Accenture has helped Vivienne Westwood design and deploy a new retail product lifecycle management platform from PTC that enables the global fashion company to develop and launch new products more quickly. The platform is based on PTC’s FlexPLM® retail solution and allows Vivienne Westwood to significantly improve and accelerate its product development and sourcing processes. FlexPLM integrates data sources relevant to the design and development of products, enabling Vivienne Westwood to understand where a product is at each stage of its lifecycle. This digital thread provides complete visibility for design and development-related activities across several product categories, including women's and men's ready-to-wear, shoes, leather goods, jewelry and accessories. The PLM platform also allows for more seamless and secure communication and collaboration related to the design and production process, both internally and with supply chain partners. Previously, these processes were manual, time-consuming and not supported by an enterprise application. Before introducing the new platform, for example, the brand's design and merchandising office in the U.K. and production office in Italy had to create tech packs — i.e., product blueprints for manufacturing — and exchange data mainly through email and spreadsheets. These manual practices could lead to duplicate data entry, poor collaboration with international factory partners, and missed deadlines.