Buccellati Sees Sparkling Future With Centric

Buccellati, the high-end Italian jewelry maker renowned for its refined craftsmanship, has selected Centric Software to provide its Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

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Buccellati is a distinguished Italian jewelry maker, founded in Milan in 1919 by talented jeweler Mario Buccellati. The business was run by the Buccellati family for many decades and today makes jewelry, watches and silverware. Buccellati has developed a reputation for its high-quality retail assortments as well as its exclusive one of a kind, customized pieces, and currently sells in about 40 Buccellati brand outlets and 150 specialized multi-brand department stores worldwide. In 2017, Chinese Group Gangtai, listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, acquired a majority stake in Buccellati and this change has brought ambitious plans for international expansion and growth.

"Our target is to open 88 new Buccellati brand stores around the world in the next five years and to grow the company so that it will become ten times the size it is now," says Gianluca Brozzetti, Buccellati Group CEO, "Buccellati is very prestigious and successful with a proud tradition of craftsmanship, but it is relatively small compared to its closest competitors. We want to make Buccellati a global, jewelry luxury brand. A project like this cannot be managed without the right systems."

Buccellati has invested significantly in technology in recent years, including an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution and frontline retail software. As Mr. Brozzetti explains, PLM was the missing piece of the puzzle.

"The existing software we had in-house was not sufficient for our growth plans and we needed a PLM solution that could provide the highest standard of support throughout the lifecycle of the product," says Mr. Brozzetti. "Until recently, many of Buccellati's designs and product charts were handwritten on paper. These are beautiful documents but of course it is not possible to easily share this information. To move into the future, we need total digitalization."

Mr. Brozzetti notes that Centric PLM was recommended by Buccellati's consultants, and that IT professionals in-house were in complete agreement that Centric will provide the best solution.

"When we looked at the features of Centric PLM, we knew it was right," says Silvia Rovati, IT Director Buccellati Group. "It easily communicates with our other software systems and we could see that Centric PLM has been adopted by companies that make jewelry. One of the characteristics of our business is that we measure products in several measurement units: grams of gold, carats of diamonds, hours of labor. Not every PLM is able to manage these parameters. It was quite an obvious decision with an immediate consensus."

Ms. Rovati continues, "PLM will track everything from the beginning of the creation of each product with in-depth product descriptions and costing. It will be possible to instantly generate monthly reports to analyze our profit margins. We are excited about linking the retail side to product development, including the use of PLM-connected digital catalogs on tablets for retailers and individual clients. We also want to connect stores, so we immediately know if a product has been sold in any store and can automatically begin to replenish that product."

"Working with the Centric team will help us to replace old habits with best practices," concludes Ms. Rovati. "We're looking forward to having a unique, reliable view of every product and assortment, digitizing our manual processes and doing business more efficiently."

"We are delighted to partner with Buccellati," says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. "Creating handcrafted jewelry, watches and silverware is skillful work that requires high levels of precision and detail. We're looking forward to seeing our PLM solution as the foundation for the unique characteristics of Buccellati's operations and the platform for their expansion in the coming years."

Buccellati (http://www.buccellati.com)

Buccellati is one of the world's most renowned high jewelry houses, celebrated for its craftsmanship, design, and one-of-a-kind masterpieces. Buccellati prides itself in its use of rare stones with a strong focus on colour; a characteristic uncommon to many fine jewelry makers. Today, Buccellati jewels are admired worldwide not only for their design and genuine craftsmanship, but also for the house's signature engraving techniques, which date back to the ancient traditions of the goldsmith's ateliers of the Italian Renaissance. Buccellati boutiques can be found worldwide in Milan, Venice, Florence, Cala Di Volpe, Capri, Monte Carlo, Paris, Lyon, Lugano, London, Moscow, Dubai, Beirut, New York, Chicago, Aspen, Beverly Hills, Bal Harbour, San Francisco, Palm Beach, New Orleans, Houston, San Marino, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Osaka, Nagoya, Shanghai and Beijing.

Centric Software (http://www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software provides a Digital Transformation Platform for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (VIP) is a visual, fully digital collection of boards for touch-based devices like iPad, iPhone and large-scale, touch-screen televisions. Centric VIP transforms decision making and automates execution to truly collapse time to market and distance to trend. Centric's flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality, and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended PLM including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses.

Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM in 2016 and Frost & Sullivan's Global Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015, and 2016.

Centric is a registered trademark of Centric Software. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.