It is widely acknowledged by industry experts that Covid-19 has accelerated digital transformation by more than five years, as society in general adapts to life and doing business in what is the new normal.  

“Recent data shows that we have vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption...”  McKinsey & Company

Retail, seen by many as one of the earlier adopters, has been setting the pace as brands and retailers have switched from physical stores to e-Commerce platforms, digital marketplaces, social media and AR experiences, all in an effort to drive sales. Demand from consumers has been constant, meaning front and back-end operations have had to develop capacity and capability faster than anyone could ever have predicted.

PTC, a leading provider of Retail PLM and digital transformation solutions, has been supporting iconic brands and world-class retailers with their digital product creation and development operations throughout the pandemic, helping them to work@digitalspeed, revolutionize remote working, deliver seamless collaboration, and bring products to market, faster and more efficient than ever before.

Driving digital transformation for Currys

A new collaboration with Currys PLC is a perfect example of our approach.

The multinational, multi-brand consumer electronics and mobile powerhouse is securing the future of its own-brand product development with the support of FlexPLM, our best-in-class Retail PLM solution, as well as our industry-leading ISO-accredited cloud infrastructure.

This collaboration is the result of both a shared ambition for the digitization of omnichannel retail, where the values of Currys and PTC align, and a rigorous information security auditing and globe-spanning Retail PLM selection process that saw our FlexPLM solution and Cloud capability emerge ahead of the competition.

Security, stability and scalability

In addition to wholesale relationships with major consumer technology companies, Currys develops its own-brand OEM products from its design headquarters in Hong Kong and London.

With constant communication and collaboration via an international network of support teams and supply chain partners, they had exceeded the limits of a legacy PLM solution, leading to the requirement to find a cutting-edge, retail-focused PLM solution, that includes deep support for digital product creation with new 3D collaboration capabilities, as well as a comprehensive functional footprint.

As a leader in innovative technology retail, Currys also had very high standards for information security, solution stability, and encryption. These standards became a key criterion in the selection of PTC FlexPLM, deployed via our managed cloud.

“We consider Currys decision to work with PTC to be a badge of honor in multiple ways and we are personally proud that the security and stability of our software and cloud architecture, coupled with the flexibility and multi-category functionality of FlexPLM, was recognized as being a differentiator in the retail PLM market,” explains Bill Brewster, Senior Vice President and General Manager of PTC’s Retail Business Unit.

Other reasons Currys chose to work with us includes:

- FlexPLM’s newly launched UI/UX that is modern, highly visual and fully responsive.

- Data centers that are ISO 27001 certified and cloud architecture that has been audited to ISO:14001 and ISO:9001 standards, which is unique in retail PLM.

- Significant investment in cloud solutions that offer unmatched availability.

- 24X7 dedicated support, continuous threat assessment and enterprise-grade encryption.

- Access to PTC’s retail digital transformation platform, unlocking technologies such as visual line collaboration, 3D workflows, digital twin, machine learning, artificial intelligence and augmented reality.

Digital future of retail

Our collaboration with Currys is already underway, beginning a multi-year SaaS agreement for PTC FlexPLM. Future functionality, expansions, and integrations are all targeted to help realize both parties’ vision for the digital future of retail.

We’ll give the final word to Catherine Luscombe, Currys' Head of IT Delivery:

“Our choice of PLM platform was one we made extremely carefully: we were looking for the right blend of solution functionality, industry experience, support for multiple product categories as standard together with levels of stability, security, and scalability.

“With those as our selection criteria, PTC emerged as the best possible choice, and Currys are excited to deepen our relationship from here.”

Currys will join more than 500 customers already using PTC Cloud, proving that retail’s most widely-used PLM platform is also its most secure.