When a retail organization makes the investment into a software solution that impacts critical business units, return on investment is anticipated – and expected. One of the issues regarding the purchase of these solutions is that the probable business value is not as clear cut as the economic buyers would like it to be. Although there are clear benefits, and some case studies have illustrated remarkable payback, the range of reported benefits is extremely wide and there is no generally agreed-upon model for predicting remuneration. Many technology and economic buyers mistakenly believe that numbers, and only numbers, determine return on investment.

To analyze the resulting statistics, we have to look at the benefits delivered by this type of technology. But first, we need to understand that conventional Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions don’t traditionally have the range to cover the scope of the full product lifecycle by spanning supply chain execution tasks too. When combined with SCE tasks, ecVision’s XpressCommerce® becomes a Product Lifecycle Execution™ (or PLE™) solution.

The scope for PLE™ includes everything from gathering early line plan requirements to building a collection plan through multiple stages of collaboration with the factories and vendors on product design, capacity and/or material reservations, development and costing. This is typically where the PLM functionality ends. SCE tasks pick up at the point when goods are ordered and “needle is put to cloth”, then managing and tracking the production and executing the necessary shipping requirements through to receipt into the warehouse.

Joining these functions together in a single solution unifies the process, supports one view and one source of data for both international and domestic sourcing for private label brands that have become the industry standard. Through the integration of disparate systems, organizations and geographies come together. Data is consolidated to create a hub that captures all the information and manages this information across multiple enterprise systems for the utmost efficiency.

In a 2007 report from AMR Research, corporate initiatives become imperatives that differentiate best-in-class organizations. These organizational imperatives are a great way to illustrate return on investment (ROI). The reality is that these imperatives are driving global sourcing strategies and initiatives. The companies that have the most successful global sourcing programs have tied these imperatives to the success of their initiatives. These include; ensuring reliable supply, mitigating risk, and reducing and containing the costs of good and service.