Picking a PLM Vendor: David or Goliath?

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…