Google+ potential for PLM and Business use

July 20, 2011

Well, time is running fast, and I counted my first week of G+ experience. It is still too early to share any specific experience, but probably a good time to share some of my initial thoughts. For the moment, I can see Google+ as a real geekdom. Most of the people there are mostly experimenting, so did I. The main question I wanted to ask, in the beginning, is how Google+ can be used by businesses as well as how Google+ potential can be used in business applications.

Personal Workflow

I started from the analyzes of my personal workflow. I can seaparate my activities into content creation, content consumption, maintaining relationships and broadcasting. The main tool for my content creation activity is blog (WordPress). For the last years, any attempts to replace or combine WordPress usage with additional tools failed. My main content stream is blogging. It seems to me, Google+ is not going to change anything here for me in a visible future. I still don’t have a stable picture stream – all professional and personal photos are fragmented and only part of them lives on the cloud. On the side of consumption, G+ easy became a part of my consumption streams. The easiest way for me was to consume Google+ as RSS stream, which in parallel can be viewed on iPad using Flipboard. Sharing was easy as well. I’m sharing my content today on multiple sites – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. Google+ becomes another one, for the moment. Not a big difference…

Relationship and Networking

Building connections in Google+ is different from other networks. First of all, Google+ is asymmetric. It means you can connect to a person without having this connection confirmed. It is different from Facebook and LinkedIn. Circle mechanism is powerful and I like it much more than existing list mechanism in Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ and Business

The biggest question I have is what Google+ can provide for business. For the moment, Google+ is blocking creation of business profiles. However, take a look on the following video. You can hear clear statements that Google is planning to introduce Google+ to a business domain.

Google+ and PLM Business Domains

What are possible domains of Google+ applications in business. Future usage of Google+ tools for a better collaboration is obvious – ad hoc meetings, chat, email, mobile group calls, messaging. Circles provide an efficient team and group organization mechanism. Finally, a video conference can be a good competition to Skype. Next level of benefits related to future integration of Google Apps. It can make collaboration even stronger. Group sharing of spreadsheets can be a very strong feature in PDM/PLM domain.

What is my conclusion? Obviously, it is too early to make a conclusion. It is interesting to know what we will feel with regards to Google+ closer to the X-Mass party. What I can tell is that for the last week Google+ succeeded to take some attention, and I embedded it into my day-to-day flow. I like user experience and some features look very promising. Time will show if this is for real. Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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Will PLM Channels Survive The Cloud Era?

March 1, 2011

Cloud is one of the trending topics these days. Slowly, it comes also to PLM space. With the growing number of companies in this space, it becomes clear that cloud is the future of business software and not a baloney as some of the people predicted few years ago when “the cloud” was mentioned first time. However, today I want to raise a topic, which is far from “cloud technologies” and talk about one of the aspects of business called “channel”. Every company needs to develop their channel to sell what they produce and PLM companies are not exclusion from this rule. The ability to have an effective channel made many companies extremely successful. Think about Autodesk or SolidWorks resellers. In the past, they played a key role in the development of businesses for both successful companies. If you have some time, I can recommend you the following reading about SolidWorks VAR channel written by Jeff Ray, former CEO of SolidWorks published by David Skok on his blog.

I found the video below interesting in the context of channel and cloud business. You can see Guy Weismantel, Microsoft’s director of ERP Marketing, talking about the future Microsoft Dynamics and cloud partners.

I think, everything said by Guy make a lot of sense for PLM business as well. The role of channel(s) can be changed significantly at the time software becomes available online on the internet. There are few fundamental differences – availability with no installation, subscription, customization level, services and support. So, will traditional distribution model is going to disappear? Or existing distribution channels will require some groundbreaking changes?

In my view, business partners and channels are in front of significant changes. Usage of the internet will completely change the landscape of PLM reseller channels. They will need to shift the focus more towards business and product development software consultancy and less focusing on software delivery, training and installation. Customization will become an interesting portion of business related to how cloud software can be adapted inside of the companies.

What is my conclusion? It is clear to me, PLM distribution channels are going to pass a significant change as a consequence of business switching towards cloud solutions. The relationships in the triangle vendor-customer-partner is going to change. It will be a big shift. Many surprises on the way… Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and SharePoint: Business Together?

November 20, 2010

I want to learn more about Microsoft’s strategies these days. The “big PC” is preparing to become the biggest supplier of enterprise software Office boxes and Office servers. Microsoft is not exciting these days. However, they are making huge money by selling software to enterprise manufacturing. The majority of manufacturing companies are running Windows. Windows 7 release seems to me fixed Vista bugs and customer are buying Windows 7 and Office. Google might be disturbing Microsoft when they announce the next big organization migrating to Google Apps, but companies sits on Microsoft’s technologies, for the moment. SharePoint is one of the most significant elements in Microsoft’s enterprise vision. Almost two years ago, I wrote – SharePoint PLM Paradox. Today I want to revise what I wrote with new thoughts and facts.

SharePoint as a Service Vehicle

In my view, Microsoft put a lot of effort in establishing mainstream vision behind SharePoint. One of the most successful elements of this effort was what I call – “enterprise freemium model”. It was implemented by introducing WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) product. WSS license embedded into Windows Server licenses enabled Microsoft to use it as a trojan horse. It allowed to Microsoft to establish a presence in the organization. It was an easy decision for IT and department people – SharePoint is free, let’s ride these free collaboration services. However, after initial excitement, people came to the point that lots of SharePoint promises can be realized by buying SharePoint enterprise licenses and bringing consultants and service companies to the site. As I can see today, SharePoint plays a role of an excellent service vehicle for Microsoft’s enterprise strategies.

PLM and SharePoint: Flirt or Marriage?

PLM and SharePoint marriage was an interesting opportunity two years ago. Mindshare PLM companies decided to play differently with SharePoint. Siemens PLM established early relationships with SharePoint kid, even before a successful MOSS 2007 . TeamCenter community is a product UGS pushed to ride on top of SharePoint. I haven’t seen lots of excitement about TeamCenter Communities, but the product was on the market. Dassault was flirting with SharePoint very carefully by establishing a strategy – “customers first”. They tried to to have enough customer implementations before (or instead of) marriage. PTC decided to marry and established a very promising new product line – Windchill Product Point. I’ve been reading Parametric Technologies Analyst meeting highlights by Jay Vleeschhouwer. According to Jay, a ProductPoint 2.0 is one of the important elements in PTC strategy. As far as I listen to PTC execs, ProductPoint and SharePoint strategy plays a significant role in the overall PTC strategy.

Service vs. Free Products

In my view, PLM companies can take two possible decisions in their strategies related to SharePoint. One is to sell products dependent on SharePoint and generate additional service money. Will it play well together? Maybe… I don’t think SharePoint is really needed to increase PLM service revenues, but this interplay with Microsoft sales channels can be a good cooperation. Alternative option is to give away SharePoint-dependent products to establish market share. This can be an interesting and even unpredicted turn. Nowadays, “free” is considered as a future best price and it can generate a new trend.

What is my conclusion? Microsoft is selling lots of SharePoint boxes to manufacturing companies. It is interesting to see how/if PLM companies will be trying to monetize SharePoint presence in the manufacturing companies. Is there future in common PLM SharePoint strategies? This is a question I want to ask PLM companies today. There are few possible answers – (1) We can sell products and services together; (2) We can give away product “for free”, adjusted to SharePoint in order to gain a market share; (3) Nah… We can do it – this is yet another option to sell PLM portfolio. Just my thoughts… Let me know what do you think.

Best, Oleg

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What is the Next Big Deal in PLM services?

September 24, 2009

implementation-serviceDell’s $3.9bn acquisition of Perot Systems few days ago drove me to think about PLM and Services for some time. Of course, services are not related to cool PLM technologies, functionality and strategies. However, looking on analyst data, services are earning a significant portion of the overall PLM revenues (ref to CIMData).

I want to figure out few interesting observations around PLM services:

1. PLM Service organizations are closing gap between PLM vision and practical PLM implementation for customers. In the end, after all presentations, meetings and planning sessions, PLM services come to customer and “connecting dots” by adding functionality, integrating systems and improving usability of the systems where it is possible.

2. PLM Service organization is huge experimental space for gathering PLM knowledge and expertise, incubation ideas and technologies. In my view, PLM service organization becomes unique place to discover all advantages and disadvantages of PLM technologies and product. In many cases, these organizations is orienting on multiple or combined vendor offerings. You can learn a lot from the standpoint of how to make PLM work for customers.

3. PLM Services is one of the major destructive factors for PLM products and portfolios. This is another side of the coin. PLM services see vendor’s product as a platform to generate services. In many cases, PLM services abandon or re-implement standard functionality available in PLM systems.

4. In many situations, PLM services (or VAR/partner) have much more influence on what customers are doing than PLM vendors. By accumulating knowledge about customers requirements and expectations, PLM service organization can significantly influence ever decision made by customers.

What is my today’s conclusion with regards to PLM Services? Despite “love and hate relationships”, in most of the cases, I see PLM service organization as a very positive entity in PLM business landscape. PLM service organization needs to be involved more and get higher status as PLM eco-system builder and knowledge incubation. At the same time, we need to think how to convert PLM services into new product portfolio facilitator in PLM zone and not as a consumer of PLM platforms.

Best, Oleg.

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Can we scale PLM down?

September 1, 2009

Picture 1Originally, PLM was born to provide solution for big enterprise customers. Aerospace, Defense, Automotive… these are original roots of today PLM kings. But, since we are moving forward many companies started to investigate in possibility to take PLM ideas to different domains, industries as well as apply it to be used for smaller customers and not only to industrial behemoths like  aerospace and automotive OEMs. In your comments, I got few requests to raise this topic on blog and discuss, so here we go. I don’t expect to finish this topic in one post, so today I want to talk about fundamental grounds behind topic of PLM for different company sizes. I’d like to put few buckets to make our discussion more structured.

Marketing. Just to make things clear. We live in dynamic world that creates multiple opportunity for product marketing. I believe marketing around PLM is very strong and interesting. One day we discuss it too, but not today. I think customer’s demands are similar if we talk to them about their needs such as product cost, regulation needs and distributed development and manufacturing. PLM marketing is focusing on explaining how PLM can solve these problems, but won’t be the only solution for these problems and needs solving. I raised these issues multiple times before discussing how different product and technologies can be positioned to solve the same (or similar needs).  

Company IT. When I think about PLM of different scales and different organizations, the first thing come to my mind is what IT organization company have. Obviously IT of big enterprise won’t be equivalent of small business IT combined from very few people. So, ability of IT to handle operational and technological issues are crucial to understand what type of PLM technology we need to come with.

Technology. So, we agreed – we need different PLM technologies. In my view, these days we are facing a very significant wave or technology and business/technology combination. Microsoft is coming up to enterprise very actively. Traditional big-IT focused companies like IBM, Oracle and others are trying to establish their strategic position. On opposite side, SaaS and Cloud technologies becomes more mature and attractive for enterprises. I think, companies of different sizes will be deciding also based on technological choice. So, PLM companies need to be prepared to multiple offering or understand niches of technological marketplaces

Company Processes and Organization. When IT abilities and Technological preferences are fundamental things companies will analyze, issue such as company processes are definitely need to be taken into account when you come with PLM-bag to organization. What is good for big companies won’t fit way smaller customers are doing their business. Smaller organization are always will be more agile, connected and open compared to bigger enterprise and therefore, will be focusing on different priorities and needs.  So, don’t develop very complex ECO for the company of 100 people and 5 engineers.

So, what is my conclusion today? Different companies are doing business in different way. There is strong influence of IT, Technologies and Organization processes on the way product development and manufacturing systems need to be established, implemented in supported. I’d be thinking about next discussion with more specific themes and looking forward for your comments.

Best, Oleg.

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PLM trends in the intersection of Business and IT

August 24, 2009

 plm-it-interestion-trendsYou can ask me - why would you like to talk about trends? Trends are something normally going toward an end of the calendar year? Something like “2009 trends” or “future 2010 trends”… What’s up now?

I think, current turbulent time brings different time scale on everything we are doing. Businesses need to take decisions about what they are doing on going basis and not on calendar basis. So, thinking about various business needs and heading up to more active post-summer time, I decided to put few thoughts about PLM and surrounding topics.
I’d like to suggest to take a focus of two – Business and IT. And definitely, “business first” notion. In my view, prism of Business will have a very significant impact on everything that will go in Product Lifecycle Management in the near future.

So, I figured out four “major trends” and want to talk about them a little bit more in deep. I will take them in the order from most “business significant” to “more technologically significant”.

1. Upfront cost of PLM projects will impact enterprise PLM

I think initial cost of PLM projects becomes a very significant factor impacting various kinds of PLM implementations in enterprise these days. I’d expect every Business Unit thinking about PLM strategies to ask question - how we can do the same with less cost? I see here various impacts coming from outside of PLM, such as development of “free software notion” in consumer space, OnDemand/SaaS models for CRM and partially ERP applications and, finally, bad perception about PLM implementation performance. I’d expect major business re-thinking in the way business will think about PLM and surrounding business applications. What does it mean for PLM vendors? My thoughts here mostly about alternative business models (free/open source) and new technologies that lower cost of PLM deployments.
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2. Vertical PLM Solutions

PLM becomes very broad solution when vendors start to think in context of various industries, vertical, markets and organization types. One of the possible ways to become more efficient and increase adoption rate, is to focus PLM solutions/implementations on the specific market niche. The potential of a specific market niche/industry can be significant for mid-size software vendor to get in. Another interesting perspective is how “PLM behemoths” will be reacting on such a move. My expectation is for positive reaction and interest to build market/industry specific partnerships and alliances.

3. Alternative non-PLM solutions

This is another interesting move. Do you like buzzword “PLM”? I’d expect not everybody like it and many of the software vendors and solution providers can try to find solution for “PLM problem” in “non-PLM way”. The potential exists in multiple domains - Business Process Management, MDM, Content Management etc. These companies, leveraging new technologies, infrastructure and ideas can compete to provide product development, engineering and manufacturing solutions in the same space occupied by PLM vendors. Even if I see potential risk for current PLM businesses as very low, I think risk for “white space” and “new business” is very significant.

4. PDM renaissance

Th  This is my last point. What can be done in PDM these days? PDM is a core of Product Lifecycle Management and provide basics data management capabilities for most of PLM deployments. At the same time, PDM is mature and provided by many vendors these days/ At the time when customers will be looking for more cost effective solutions, less overlap in business functions and additional optimization PDM can get “a second move”. Such PDM renaissance can be driven by new technologies, usability improvement and new business ideas. This is a pace to innovate in my view.

So far, I’m sure haven’t chance to make fundamental research. These are just my thoughts, and I wanted to share it with you. I will be waiting for your comments and great blog discussion.

Thanks, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: How PLM can do more with less effort?

July 17, 2009

I’m thinking, how PLM can become leaner and efficient. In today’s economical situation and even in general, to make PLM leaner will be good step. So, where is the problem?

I see 3 fundamental factors that prevent PLM from do so:

  1. PLM creates to many high-level expectations.
  2. PLM is trying to change development and business processes.
  3. PLM don’t have efficient technologies to integrate with enterprise systems.

I’m going to discuss it more in details next week. However, I will be interesting to hear your voices and your thoughts…

Best, Oleg

2 Comments | PLM and organization, PLM Prompt | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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