STORES Magazine - April 2008 - (Page 62)

NUTS AND BOLTS / PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT Expanding PLM’s Bootprint Outsourcing lifecycle management boosts to-market times for Timberland BY JANET GROEBER G etting product to market faster and cheaper is any brand or retailer ’s ultimate goal. Timberland, the Stratham, N.H.-based footwear and apparel manufacturer, is getting a step closer. Timberland designs, develops, engineers, markets and distributes footwear, apparel, accessories and gear under the Timberland, Timberland PRO, SmartWool, Timberland Boot Co., Miÿn, GoLite and Howies brands. Although Timberland’s boots are designed ostensibly for hiking and mountain climbing, they gained popularity as fashion statements. In fact, the brand is so embedded in hiphop culture that composer and record producer Timothy Z. Mosley chose Timbaland as his stage name. More than a year ago, the $1.5 billion manufacturer set about fine-tuning its product lifecycle management (PLM). It engaged HCL Technologies, India’s fourth-largest IT service company, to provide expertise in managing its PLM. Timberland boots, shoes, clothes and gear – for men, women and kids – can be found in company-owned stores, on its e-commerce site and through hundreds of authorized department and specialty stores in the United States and around the world. HCL Technologies evolved from developing software to offering IT services for specialty retailers in the apparel, footwear, fashion, consumer durables, home furnishings and food and grocery sectors. The group now represents roughly $1.5 billion in revenue with about 40,000 employees worldwide in 62 STORES / APRIL 2008 18 global offices, says Ravi Shankar, HCL’s practice lead for retail and consumer products. Timberland “is a decentralized organization running multiple systems with the same teams helping to build new things for the business while supporting the existing systems,” Shankar says. HCL eventually took over the entire set of In line with Timberland’s corporate applications, which commitment to environmental sustainability, “helped free up the its PLM system helps designers know which few IT resources they materials are greener than others had who had a good feel for their business and their sysHermens. “We looked at what we untems.” derstood about the calls and stability of By assuming applications support and the application and bundled them into a maintenance services, HCL was “able to series of waves, which we moved one use a smaller footprint of resources and wave at a time.” an onsite/offshore model to reduce their HCL’s support team was on site in costs,” Shankar says. Additionally, “we New Hampshire for the first part of the helped increase productivity by crosstransition. “There was a formal process training people across multiple systems, between us for deciding when a wave which in turn, provided value, producwas actually ready to move,” Hermens tivity improvement, better service and says. HCL “brought some of that strucbetter uptime.” ture to us, which was very helpful.” While it isn’t uncommon for compaAccording to Hermens, Timberland nies to migrate all their systems “cold has been a leading implementer of PLM turkey, we intentionally did not do in the apparel and footwear space for that,” says Timberland CIO Rosalee more than five years, “and it would be WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - April 2008

STORES Magazine - April 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page More Retailers Bagging Monthly Comp-Store Reports Time-Warner Center's Economy-Defying Results What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Eating Locally Grocery Concept2Watch Restaurants Online Services Marketing Human Resources Product Lifecycle Management E-Commerce: Peer Reviews Drive Online Buyers Kiosks Recycling Operations Payment Systems POS Logistics E-Commerce: Getting Personal Website Management LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - April 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.