Get Savvy about PLM

Many of you may have noticed that my profile has recently changed.  After 15 years of being PLM vendor neutral, I’ve put a stake in the ground.  I have worked with Agile, PTC, Siemens, and Aras from a doggedly vendor neutral perspective.

I have recently joined PTC as a Program Manager and can thus be declared off the fence.

Why is that? 

For the past several years I have supported implementations and system selection efforts at many customers and have observed many trends.  Without bashing let me point out what has captured my attention:

1) System Selections -

For the past 2-3 years PTC has consistantly made it to the top of the list on customer engaged selections – exceptions have only resulted from aggressive counter bids from the competitors – not based upon qualifying for the business.  In fact those customers that have gone with alternate selections are highly disatisfied and are now struggling to maintain deployment schedules and deliverable expectations.

2) Technology platform

The platform is consistant – and integrations are clean.  When I hear constantly of issues with basic installation procedures with the other solutions, and data compatibility challenges.  Being on current day technology as opposed to aging platforms is a plus.  Revamping a solution with more analytics doesn’t mean true added value.

3) Process and value oriented services delivery

This has always been a mantra of mine – technology implementations are not the measure of success.  Business value and adoption are.  PTC demonstrates that they know this and follow this.

4) Vision for the future

With the introduction of CREO, PTC is showing the world that it understands that a mature market is not dead, it just needs a kick in the pants. 

5) a Partnering mindset

Having been a services partner in the past with several of the vendors – I found that only one truly demonstrated a partnership both with regards to delivery of partner services to the customer and with the customer. 

So yes – my neutrality hat is off.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to post interesting and relevant “PLM neutral” process topics.  This will not become a commercial blog – it will continue to be a place you can find key examples of real life business challenges and how PLM factors in.  And I’ll probably be just as erratic as ever with my frequency of postings.