OK, I just returned from Aberdeen's "Manufacturing in the 21st Century" summit in Boston, and we are back into our discussion on choosing a PLM vendor. As an aside before we jump in, I was slightly concerned that we had a speaker talking about the use of Lean in R&D in addition to all of our discussions on manufacturing operations management (MOM), lean, quality, and other manufacturing-centric topics. As it turns out, it was the session with the most provocative and interesting questions at the end. It seems their might be hope to increase overlap between Manufacturing and Engineering. If only we could get them to talk to each other! OK, back to picking a PLM vendor.

Does (PLM vendor) Size Matter? 

It may, or it may not. There are trade-offs to be made with vendor size. Here are some things to think about when choosing your vendor.

• Start with capability - as I discussed a few posts back, an industry specialist might have unique capabilities that can help your company. These "Davids" tend to be much smaller companies, but compete against their larger competitors through specialization. Start the review process by identifying vendors that meet your functional needs. If nothing else, these specialty vendors will help you understand the needs in your industry. There are also smaller vendors that address very specific solutions. For example, CMstat for configuration management, Sopheon for product portfolio management, or Akoya for product cost management. These deep capabilities will be hard to find in a larger, more general-purpose solution.
• Consider your size - Are you Toyota, Boeing, or P&G? If so, you may need more support than a small company can offer. Unless you plan to support your PLM solution internally, you might find that your prospectice partner doesn't have the same global presense that you do. This might be OK if you have centers of excellence of your own that you can train on the solutions, or if you have global partners that you can turn to for support. But a large company can overwhelm a small vendor, if you can't help provide your own support and they don't have an established partner ecosystem. Companies like Dassault Systemes, PTC, and Siemens PLM have global organizations with global partners that can help.
• Consider you influence - How important do you want to be to your vendor? The Fortune 500 may have a lot of say when it comes to future direction for your software products. All customers are not created equal in the eyes of the vendor. They may have the best intentions to support your business, and hopefully much of what other companies want will help you as well. But if you are a small fish in a big ocean, it is hard to have a big influence. You access to a smaller vendor may be the CEO, and your business may be more important to them.

Make the Tradeoffs

In the end, you want a solution that fits your needs today and will grow to fit them tomorrow. And, you need to make sure that you have the support you need internally, through partners, or through the vendor. We'll talk more about a vendor's ecosystem soon, it is another way to put size into perspective.

I look forward to your comments. Feel free to share your experience in selecting a vendor, your suggestions might save someone a lot of headaches...