Picking a PLM Vendor: Finding PLM Expertise

This series of posts turned the corner from
giving guidance on how to approach, justify, and define your path
to PLM and started the conversation on how to choose a vendor. The
last post discussed how to find an industry specialist, but it
brought up a good question - how do you find a PLM specialist in
the first place?

A friend of mine called the other day looking for
a PLM consultant to help out on a project. He was looking for an
individual to subcontract because he doesn’t have the skills
in-house to run a PLM implementation. He (and his company) have
very skilled people for implementing enterprise applications, but
needed to supplement with a PLM specialist. That had me asking the
question, how can you tell whether a consultant or systems
integrator (SI) has depth and experience in PLM? Here
are a number of ideas:

• Look for focus - Let’s face it,
  PLM is hot. It is growing faster than most (if not all) enterprise
  applications, and our research at Aberdeen shows that it provides a
  path to profitable growth. Because of this, many consultants are
  starting to list “PLM” as one of their capabilities. But where is
  it placed in their business? Did it make it to their website
  because Marketing thought it was hot, or because they have a focus
  on it? One way to be sure it to find a focused company. Looking at
  a specialist like Kalypso is
  an example, you see “Products - Ideas - Innovation” and “Delivering
  on the promise of innovation” right up front. Sure that’s
  marketing, but it’s focused marketing, and a generalist can’t
  afford to spend that much time on one subject like PLM.
• Look for the people - For
  larger companies, like a large consultant, it can be harder. They
  are in many lines of business, and they now probably list PLM as
  one of them. But how can you tell that they are
  capable in PLM? In these companies, you have to look beyond
  the home page and look at their people. Do they have dedicated
  resources to PLM? IBM, a
  longstanding member of the PLM community, serves as an example.
  Even within the breadth of IBM, there is room for specialization. I
  recently attended an industry event where they announced a series
  of
  PLM Centers of Excellence around the globe. This is how a
  larger company shows their dedication to helping companies like you
  with PLM.
• Look at the company they keep -
  Who are their partners? Do they partner with Dassault Systemes,
  PTC, or Siemens PLM (UGS)? Do they attend those vendors’ events?
  What other trade shows do they invest in? Do they attend PDMA?
  COFES? NDES? Do they know what those shows are? If they have to
  ask, they may not be focused (with one caveat, that industry
  specialists will probably list more focused industry
  shows).
• Look for their customer
  successes - In the end, it is about their customers. How
  quickly can you identify some companies like you (preferably in
  your industry) that have accomplished the kinds of things with PLM
  that you hope to? Ideally these are on the website, but you may
  have to dig a little bit deeper.

By the way, this test also applies to ERP
vendors who list “PLM” as one of their modules or
capabilities, but that should be for another
post.

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…