PLM…Next stop, End-to-End Supply Chain Visibility, Intelligence, and Collaboration.

A short while ago, Apparel Magazine in conjunction with Gartner issued their PLM for Apparel 2010, 5th Annual Apparel Research Study and Analysis.  To summarize briefly, unlike a year ago when PLM initiatives were stalled, the adoption of PLM as part of the private label retailers’ and brand owners’ infrastructure has regained momentum, albeit implementing cautiously.  

Now, as the economic landscape slowly improves, companies are looking for more out of their investment. According to Apparel/Gartner, they are seeking analytics that encompass sourcing, costing, and raw materials forecasts. Again, according to Apparel/Gartner, PLM solution providers are being asked for Added/Enhanced Software capabilities in the following areas in order of importance:

  1. Costing
  2. Sourcing
  3. Collaboration
  4. Business Intelligence and Reporting
  5. Product Ideation
  6. Calendering

With the exception of Product Ideation, Arigo is delivering these capabilities already for a wide variety of Fortune 1000 retailers- and we’ve been doing it for over a decade across a multitude of product categories. We have invested millions in our technologies, so you can only imagine the level of effort and cost the PLM providers will have to invest before they get it right.  If you need it…we’ve got it…now!

Posted by Arigo Software | 8.25.2010 | 1 Comment »

Global Brand, David Yurman, Improves Vendor Collaboration with Arigo

Blogs should not be TOTALLY self-serving, right? Indulge me for a moment…

I am pleased to say that renowned global brand, David Yurman, will be joining the Arigo fold. David Yurman joins a formidable stable of world-class brands, including Staples, JCPenney, The Home Depot, Timberland, and many more.

What is particularly interesting about this competitive win for Arigo, is the fact that David Yurman was drawn to Arigo, in part, because of our new Enterprise Collaboration functionality and vision. Arigo has been busy over the past months fusing the technologies/vision of Enterprise 2.0, including instant messaging, email, audio, video conferencing, and web-based community building with our core product line. By enabling attachment and archiving of virtually every trading partner interaction (with the exception of a physical handshake) to any object, process, or transaction associated with vendor collaboration and global sourcing, Arigo is establishing a new standard of collaboration and accountability.

Our newest client, David Yurman, instantly recognized the relevance of this new capability in conjunction with product design, quality assurance, and many other partner interactions. I am very pleased to welcome David Yurman as our newest customer. I am confident we can both grow, learn, and prosper together.

My horn-tooting is done for today.

Posted by Arigo Software | 8.10.2010 | No Comments »

The Myth of PLM – Curing all your Product Lifecycle Pains?

Recently, I wrote about the Holy Grail in Private Label and the associated Global Trade Management, namely an end-to-end solution. The analyst community seems focused on PLM as the panacea, or at the very least, the path provider to the Holy Grail. As I mentioned in earlier posts, some of the PLM providers are proudly touting themselves as the panacea, when in fact, a number of disappointing implementations and customer testimonials attest that they are not. 

All Arigo customers have PLM, ERP, and logistics solutions in place, yet use Arigo to bring it all together. So, I polled some folks and developed a list of 6 myths perpetuated by PLM providers you must be aware of if you are considering investing in PLM to cure all of your ‘ills.’ Let me give you a little taste…

Myth 1 – “Single Source of Truth” – The term, Product Lifecycle Management, assumes product will be tracked throughout its entire lifecycle, from “Sheet to Shelf,” but how could PLM, the solution, provide this since its core functionality does not involve the entire private label supply chain? Today, PLM fundamentally covers “Concept” to Purchase Order. What about the rest: sourcing, PO, logistics, etc.? 

Myth 2 – “Optimizes Business Processes” – PLM promises optimized business processes and typically provides a toolkit to replicate the poor processes in place. Providing tools to automate bad practices does not create best practice.

Myth 4 – “Enables Collaboration” – Collaboration, internal and external, across the entire process, is required to successfully optimize the Private Label Supply Chain. Collaboration sessions must be archivable and attachable, and must provide for texting, email, audio, video conferencing, and community building. PLM is not fully open or enabled to connect all of the constituencies, nor the technologies that enable virtual, face-to-face interaction and collaboration throughout the product lifecycle.

Please read more about the Myths of PLM here. My concern is that there may be several more, and I wouldn’t want you to experience them first-hand…

Posted by Arigo Software | 8.5.2010 | No Comments »

A New Batch…

I like to think I am an entrepreneur. I have founded, grown, bought, and sold companies over my career. I love the sometimes free-fall thrills and the ground-smashing defeats that inevitably accompany the world of entrepreneurship. Having founded my first company at age 24, some 36 years ago, I have had my fair share of thrills and certainly have felt the ground more than once.   

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to talk about building leadership teams to the members of the Global Entrepreneurship MBA program at Babson University in Wellesley, MA. This program accepts students from all over the world, rooted in Africa, Europe, and North America. The students study on each of those continents and I met with them here. 

We talked about both the loneliness of an entrepreneur, who often looks into the abyss alone, and the need to surround oneself with great teams in order to be successful. I was joined by another entrepreneur and a Venture Capitalist, and we were all peppered with questions about what it takes to take an idea and grow it into a successful business. 

I have often said my monopoly on good ideas dried up years ago, so I must say, it was incredibly invigorating to interact with the 60 or so, budding, global collection of would-be entrepreneurs, ready to dip their toes into the often icy waters of growing concepts into a business. Yes, there is a ripe, new batch getting ready to launch…

Posted by Arigo Software | 7.26.2010 | No Comments »

It’s not getting any easier out there…

I am struck by the groundswell of concern I am hearing from our clients as well as the marketplace. Just a year or so ago, container capacity far exceeded demand so logistics providers began mothballing portions of their fleet.  Logistics cost were down and everyone was negotiating. Today there is a growing container crisis. Supply is down, demand is up and so are transportation and distribution costs. 

This is but one of a number of issues Private Label retailers and brand owners face in support of their businesses. The age of labor deflation is nearly behind us and it would seem that the only opportunity for cost and margin control remaining is, optimizing business process. This can be supported by access to critical trade content, integration to disparate data sources, aggregating them to provide a 360 degree view of the Private Label and Global Trade Supply Chain and lastly, Enterprise Collaboration, archivable and attachable collaborative sessions.

Come hear Matt Gersper, President of Global Data Mining and Customs Info along with me, talk to these pressing issues and paths to optimization at today’s Webinar, “The Virtual Handshake: How Enterprise Collaboration will Transform the Private Label Global Supply Chain,” today at 12pm EST. Register Now as seats are filling up. You can register here.

Posted by Arigo Software | 6.30.2010 | No Comments »

Enterprise 2.0 + Arigo = Arigo Enterprise Collaboration

I am excited! This week Arigo sent iPads to selected CxO level executives of leading retail and brand owner organizations; our objective – to raise some eyebrows and drop some jaws to call attention to our new product launch.

I have been listening to a lot of talk about the importance of collaboration in the supply chain. Email and IM seem to be the tools of collaboration. Other various commoditized capabilities, such as Webex or Skype, are being used as well. But imagine supply chain collaboration that allows you to collaborate with all of your trading partners in real-time, near real-time, synchronously, or asynchronously. You are doing that today? Then, imagine a new level of supply chain collaboration, where the only thing you cannot do remotely is physically shake the hand of your trading partner, AND archive and attach that interaction to the Purchase Order, Item, or virtually any transaction. 

Let me give you a real-world example… A well-known global brand owner had invested in an expensive 10x video cam for Q/A and product development purposes. The designer and manufacturer collaborated on fine-tuning the design, while jointly viewing the sample via real-time video caming. Four months later when the product hit customs, the product did not conform to the planned design and finger pointing ensued. Suppose the fully archived design webcam session had been easily retrieved. The dispute would be quickly put to bed.    

Come September, this will be the new standard. Yes, I am excited because Arigo is delivering it.

Let me know what your company is doing. Please share new ways to collaborate beyond email, IM, video, audio, and content portals. We can shrink the world!

Posted by Arigo Software | 6.23.2010 | No Comments »

In Search of the Holy Grail

Yes, the Holy Grail…an end-to-end (N2N) solution encompassing everything from Concept to Consumer. I have heard the words spoken countless times by prospect and vendor alike. I have read the promises and positioning papers. I have witnessed the confused prospect and the post-install disappointment when promises go unfulfilled. Candidly, it will be many, many years, if ever, before anyone, in my view, can deliver a true N2N solution. What we are doing at Arigo, is recognizing the holes that need to be filled, providing the integration platform to easily tie PLM to ERP, to Logistics, to Merchandising – in a way that provides a repository for the disparate pieces of data aggregated in one place to facilitate full Visibility to the various components, Intelligence via an integrated Business Intelligence layer for informed decision support, and finally, world class Collaboration, tightly linking all trading partners, internal and external.

Much more on these, and in particular, Enterprise Collaboration, in the days and weeks to come…

Posted by Arigo Software | 6.15.2010 | No Comments »

Welcome to the Jungle

Interestingly, the Supply Chain space is tiered, as are most, between SME, Mid-Tier, and Fortune 1000. To date, my company, Arigo, has been primarily focused on the upper tier with long-standing customers like Staples, JCPenney, The Home Depot, Radioshack, Timberland, and many others. The space is dominated by less than a handful of ERP players, including Oracle and SAP, as well as Retail or WMS players, such as JDA, Manhattan Associates, and Red Prairie. When the focus turns to the particular niche of Private Label and the associated Global Trade Management, typically tightly coupled with Supply Chain, the solution provider arena is highly fragmented with dozens of players filling best-of-breed holes that must be combined to provide complete automation. Furthermore, it seems that to be a solution provider in this space, you are required to begin your company name with “Trade…,” such as Tradebeam, Tradestone, Tradelink, TradeCard….we chose Arigo. 

Add to the mix PLM with a broad range of solutions, and it is easy to see that retailers, brand owners, and wholesalers have many choices to make, significant integrations to support, and many ‘necks to choke’ to cobble together a complete end-to-end solution in support of the their Private Label and Global Trade line of business.

Posted by Arigo Software | 6.14.2010 | No Comments »

New Kid on the Block

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Donny Askin, CEO of Arigo (www.arigo.com). I have spent the last 35 years building successful software companies and I have been at the helm of Arigo now for a little over a year. I know the Demand Chain quite well, whether deployed via an Enterprise or SaaS model, but candidly, I am a relative newbie to the Supply Chain, Product Sourcing, and Global Trade Management space.

Your first response may very well be, newbie, what does he know? I would counter by saying that I have spent the past year getting ‘fire-hosed’ with domain-relevant information. I would also add that as a newbie, I am in the relatively unique position to bring a fresh set of eyes to an ever evolving space, private label supply chain.

Over the coming weeks and months I intend to share some of my perspective and that begins today…

Posted by Arigo Software | 6.14.2010 | No Comments »