As noted last year, apparel companies were not and are not
prepared to open their IT wallets for just any new PLM technol-
ogy, but are blending selective improvements with business
process change and the acquisition of PLM talent to aid in the
next wave of improvements.
The Apparel and Gartner 2013 Top Technology Trends survey
(conducted in October 2012) showed that 41 percent of compa-
nies expected to increase IT budgets in 2013, down slightly
from 45 percent in 2011. Notably, among companies planning
to increase their IT budgets, the level of planned growth
jumped to an average of 4.1 percent, up from expected increas-
Figure 2: Spending on PLM technology to Date, by Market Segment
What financial investment have you made on PLM technology products and services to date?
11% 18% 16% 3%4% 11% 14% 36%4% 4%
<$10,000
$10,000 - <$500,000
$50,000 - <$100,000
$100,000 - <$250,000
$250,000 - <$500,000
$500,000 - <$1 million
$1 million - <$2.5 million
$2.5 million or more
2013 Retailers
6% 16% 3%19% 16% 16% 16%9%
2012 Retailers
23% 14%9% 5% 18%32%
2013 Manufacturers & Others
8% 12% 4%32% 16% 20%8%
2012 Manufacturers & Others

Reduced product development time
Improved time to market
Reduced total lead time
Improved overall margin
Reduced inventory
Other
We have either not seen or
not measured any improvements
Don’t know
37%
41%
31%
27%
35%
17%
27%
32%
21%
24%
35%
10%
8%
12%
3%
13%
12%
14%
22%
18%
27%
16%
12%
21%
Figure 3: Bottom Line Improvements Experienced Through PLM to Date, by Market Segment
How, if at all, has PLM improved your bottom line? Total Retailer Manufacturer & other
es of 3 percent in 2011 and 2.1 percent in 2010. Remarkably, the
mean rate of growth expected among this group in 2012 was 12
percent. This growing gap indicates that apparel and fashion
companies that came through the recession and made essential
business investments throughout and immediately afterwards
are preparing to accelerate their investments to consolidate
their advantages over competitors and put even greater dis-
tance between their companies and the also-rans.
Slightly fewer survey respondents indicated plans for future
PLM technology investments, and among those planning to
make future investments, the portion planning investments of
$1 million or more dropped to 21 percent in 2013 versus 27 per-
cent in 2012. In an indication that more apparel companies are
pausing in their PLM implementations, 73 percent indicated
that they plan to make the bulk of their PLM technology invest-
ments in the next 18 months, down from 81 percent a year ago.
Currently, 27 percent expect the bulk of future PLM technology
spending to happen more than 18 months from now.
Slower than hoped-for return on investment (ROI) from
PLM software implemented to date may be one reason compa-
nies are slowing their spending on PLM technology for now.
Rolling out PLM applications, unhooking legacy applications,
changing business processes as part of holistic PLM initiatives,
and training staff create an enormously complex change man-
agement environment for apparel companies. It is not uncom-
mon to see companies leave longer-than-expected periods of
% of revenue budgeted for IT:
Mean 5% 4.8% 4.5%
% change in IT budget among those increasing:
Mean 10% 8% 12%
Figure 4: IT Budget as Share of Revenue and
Budget Directions for Next Fiscal Year
Q. What is your company’s IT budget as a percent of revenue in 2012?
Q. Is your company’s IT budget for the next fiscal year increasing,
decreasing or remaining the same? By what percent?
Decrease No change Increase
2012
6%
54%
41%
2010
11%
52%
37%
2011
10%
44%
45%
Growth: 4.1%Growth: 2.1% Growth: 3.0%
*includes both capital and operational costs for hardware, networking,
telecommunications, software maintenance/licenses/infrastructure, third party
IT services, and internal head count.

time between implementation phases in order to conduct
process audits, design new metrics, and engage multiple stake-
holder communities to get the most benefit from already-imple-
mented applications and carefully design the work to be done in
the next phase based on lessons learned from prior phases.
The benefits apparel companies hope to achieve and the
ones they do achieve are not perfectly aligned, and companies
looking to build a business case for future PLM investments
should take note. More companies hope to achieve faster time-
to-market than actually have achieved it post-implementation,
and more companies experience greater standardization of
processes and the benefits that accrue from that than had
expected to. More companies ranked“better designs”as one of
their top three benefits achieved than ranked it as one of the
top three benefits they expected to achieve. Far more compa-
nies achieved other benefits, such as improved profit margins
or lower supply chain inventories (leading to lower supply
chain risk) than expected to.
Apparel companies are integrating PLM processes to an
expanding array of other processes to improve visibility into the
new product pipeline, enable earlier input into design and
development, and take into account constraints that, with
enough lead time, can be raised and jointly addressed by devel-
opment, sourcing, supply chain, merchandising and store oper-
ations teams. PLM applications have traditionally focused on
product design and development activities, and are now being
asked to stretch to support more fully integrated enterprise-
level activities.
To deliver on this expanding set of expectations, apparel
companies have a long wish list of capabilities they would like
to see their PLM technology providers add to or enhance in
their applications (see Figure 8). Because of several new added
categories, this year’s numbers are not directly comparable to
those in our 2012 study. Complete capabilities to support cost-
ing, for example, may require functionality for manufacturing
process design for apparel manufacturers and for vertically-
integrated retailers. Gartner defines manufacturing process
design as an integrated approach to product and construction
process design, materials requirements, and related operations
including pattern making, grading and marker development.
2011
2013
Figure 5: Anticipated Investments in PLM Technology
Do you plan to make further investments in PLM technology?
Approximately how much more do you expect to invest in PLM technology?
12% 19% 69%
16% 21% 63%
31% 17% 3% 31%
18%
17%
26%3% 18% 21%13%
201214% 19% 67% 19%29%6% 17% 27%2%
<$10,000 $10,000 - <$100,000 $101,000 - <$500,000
$501,000 - <$1 million $1 million or more Don’t know
No Don’t Know Yes
Plan to invest further How much more
(Among those who plan to make further investments in PLM technology)
2011
2013
Figure 6: Timeline for Future Investments
When do you plan on making the bulk of these additional investments?
12% 19% 69%
16% 21% 63%
7% 38% 45% 7%
16%
3%
11% 32% 11%30%
201214% 19% 67% 9%11% 38% 11%32%
In the next 6 months In the next 6 – 12 months
In the next 12 - 18 months More than 18 months from now Don’t know
No Don’t Know Yes
Plan to invest further When making the bulk of those investments?

Figure 7: Primary Benefits of PLM Strategy, 2013
Q. What are the primary benefits you would hope to achieve through the implementation of a PLM strategy and related technology?
Q. What are the primary benefits you have achieved through your use of a PLM strategy and related technology?
Ranked 1st Ranked 2nd Ranked 3rd
Hope to achieve Have achieved
Costing
Workflow/Critical Path
Management
BI/Analytics
Calendar/Executive Dashboard
Bill of Materials/
Product Data Management
Line Planning
Materials Management
Sustainability, social or
consumer safety compliance
Direct Materials Sourcing/
Supplier Collaboration
Virtual Product Prototyping/
Modeling
Management
Collaborative Design/
CAD File Sharing
Product Portfolio Management
Product Ideation
Other
Figure 8: Interest in Added/Enhanced Capabilities, 2013
What capabilities would you most like to see PLM technology providers add to
or enhance within their applications in the coming year?
Ranked 1st Ranked 2nd Ranked 3rd
18% 12% 8%
18% 6% 8%
10% 6% 14%
10% 6% 12%
12% 6% 8%
6% 12% 8%
2% 18% 6%
4% 6% 12%
6% 10% 4%
4% 6% 2%
6% 6%
2% 2% 4%
2%
8%
4% 6%
Faster time to market
Standardization of process
Lower product costs
Improved product quality/
fewer defects
Improved quality assurance &
comliance testing
Fewer markdowns
Better design
Other
38% 27% 23%
35% 19%12%
12% 27% 15%
23% 8%
8% 8% 12%
4% 6%
4%4%
12%
4%
Faster time to market
Lower product costs
Improved product quality/
fewer defects
Better design
Improved quality assurance &
compliance testing
Fewer markdowns
Other
32% 8% 13%
11% 13%26%
5% 16% 16%
5% 18%
13% 13%
3%3%
11% 8% 5%
5%

Workflow and critical path management are essential for
automating and helping to scale the increasing amounts of inter-
connectivity required between PLM and other business process-
es. Business intelligence, calendaring and PDM and BOM man-
agement are other areas where, due to the variation of needs
across the retail, vertically-integrated retail, and manufacturing
market segments and the unique variations among companies in
each of these segments, technology users frequently express dis-
appointment with their packaged PLM applications.
What’s become clear is that while apparel companies con-
tinue to work on creating links that are designed to help them
make better decisions faster about how to respond to changing
conditions in the supply chain, they are also looking beyond
this level of capability to the next round of process and technol-
ogy improvements that will help them reach long-standing
enterprise goals of end-to-end operations visibility, improved
new product launch success, and greater consumer-centricity.
Figure 10: Activities or Investments Planned for PLM Technology Software and Services
Over the next 18 months, which of the following activities or investments are you planning for your
PLM technology software and services?
2013 2012 2011
20% 15%20% 20% 25%61%15% 24%
Retailers
17% 28%6% 33% 17%66%17% 17%
Manufacturers & Others
Figure 9: Anticipated Future Investment in PLM Technology, by Market Segment
Approximately how much more do you expect to invest in PLM technology?
<$10,000 $10,000 - <$100,000 $100,000 - <$500,000
$500,000 - <$1 million $1 million or more Don’t know
No Don’t Know Yes
Plan to invest further How much more
33% 33%
34%
28%
37%
34%
37%
33%
29%
13%
33%
29%
6% 6%
30%
22%
13%
Upgrading
existing
technology
Enhancing
existing installed
technology by
adding customized
capabilities
Roll out
additional
software modules
to existing
deployment
Replacing
existing
technology
New
implementation
**Building
additional
interfaces to other
applications
*No activities
or investments
planned
Multiple responses allowed
*Not offered as an answer choice in 2012 Organizations that had not yet implemented PLM were disqualified this year **New answer choice for 2013 (New implementation not an option)

Achieving the Larger Vision, One Module and
Integration At a Time
Retailers and manufacturers shepherd PLM strategies through
periods of intense change and periods of relative calm. But the
calm is a still a very active calm. Beginning in 2012, PLM change
swung from the dramatic to the pragmatic, and the apparel
industry will continue to stay focused on the pragmatic over the
next 12 months as the stage is set for a larger transformation.
Among retailers responding to the survey this year, 45 per-
cent plan to invest more than $500,000 in PLM technology, just
slightly down from 47 percent in 2012. The largest drop came
from retailers with plans to invest $1 million or more, with 20
percent stating they plan to do so vs. 29 percent in 2012 (see
Figure 9). Among manufacturers, 17 percent state that they
have plans to invest $1 million or more in PLM technology, up
sharply from the 5 percent that indicated plans to do so in last
year’s survey, but still less than the 20 percent of retailers that
plan to spend $1 million or more. These technology invest-
ments span an array of activities, as indicated in Figure 10. In
keeping with the finding that apparel companies are pausing
after making large PLM investments in recent years, the num-
ber of companies expecting to replace existing PLM technolo-
BI/Analytics
Sourcing
Management
Calendar & Event Management
Logistics
Sustainability, social or consumer
safety compliance tracking
Distribution
Costing
Color Management
Procurement
Sales Order-Taking
ERP
Product Portfolio Management
46%
59%
33%
35%
27%
42%
3o%
27%
33%
26%
27%
25%
24%
23%
25%
24%
23%
25%
22%
14%
29%
22%
32%
13%
20%
18%
21%
20%
18%
21%
20%
14%
25%
17%
23%
13%
13%
9%
17%
Figure 11: Desired Application Integration with PLM, by Market Segment, 2013
To what applications would you like your PLM applications to integrate to in the future?
(for those applications not currently integrated)
Total Retailers Manufacturers & Others

gy fell sharply from 33 percent in 2012 to 13 percent in 2013,
and the number of survey respondents having no PLM activi-
ties or investments planned increased from 13 percent to 22
percent (see Figure 10).
With an eye toward the bigger picture, apparel companies
are also driving integration between PLM and other applica-
tions. Thirty percent of survey respondents indicated that this
will be part of the work they undertake in 2013 and into early
2014. Among manufacturers, the top integration priorities are
sourcing, merchandise planning and management, distribution
and sales order-taking.Among retailers, the top integration pri-
orities are business intelligence, costing, sourcing and mer-
chandise planning and management (see Figure 11).
Many of these integrations and additional module rollouts
are taking place to address specific process or technology pain
points or make process-to-process links, and not necessarily as
part of a larger, systematic strategy vision. Whether companies
have crystallized the thought or not, they are building the foun-
dation for addressing the end-to-end process of new product
design commercialization, a larger process linking product
design development, merchandising/marketing/sales, and sup-
ply chain (where Gartner increasingly sees best-in-class com-
panies placing store operations activities related to on-shelf
availability). This framework uses S&OP as the governing
mechanism when applied to manufacturers, and embraces the
retail version of S&OP, called merchandise, inventory and oper-
ations execution (MIOE) when it is applied to retailers or verti-
cally-integrated retailers.
An outcome of this aligned way of looking at commercializ-
ing apparel is a better sense of the tradeoffs that apparel compa-
nies make between product development, merchandise and
sales planning, and supply chain activities. Each of these areas
may operate efficiently, but underperform when the whole pic-
ture is considered. Apparel companies will not abandon the
implementations of sometimes siloed or highly-specialized tech-
nologies to make their operations more efficient. However, effi-
ciency alone is no longer enough to achieve competitive advan-
tage and to serve global, connected, cross-channel and fickle
shoppers, and ultimately to deliver targeted sales, profit margin
and market impact to apparel and fashion companies. A new
generation of PLM strategies and investments will be needed to
build out the capabilities that PLM will need to support in this
complex, yet increasingly necessary, operating environment.
This year may appear to the casual industry observer to be a
time when apparel and fashion companies pull back on PLM
initiatives just to absorb the changes already made and enjoy
the benefits already achieved from previous investments.To the
PLM industry participant, however, 2013 and the first half of
2014 will continue to be remarkably busy. The addition of new
modules to existing platforms and the integration of PLM
applications to an expanding array of other applications will
make it possible for apparel companies to take advantage of the
next round of supply chain evolution, one focused on making
new products not only better-designed, but also substantially
more successful when commercialized and more profitable for
their creators.
PLM for Apparel 2013: Preparing for the Next Wave of Value 27
Figure 12: The Collaborative Apparel Product Commercialization Framework
• Ideation/concept development
• Product design and specifications
- Item master data
- Formulas
- Tech packs
- 3D Models
- Bills of material
• Product performance measurement
- Physical performance
- Customer acceptance
• Research and development
- Lab work
- New-to-the-world concepts
• Launch strategy
• Demand profile and forecast
- Qty. by period for MIOE planning
- Projected demand variability
• Product cost/profitability analysis
• Inventory strategy
- Initial pipeline fill
- Post launch replenishment
- Ongoing inventory targets
• Deployment strategy
- Regionally pooled
- Locally deployed
Merchandising and
Marketing, Sales
Design/Development
Supply Chain, incl. Store and
Cross-Channel Operations• Sourcing readiness
- Sources/availability/fit
- Risks/limitations
- Costs
• Store and Cross-Channel Execution
- Phase out of old products
- Capacity for receiving, getting inventory on
to the store floor
- Compliance to planograms
- Role of store in cross-channel order fulfillment,
returns policies
- Store associate, customer feedback on product
New Product
Commercialization

Copyright©
2013 by Edgell Communications Inc.
All rights reserved.
Janet Suleski, Research Director,
Supply Chain & Apparel, Gartner
Janet Suleski brings more than 16 years
of experience working with retailers,
manufacturers, and software vendors to
her role at Gartner, and is a founding
member of the retail supply chain advisory practice.
Janet is primarily responsible for researching, analyzing
and writing about the best practices, technologies, and
trends in key retail and apparel business processes,
including product lifecycle management, lead time/cycle
time reduction, and new product introduction.
Prior to her current role at Gartner, Janet’s research and
analysis focused on fresh item management, point-of-
sale, price optimization and customer loyalty software
and business processes. She has also covered inventory
optimization, strategic sourcing and procurement,
collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment
(CPFR), supplier collaboration and supply chain event
management.
Lucie Draper, Senior Researcher,
Research Data & Analytics, Gartner
Lucie Draper brings more than 20 years
of deep domain expertise to her role as
senior researcher at Gartner. She is
responsible for conducting quantitative market research,
which includes designing questionnaires and samples,
conducting field interviews and surveys, and performing
statistical analysis of research data and reports.
Lucie works closely with Gartner clients on custom
primary research-based engagements that help those
clients with their product and marketing strategies. She
has written extensively about trends in IT adoption and
IT budgets and worked with clients such as SAP,
IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and EMC. Her research has been
quoted and published in many business and technology
publications.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ABOUT GARTNER INC.
Gartner Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading IT and supply
chain research and advisory company. We deliver the
technology and supply chain–related insight necessary for our
clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and
senior IT and supply chain leaders in corporations and
government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and
telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to
technology investors, we are the indispensable partner to
60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct organizations. Through the
resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs,
Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, we work with every
client within the context of their individual role, to help them
move their key initiatives forward. Founded in 1979, Gartner is
headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has
4,000 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and
consultants serving clients in 80 countries.
ABOUT APPAREL MAGAZINE
Apparel magazine has been the industry’s leading publication
for more than 50 years. It offers technology and business
insight from concept to consumer, providing competitive,
actionable information to executives representing the world’s
most successful apparel brands, retailers and manufacturers.
Apparel’s targeted content addresses Retail Intelligence,
Supply Chain, Sourcing & Logistics, Concept-to-Spec and
Fiber-to-Fabric. An Edgell Communications publication,
Apparel also produces Apparel’s Sourcing Summit, the
Apparel Executive Forum, Apparel’s Business & Technology
Leadership Conference, Apparel’s Tech Conference West,
numerous web seminars, research supplements and
newsletters and apparelmag.com.
TECHNOLOGY GROUP
www.edgellcommunications.com

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