An outdoor licensing company eliminates thousands of spreadsheets
Surf 9, an outdoor sports and footwear company selected Centric Software®‘s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution, Centric SMB for emerging enterprises. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source and sell products such as apparel, footwear, sporting goods, furniture, home décor, personal care, food & beverage and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
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Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Bonita Springs, Florida, Surf 9 is a licensed consumer goods company. Matt Verrecchia, EVP of Marketing and Communications says, “We specialize in the watersports and footwear categories, but mainly with a focus on outdoor and performance equipment across paddle boards, kayaks, surfing and wakesurfing equipment as well as footwear including sandals, water shoes and lifestyle.”
Verrecchia describes their business model. “We work with brands like Body Glove, Nautica and Spyder to extend their categories as they’re looking to build their assortment mix. We handle everything from design, manufacturing, importation as well as sell-in to strategic retail partners across wholesale, family channels and sporting goods. We make sure that those stores are in stock, partnering on everything from initial go-to-market delivery to product flows, so we are end to end.” The growth of their company, the complexity of the business, the wide variety of categories they produce and the full-service aspect for the brands and retailers they deal with led them to consider PLM.
Hang Matchett, EVP of Technology at Surf 9 says, “We have grown organically for the last few years and doubled our business. We were running on Excel and QuickBooks. I was brought on to look at what systems we wanted to support the future growth of the company. PLM was a focus to look at product information down to the level of being able to identify the costs of everything in our finished goods. And we didn’t have visibility to that. Or if we did, it was very limited and it was all in Excel spreadsheets.”
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Surf 9 narrowed the potential PLM providers down to three, using a vendor scorecard and in the final analysis, chose Centric Outdoor PLM. “I wanted to utilize a cloud-based platform that we could bring on quickly and grow as we’re growing. We feel Centric is the solution for that. Also, our head of global sourcing has used Centric in the past and her voice carried a lot of weight because her team is the one that would be using PLM the most,” says Matchett. Add to that the number of positive referrals that Matchett was able to speak with, reinforcing their decision.
Matchett estimates that they will eliminate thousands of Excel files with their Centric PLM implementation. Verrecchia concurs, “We go down endless rabbit holes seeking the correct information.”
Says Matchett, “From my standpoint, I’m just really excited to get us moving. There’s a lot of data that we don’t have easy access to. And once we get all our products in, down to the material level and look at cost components, I think there’s a lot more negotiations that we can work on with our partners, both on the customer side, as well as on the vendor side that we haven’t had a chance to do in the past because we didn’t have that information readily available. So yeah, I’m looking forward to using Centric PLM.”
Chris Groves, president, and CEO of Centric Software says, “Surf 9 embodies the spirit of the burgeoning outdoor segment. They are empowering brands to extend their categories with high-quality watersports equipment and footwear at a time when people need to get outside. We are happy to be a part of their success as they continue their upward trajectory.”
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