What I learned this week ... is that midsize companies have gained significant ground in PLM over the last two years. I was reviewing some data for an upcoming "sector insight" to follow up the "Product Innovation Agenda 2010" benchmark report and I was shocked to see how far midsize companies have come. This is the great testament to the power of a blog, I haven't even had the chance to write a formal research document about this but you get to hear it first.

Gaining Ground 2005-2007
I compared Aberdeen benchmarks from 2005 with a benchmark that published in December. Both asked companies whether they had centralized product data (you can read this as PDM) and whether they had extended their centralized data with integrated business processes (you can read this as PLM). Not surprisingly, midsize companies are behind their larger competitors in both. You probably won't be surprised (based on the fact you are reading this blog in the first place) that both PDM and PLM have been linked with a stronger ability to get products to market on time, at cost, and hit the "metrics that drive product profitability."

What may surprise you, though, is that in 2005 only 13% of the midsize companies we surveyed had centralized product data. That number skyrocketed to 48%. The PLM numbers are not as high. Only 25% of midsize companies had PLM in place as of the end of 2007. But that still represents significant growth considering that less than 13% had PLM in place in 2005.

Beyond 2007
What may be more surprising yet (isn't this exciting?) is that midsize companies are not stopping at PDM or at the basics of PLM. As an example, the data indicates that they are planning to grow their use of digital manufacturing (both planning and simulation technologies) significantly between 2008 and 2010. They are also growing their use of design collaboration technologies, and other PLM-related technologies (not to mention continuing to grow in the use of PLM).

So that is one of the things that I learned this week, or at least something I was surprised by this week, I hope you found it interesting.

So midsize companies are getting aggressive about PLM. Who knew? I didn't, if you did let us know about it.