5 February 2009

Using Silverlight technology Informare created the shirt configurator tool for PMP

Textile supplier PMP needed a more cost effective way to visualise its products for clients. Informare, a specialist in Silverlight technology, devised a solution.

Founded in 2001, PMP is a well-respected textile supplier, offering its clients a range of services including dyeing, weaving, finishing and garment manufacturing. Having the most advanced machines and testing devices, it produces high class cotton yarn dyed fabric, such as poplin and oxford.

Its high quality products and services are used throughout Europe, US, Japan and Hong Kong, as well as by famous retailers and designers including fashion giant Calvin Klein. With the goal of becoming the leading international textile enterprise, the company focuses on producing the highest quality goods and providing excellent customer service, through innovation and evolution.

The company has a huge range of different materials and patterns available, and showcasing these to clients was starting to prove difficult. “We offer made-to-measure shirts in over 300 patterns, with lots of different variables for our customers,” says Marc Kraut, general manager at PMP. “It isn’t physically possible for our sales people to carry around that amount of stock, so we needed a way to show our products, without having to photograph every item.”

Microsoft Partner Informare Consulting was brought in to provide a solution. “We needed to enable PMP to visualise each of its shirts in each configuration without the need to take photos, explains Bernhard Pichler, managing director at Informare Consulting. “Using Silverlight technology we created the shirt configurator tool, allowing sales staff to select various options and visualise products that fit the clients’ criteria.”

PMP is hoping to use the technology to expand its business. “This definitely is a growing market and as well as targeting the big players we want to extend our business to end customers,” says Kraut. “With the Silverlight front end it is very easy to create a shirt and see exactly how it will look.”

Orders are placed in Hong Kong and monitored using Microsoft Sharepoint Services. This allows worldwide collaboration of all sales people involved. “New technology like this can extend the business model”, says Pichler. “This is the way forward.”

This article first appeared in the spring 2009 edition of Retailspeak magazine.

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