What are PLM and ERP?

Before we dive into the mistakes, let’s quickly clarify what these systems do.

PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) helps fashion companies manage the entire design and development process. Designers use it to create sketches, manage samples, communicate with suppliers, and finalize collections. Everything from initial concepts to final product specifications lives in the PLM system.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is the backbone of your business operations. It handles finance, purchasing, sales, inventory, and logistics. When a new product is ready to sell, it needs to move from PLM into ERP so you can actually order it, sell it, and deliver it to customers.

The challenge? Getting these two systems to talk to each other seamlessly.

Mistake 1: No clear plan or strategy

Many fashion companies jump into a PLM-ERP integration without proper planning. They assume it will be straightforward, but the complexity catches them off guard.

Without a clear strategy, projects often go off track. Teams don’t know who’s responsible for what, requirements aren’t documented properly, and the project timeline stretches far beyond expectations.

How to avoid it: Before starting your integration, invest time in a thorough blueprint phase. Map out your current processes, identify exactly what data needs to flow between systems, and document your requirements clearly. Define success criteria and assign clear roles to team members. A structured approach at the beginning saves significant time and money later.

Mistake 2: Underestimating change management

Technology is only part of the equation. People need to adapt to new ways of working, and that’s often harder than the technical implementation itself.

An ERP implementation touches almost every department: design, purchasing, sales, logistics, and finance. If people aren’t prepared for the changes, they’ll resist the new system. They’ll continue using old methods, work around the system, or simply won’t test properly. When this happens, issues only surface after go-live, when they’re much more expensive to fix.

How to avoid it: Change management is critical. Start by conducting comprehensive blueprint sessions with key users from every affected department. Take time to present how the new system will work and give people opportunities to ask questions and voice concerns. The extensive blueprint process that TCOG uses, with detailed analysis, process flows, and validation sessions, helps build buy-in across the organization. When people understand the “why” and the “how,” it’s easy to get them on board.

Mistake 3: Poor data quality and migration

Your new integrated system is only as good as the data you put into it. If your product master data has errors, incorrect sizes, wrong colors, missing attributes, those errors multiply throughout your entire process.

Data migration is where many projects stumble. Companies realize too late that their data is messy, incomplete, or inconsistent. Cleaning up data after go-live is much harder than doing it properly from the start.

How to avoid it: Before migrating data, conduct a thorough data cleansing exercise. Make sure size scales are correct, color codes are consistent, and attributes are properly filled. Validate that your data structure in PLM matches what your ERP system expects. Don’t rush this step, poor data quality leads to errors in purchasing, incorrect orders to suppliers, and reporting that doesn’t reflect reality.

Mistake 4: Poor communication between departments

Fashion companies have different departments working in silos: design has their world, purchasing has theirs, sales works differently, and logistics has its own priorities. But an ERP system connects all these departments.

When departments don’t communicate well during an implementation, you get problems. Design might not understand how their PLM data affects purchasing processes. Purchasing might not realize how their workflows impact finance reporting. The result? A system that works for one department but creates headaches for others.

How to avoid it: An ERP implementation should bring departments together, not keep them apart. Use the implementation as an opportunity to optimize your end-to-end processes. The idea of an ERP is that you support a complete value chain from start to finish. When something goes wrong in finance, you should be able to trace back through the process to see where the error originated, whether in master data creation, purchasing, logistics, or sales. This end-to-end visibility only works when departments understand how they’re connected and communicate throughout the project.

Mistake 5: Choosing the wrong implementation partner or tools

Not all ERP systems handle fashion complexity equally well. Some systems struggle with sizes and colors, don’t support the “design first, order later” approach common in fashion, or lack the flexibility needed for seasonal collections.

Choosing a partner based primarily on the lowest price is a common trap. A cheap implementation that doesn’t meet your needs, or requires extensive custom development, ends up costing far more in the long run.

How to avoid it: Look beyond the price tag. Evaluate partners on multiple criteria: Do they understand fashion processes? Do they have experience with companies like yours? Can their system handle fashion-specific requirements like size and color matrices, seasonal collections, and pre-season selling? Consider both hard criteria (technical capabilities) and soft criteria (cultural fit, communication style, structured methodology).

Some companies receive proposals ranging from 50 to 200 implementation days for the same project. The question is: what does each partner actually deliver for those days? A comprehensive implementation with proper project organization, extensive blueprint sessions, knowledge transfer, and post-go-live support costs more upfront but delivers better results than a bare-bones approach that leaves you struggling after launch.

The role of TCOG

TCOG helps fashion companies navigate these challenges successfully. With itSuitsFashion 365, a complete fashion management solution built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, TCOG offers deep expertise in both the technology and the fashion business processes.

TCOG’s structured methodology includes comprehensive blueprint sessions, detailed process flows, validation with key users, and presentation to management at each stage. This approach helps avoid the common pitfalls we’ve discussed. The standard integration with Delogue PLM means that proven connections are already in place, reducing integration risk.

Moving forward

Integrating PLM with ERP is complex, but it doesn’t have to be painful. By avoiding these five common mistakes, fashion companies can achieve seamless data flow from design to delivery, reduce errors, speed up time-to-market, and create a foundation for growth.

Want to learn how a PLM-ERP integration can help your fashion business work faster, smarter, and more efficiently? Contact us for a no-obligation consultation or demo.