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Sorry for the delay between this post and the previous post. A break with a lot of PLM work on my side and no adverts on your side: win-win. But now I have time to continue the serial around PLM 2.0. We are in the middle.
A small recap on the agenda:
| First post | : What is PLM 2.0? – published Aug 24th |
| Second post | : Challenges in current PLM – published Sept 4th |
| This post | : Change in business – published Oct 3rd |
| Final post | : Why PLM 2.0 – conclusions |
In the first post I described the changes in PLM messaging from vendors – PLM 2.0 or similar terms. In the second post I described the current challenges of PLM, which are well known – if you have access to in LinkedIn to the PLM related groups you will find discussions around the challenges of current PLM. And they set the spirit – good or bad.
Now in this post I will bring up some trends, which to my opinion, unmistakably must lead to a new way of PLM in order to adapt to the future.
Generation Y – a new generation of workers
Generation Y: It is interesting to learn that everywhere companies are complaining or warning that their existing workforce is going to retire with all their knowledge without decent follow-up. In parallel they state it is difficult to find new employees with similar skills that will guarantee the future of the company. The new generation of workers, often identified as Generation Y, has different skills and different motivations.
Some interesting generalizations (note I am not a social anthropologist).
The older generations were raised with the concept: Knowledge is Power – You as an individual needed to have in-depth skills to be the right person for a job – a job is your life and for life. As a negative result of this approach, you see that exactly this older generation sometimes ‘sits’ on their knowledge as a kind of job guarantee – they do not like sharing information – “Come to me and I will help you” is their motto till they retire.
Generation Y does not have this job for life attitude – they look more for short term success and fulfillment and therefore they do not fit so well in the way traditional companies work. They are not the type of knowledge workers previous generations had, but they are, thanks to their skills with modern digital media, capable of finding information and combining information into knowledge. They work different.
The interesting observation from my side is that Generation Y is exactly the type of people PLM requires, as it is all about sharing and combining data. What is blocking their acceptance for current PLM is that the implementation is not architected to their work motivation. Look at:
- The way information is stored (too structured),
- The way information is presented (too structured, boring screens).
- The way information has to be entered in the system (too unfriendly – overkill)
For them PLM needs to move more to an intuitive way of presenting information, capturing data as-if it is something like serious gaming. And the new PLM needs to have a way to manage structured and unstructured data combined.
For companies that complain, they are losing skilled workers in the future, they should not complain but adapt. They should look forward and solve the problems for the future, which means a different way of doing business and implementing PLM. Do not choose what the dinosaurs did.
New styles of business management
Here I want to come back to my first post – I was intrigued by reading Steve Denning’s posts and its relation to PLM. Through the post Why Amazon can’t Make a Kindle in the USA, I found the post The Death and Reinvention of Management the best fitting with my PLM drive.
Steve describes five fundamental shifts in management that make companies ready for the 21st century.
Take time to read the post (and go more in-depth if you get as enthusiastic as me) – but come back to read the rest of this post
I summarize/quote the five shifts from Steve here (as I am sure not everyone has done the reading):
1. The company’s goal has to shift to one of delighting clients i.e. a shift from inside-out (“You take what we make”) to outside-in (“We seek to understand your problems and will surprise you by solving them”)
2. The role of the manager has to shift from being a controller to an enabler, so as to liberate the energies and talents of those doing the work and remove impediments that are getting in the way of work.
3. The mode of coordination shifts from hierarchical bureaucracy to dynamic linking, i.e. to a way of dynamically linking self-driven knowledge work to the shifting requirements of delighting clients.
4. There is a shift from value to values; i.e. a shift from a single-minded focus on economic value and maximizing efficiency to instilling the values that will create innovation and growth for the organization over the long term.
5. Communications shift from command to conversation: i.e. a shift from top-down communications comprising predominantly hierarchical directives to communications made up largely of adult-to-adult conversations that solve problems and generate new insights.
Here we see the typical PLM 2.0 targets. I will translate them into our PLM terminology.
Shift # 1 – The shift to delight clients – from which PLM vendor do we hear this statement? Which PLM vendor puts the customer in focus, instead of their “superior” technology?
Shift #2, #3 and #5 are typical PLM 2.0 capabilities which I described in my first post. See below the PLM 2.0 differentiators:
And where do we find shift #4? How do PLM vendors address this change beyond marketing?
My conclusion on this point: Both PLM and management require a change to be ready for the 21st century – It is exactly what generation Y is looking for, it is exactly what future consumers are looking for. However currently classical PLM and classical Management are dominating the thought process – and they do not like change so much as it would put past investments and achievements at risk.
The Importance of Social Media
Already described in the two previous trends, social media concepts fit exactly in the shift that we see towards the future. It impacts the way companies change their marketing and address their customer base. In parallel it affects the ways teams collaborate in the product development space, innovation teams are global product development teams.
My thoughts: Social media might look like a hype, but the basic concepts of social media will be required for future PLM
Globalization for SMB
The major trend from the past decade is that SMB’s (Small and Medium Businesses) do not longer serve and fight for a regional existence. Competition and customers come from everywhere and production is more and more outsourced. The traditional company that is #1 in their region does not longer exist. Even SMBs have to consider ways to collaborate globally – again another driver for PLM 2.0
My thought: Traditional SMBs are never the leading companies in new trends, they hang on their core knowledge and have probably a longer way to go to really adapt to the future. Startup SMBs with no historical hindrance are likely to outperform them.
Innovation, Intellectual Property & War on Patents
In a global market, innovation is the key driver to be successful combined with the point above: delight the customer. In order to delight the customer you need to innovate as delightment does not come from commodities.
And with innovation I am not only addressing the consumer market, innovation is required in all areas: green products, green production as world climate and its population forces us to change.
The successful products for the future will be those that are bringing innovation and when your company owns this Intellectual Property, your near future is going to be profitable,
Therefore the “War for Patents” will be everywhere. We currently see in the news the tablet and Smartphone patents wars, but it pops up everywhere, some more visible than others.
A “War for Patents” costs a lot of money (mainly spent to lawyers). Therefore the balance should be found between protecting your IP and to innovate faster. In this way your patents become less relevant because newer exist. To my opinion the new PLM should be the engine for innovation first and secondly the system to protect your IP
Conclusion:
Again too many words for a blog post, but the topic is huge and I hope you see the need for a different PLM (PLM 2.0): A PLM that is targeted to the change in business all around the world. The monetary crisis which is another symptom of the old business gives us a chance to change. We need to change organizations and collaboration to remain profitable in the future – don’t be an ostrich
My thoughts –looking forward to your feedback
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Like many people, the meditation of the dark Christmas days and the various 2009 reviews give you a push to look back and reflect. What happened and what did not happen in 2009?
And what might happen in 2010?
Here my thoughts related to:
ERP-related PLM vendors
Here I think mainly about Oracle and SAP. They have already identified PLM as an important component for a full enterprise solution. They are further pushing their one-shop-stop approach . Where Oracle’s offering is based on a set of acquired and to-be-integrated systems, SAP has been extending their offering by more focus on their own development.
If you are one of those companies that require PLM, and believe all software should come from one vendor (beside Microsoft), it is hard to decide.
As there might be real PLM knowledge in the Oracle organization as an effect of the acquisitions, but is it easily accessible for you? Is it reflected in the company’s strategy ?
With SAP I am even more in doubt; here you might find more people with ERP blood having learned the PLM talk. Maybe for that reason, I saw mostly Oracle as a PLM option in my environment and very few SAP opportunities for real PLM.
I assume in 2010 Oracle will push stronger and SAP try harder.
CAD-related PLM vendors
In this group you find as the major players PTC, Siemens and Dassault Systems. Autodesk could be there too, but they refuse to do PLM and remain focused around design collaboration. All these PLM vendors are striving to get the PLM message towards the mid-market. They have solutions for the enterprise, but to my feeling, most of the enterprises in the traditional well-know PLM markets, like Automotive and Aerospace, are in a kind of stand-still due to economical and upcoming environmental crisis.
It is sure business will not be as usual anymore, but where will the sustainable future go? Here I believe answers will come from innovation and small mid-market companies. The bigger enterprises need time to react so before we see new PLM activities in this area it will take time.
Therefore all PLM vendors move in directions outside engineering, like apparel, life sciences, and consumer packaged goods. These industries do not rely on the 3D CAD, but still can benefit from the key building blocks of PLM, like lifecycle management, program and portfolio management and quality/compliancy management. The challenge I believe for the PLM vendors is: Will these CAD-focused organizations be able to learn and adapt other industries fast enough? Where does 3D fit – although Dassault has a unique vision here.
For the mid-market, the PLM vendors offer more OOTB (Out Of The Box) solutions, mostly based on limited capabilities or more common available Microsoft components like SharePoint and SQL Server. This is not so strange as according to my observation, most smaller mid-market companies have not really made or understood the difference internally between document management and product data management, including Bill Of Materials not to be managed in Excel.
I assume 2010 the CAD related PLM vendors initially will focus on the bigger enterprises and new industries, the smaller mid-market companies require a different approach
PLM-only vendors
This is an area which I expect to disappear in the future, although this is also the area where interesting developments start to happen. We see open source PLM software coming up with Aras leading and we see companies coming up with PLM on-demand software, Arena as the first company to sell this concept.
The fact that the traditional PLM-only vendors disappeared in this area (Eigner bought by Agile, Agile bought by Oracle, MatrixOne bought by Dassault Systems) indicates that the classical way of selling PLM-only was not profitable enough.
Either PLM needs to be integrated in companywide business processes (which I believe), or there will be PLM-only vendors that find a business model to stay alive.
Here I hope to see more clarity in 2010
Smaller mid-market companies
What I have seen in the past year is, that despite the economical crisis, PLM investments by these companies remained active. Maybe not in purchasing much more licenses or implementing new PLM features. Main investments here were around optimizing or slightly extending the PLM base. Maybe because there was time to sit still and analyze what could be changed, or maybe it was planned but due to work pressure, it was never executed. Anyway there was a lot of activity in this area not less than in 2008.
An interesting challenge for these mid-market companies will be to remain attractive for the new generation. They are not used to the classical ways of structured work as most of the current workforce is used to.
Social networking, social PLM, I have seen the thoughts, discussions and benefits, still trying to see where it will become reality.
2010 is another chance.
Sustainability and going green
This is an area where I am a little disappointed and this is perhaps not justified. I would expect with the lessons learned around energy and the upcoming shortage of natural resources, companies would take the crisis as a reason to change.
To my observation most of the companies I have seen are still trying to continue as usual, hoping that the traditional growth will come back. The climate conference in Copenhagen also showed that, we as human beings, do not feel pressured enough to adapt, by nature we are optimists (or boiling frogs).
Still there are interesting developments – I assume in the next few years we will see innovation coming – probably first from smaller companies as they have the flexibility to react. During the European Customer Conference in Paris, I heard Bernard Charles talking about the concept of a Bill Of Energy (The energy needed to create, maintain and demolish a product) As PLM consultants we already have a hard time explaining to our customers the various views on a BOM, still I like the concept, as a Bill Of Energy makes products comparable.
2010 the acceptance of Bill Of Energy
Here I want to conclude my post for this year. Thank you all for reading and sharing your thoughts and comments with this community. My ultimate conclusion for 2009 is, that is was a good PLM year for the mid-market, better as expected but the changes are going slow. Too slow – we will see next year.
I am writing this week’s post on my way to a customer to finalize an implementation and in parallel describing the Return On Investment of this project. But before that, I would like to have a short note about my previous post ‘Free PLM software does not help companies“.
The reason I wrote this post was because I wanted to assure that companies do not believe that ROI for implementing PLM is based on the software costs. PLM implementations are a combination of software, business skills and the company culture. Specially in the current economical situation, I wanted to make clear that these factors are not overlooked. Also I did not want to say Open Source PLM is bad, I made my points on the messaging, however in functionality and usage I do not see a big difference between other types of PLM systems. I got some interesting comments on this post and I advise all of you, who have read the post to go through the comments to get a broader perspective. Once I have had some more opportunity to investigate this area deeper, I will come with a more in-depth post on this topic.
To PLM or Not To PLM
But now back to: To PLM or Not To PLM, where I wrote in a first post on this topic that before judging the costs and ROI of PLM, we should start analyzing our current processes and situation and use this as a baseline to guesstimate the PLM benefits.
The first PLM phase to analyze is the concept phase, where new ideas are picked up (or not). Actually this is the phase where we define the future of the company. The economical recession in a way forces companies to rethink their strategy and fortunately all of the competition is in a similar position. downturn means less activities, the company might be in the position to allocate time to address these analysis for PLM ROI. Instead of making people redundant, use these people to work on a new and optimized product strategy.
Existential questions to ask yourself as a company
The basic questions to ask about the concept phase:
- Do we know where our products are currently in their lifecycle ?
Measure: quantity, sales trends, margin
Analyze: is our portfolio healthy ? - How do customer rate our products ?
Measure: market share, market awareness, customer satisfaction, quality, field issues
Analyze: will customers keep on buying from us ? - Where are we different from the competition ?
Measure: where do we win/ where do we loose and compare per quarter ?
Analyze: how can we improve the success ratio ? - In case of bidding
Measure: how many bids do we handle per quarter and with which effort
Analyze: What is the win percentage and how to influence this ? - Who are our customers ?
Measure: does the 80-20 rule apply – does 80 % of the revenue come from 20 % of the customers ?
Analyze: What is the trend specially in relation to the current market situation - Where does innovation come from ?
Measure: the amount of new ideas, the source (people, customers) and the ones that reach it to the portfolio
Analyze: Do we have a guarantee for innovation ?
Additional questions to be asked due to current financial and global situation: 
- How do we strive for climate neutral products – sustainable development ?
Measure: the amount of energy used to build the products but also to recycle and what remains
Analyze: How can we change our products and production process ? - How do we capture our company’s IP due to the aging workforce in most of the countries
Measure: How many people with the specific knowledge will retire in 5 – 10 years ?
Analyze: Where and how can I assure this knowledge remains in the company ?
For many of the above questions you might say that you know how to conduct your business as you are doing most of these activities and even more. However the question you should ask yourself also is: How long does it take to answer these questions and to react on these trends ?
Because all the above topics are positively influenced by PLM – here it the PLM ROI !
Project and Portfolio Management, company wide workflow process allow the company to measure, to run analysis and to have information within hours (or worse case in days), where in a company where every department and discipline has their own environment, the effort to collect this information becomes huge and not natural. And as it will take a lot of time to collect the information, people tend to react on their guts or intuition, which might be wrong if you are among the wrong people or if the world changes in a way never seen before.
Additional capturing product and process knowledge allows companies to contain their IP. And just to make this point clear: Product knowledge is not only CAD and Bills of Materials. It is all collected information: issues during design, during production, coming from field services, best practices used and more. The challenge anyway for every PLM system is to provide an environment, user-friendly enough for all users, to start managing their total product IP in a single environment.
Conclusion
PLM as a total approach brings a lot of value and control in the concept phase, the phase where the company’s future is merely defined. And it is obvious that the future should be green and sustainable. Use the current downturn to shape the future – the questions in this post and your analysis should be the base.
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