vs. Centric — Buyer's Toolbox

Planning Is the Product, Not a Module

Centric Planning sits inside a platform built for product lifecycle management — design, specifications, materials, sourcing, costing, collection and calendar management. Planning is one part of a large surface. Buyer's Toolbox AP is merchandise planning: OTB, MFP, forecasting, category and WSSI, vendor planning, collections, key items. When a planner asks for something, it competes with other planning work — not with a PLM roadmap. Ask which vendor's next release is aimed at your open-to-buy.

No Platform Migration Required

Centric Planning is strongest when you run Centric's platform around it. Buyer's Toolbox connects to the merchandising system you already have — Epicor, Celerant, Mi9, KWI, Horizon, Retail Pro, Jesta, Aptos, Dynamics 365, NetSuite, SAP and custom systems — and runs cloud, on-premise or hybrid, as your IT team prefers. You get a planning system without changing anything else.

Published Price. Free Proof. Independent Since 1992.

Buyer's Toolbox AP starts at $995 a month, published, annual, billed quarterly, no multi-year lock-in — and we build a working proof of concept on your data before you sign anything, at no cost. Centric does not publish pricing, and no independent estimate exists. Centric Software has been majority-owned by Dassault Systèmes since 2018. ANT USA has been profitable and independent since 1992, has never taken outside capital and has never carried debt.

“We were integrated with Dynamics 365 and live in under 10 weeks from contract signing.”

A fleet and farm supply retailer came to us already running Dynamics 365 for merchandising. Nothing was replaced and nothing was switched off — a certified ANT USA implementation partner connected the two systems and had their buyers planning on real data in under three months.

Comparison Highlights

Aspect	Buyer's Toolbox	Centric
What the company does	Merchandise planning, and only that, since 1992.	Product lifecycle management for fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and cosmetics — with Centric Planning covering merchandise financial and assortment planning.
Core planning	OTB, MFP, sales forecasting, category/WSSI, vendor planning, collections, key items — one connected environment.	Merchandise financial planning and assortment planning within the Centric platform.
Planning depth	Top-down, bottom-up, middle-out. Item/week/location, attribute-aware. Cost, Retail and Units at any granularity.	Ask to see OTB at multiple hierarchy levels, and how in-season reforecasting flows back to the financial plan.
Wholesale	Item-level orders, backorders, cancellations and returns, reserved stock, retailer accounts, availability-to-promise — reflowing into OTB.	Ask to see a cancelled wholesale order reflow into open-to-buy.
What you have to adopt	Nothing. Connects to your existing ERP or merchandising system.	Planning is strongest within the Centric platform. Ask what value depends on adopting more of it.
Product design, sourcing, costing	Not our product. Connect yours.	Genuine strength — design-to-plan continuity, materials, cost scenarios, collection and calendar management.
Pricing transparency	Published: from $995/month. Annual, billed quarterly, no multi-year lock-in.	Not published. No independent cost estimate located.
Proof before contract	Free proof of concept on your hierarchy and sales history, in 1–2 weeks.	Ask whether they will build a working plan on your data before contract, and at what cost.
Who changes the plan	The planner — formulas, KPIs, hierarchy levels, views, in the UI, no ticket.	Ask what a new KPI or hierarchy level costs twelve months post-go-live, and who performs it.
Deployment	Cloud, on-premise or hybrid. Your IT team decides.	Cloud platform.
Verticals	Farm and ranch, specialty apparel, footwear, outdoor, museum retail, pharmacy, multi-category. 20+ countries.	Fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics, multi-category. Reference customers include LVMH, Kering, PVH, Under Armour.
Ownership	Profitable and independent since 1992. Never taken outside capital, never carried debt.	Majority-owned by Dassault Systèmes since July 2018 (63.19% for ~$350M), with agreement to acquire the remainder. Dassault is a public industrial software group centred on aerospace, automotive and manufacturing PLM.

Common Questions

Answering your questions.

We already run Centric PLM. Doesn't adding their planning module make sense?

It might, and it's worth scoping — ask them for a price and a timeline. Then ask two follow-ups. Does the planning value depend on your PLM data being complete and current first? And when would your planners actually be running open-to-buy? If design-to-plan continuity is your bottleneck, extending Centric is sensible and we'd say so. If your bottleneck is the buy, we'd get you live in six to ten weeks alongside everything you already run — no migration, nothing switched off.

Centric works with LVMH and Kering. Aren't they the safer choice?

That reference set is real and we're not going to pretend otherwise. What we'd ask is whether it's your reference set. Centric's centre of gravity is fashion and luxury. Ours is mid-market specialty retail — farm and ranch, outdoor, footwear, multi-category, museum retail — where the problems are multi-banner hierarchies, legacy merchandising systems and wholesale channels rather than couture collection calendars. Ask both vendors for three references that look like your business.

Isn't Buyer's Toolbox narrower? Centric covers the whole product journey.

It is narrower, deliberately. Centric covers design through delivery; we cover the buy. If you need product development, materials management and sourcing in one system, they offer something we don't. What we'd point out is that breadth has a cost: a planning capability inside a PLM platform competes for roadmap attention with everything else on that platform, and it comes with a platform you have to adopt. We've put every release into merchandise planning for 34 years.

Centric is backed by Dassault Systèmes. Isn't that more stable than a small independent vendor?

Dassault is a large, durable public company and that's a genuine strength — Centric isn't going anywhere. The question is different: whose priorities set the roadmap. Dassault's centre of gravity is PLM for aerospace, automotive and manufacturing. ANT USA is profitable, independent, has never taken outside capital and has never carried debt, and every decision about Buyer's Toolbox is made by the same people who run your implementation and answer your support calls. Both are legitimate models. You should know which one you're buying.

How do we compare fairly?

Three tests, given to both. First, a proof of concept on your own data before any contract. Second, a three-year total cost — and for a platform vendor, ask specifically which components are required for planning to work as demonstrated. Third, the one most buyers skip: a scripted change request. Ask each vendor to price and schedule the same three changes twelve months after go-live. Add a hierarchy level. Add a custom KPI. Restate a formula.

Is Your Planning Process Burning Out Your Best People?

Buyer's Toolbox AP vs. Centric