Why social PLM needs search?

May 11, 2012

Social creates a lot of buzzes nowadays. Believe it or not, butmore than 72% of people in U.S. are now on Facebook. It is impossible to ignore, and I can see companies that trying to apply the idea of social networking to other places. PLM is one of them. Vuuch was one of the companies that pioneered the ideas of “social @ work”. Nuage is another one that came just recently by introducing Nuage Cafe social app as a first step towards fully blown PLM.

I’m not sure if “social” magic will make PLM idea more prominent. I think the devil in details. Working for enterprise and corporate clients is a different story. It is much different than Facebook. One of the companies that doing a great job by selling “social story” to enterprises is Yammer. I was reading BrainYard blog earlier this week called -Yammer Updates Emphasizes Enterprise, Cloud Search. What was interesting in this story is a connection made between Yammer social functionality and other on premise and cloud applications in the company. Yammer propose something they call “universal search”.

…Yammer’s concept is different. To Yammer, universal search makes it possible to search across connections to both enterprise and cloud-based systems integrated with a Yammer network. For example, a search by customer name might turn up automated updates from Salesforce.com, SAP, and a Microsoft SharePoint site, as well as posts by users about that company.

The idea of search crossing cloud / premise boundaries is another interesting point.

All the data that gets pulled out of systems to populate the ticker or activity feed also gets indexed for universal search,” CEO David Sacks said in an interview. “It really addresses the problem of how to get universal search across cloud applications. Traditionally, enterprise search appliances just crawl all the data behind the firewall.”

I think, Yammer take is interesting because it confirms that manufacturing (and other enterprise organizations) cannot live in “social vacuum”. You can bring Facebook to the organization, but without connecting social network to the right data sources, you will be struggling with your ability to deliver real value. Search is a fundamental mechanism to bring disconnected pieces of data together. PLM companies are thinking a lot about how to make it work. Almost all PLM companies in the past made OEM agreement with enterprise search solution (Authonomy, Endeca, etc.). Dassault Systemes moved forward and acquired Exalead to make search work across DS products. Siemens PLM just released TeamCenter Active Workspaces – innovative applications that use a search as one of the paradigms to access data. Startup companies like Inforbix(*) are experimenting with different ways to aggregate content across disparate applications to make it easy available.

What is my conclusion? Social is not a magic that converts enterprise software and PLM to “gold” overnight. You need to think how to “embed” social into your company infrastructure, connect it to other solutions. This is the only way to make it work. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

*Disclosure – I’m co-founder of Inforbix.

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PLM, Social Enterprise Failure and Future Steps

March 18, 2012

Well… I hope got some attention with this provoking title :) . Social is trending topic these days. However, let me put a very bold statement – after few years of excitement, I haven’t seen any example of "social software" success in the enterprise manufacturing company. Now, "social software" in my view is not related to social media and obvious need to screen employees Facebook and twitter accounts. There are all absolutely important actions. I’m taking about the fact "social software" or something that sometime called "Enterprise 2.0" software doesn’t make any significant change in the way enterprise software works in manufacturing companies. In other words, no signs of mainstream usage.

Enterprise 2.0 Failure?

Last year, I was reading Laurie Buczek’s article The Big Failure of Enterprise 2.0 Social Business. Take a look, in my view, there are some very rational points there. I found the following passage interesting:

The big failure of social business is a lack of integration of social tools into the collaborative workflow. This is not a newly identified problem. Those of us working on social collaboration efforts for a while recognized that integration is imperative from the beginning. At the beginning, I clearly outlined integration as one of three foundational pillars for our strategy. Unfortunately, various forces created challenges in this space. Social collaboration applications have been immature in this area for years (even after fierce calls for faster integration- i.e. CMS). Enterprises faced fork lift integration efforts to knit applications together. Fork lift efforts get the budget axe when push comes to shove. We managed to do the normal IT deployment model – the very model I fiercely advocated for us not to do. We deployed just another tool amongst a minefield of other collaborative tools – without integration. To make it even harder, we underinvested in transition change management.

The lack of integration is critical. Social software just created another silo in enterprise. This simple conclusion is important to understand, in my view.

Social is just another feature

It is interesting to see how PLM and other vendors threat social. If you are in the enterprise business, you are probably familiar with this strategy – "our software supports social features". You can find evidence of such a strategy in many places. Maybe the best example of social integration is a feature can be found in AutoCAD – it is just a command. Navigate to WorldCAD Access blog to read the article – Social media becomes commands in AutoCAD 2013.

I recommend you to listen to Facebook Investor Roger McNamee Explains Why Social Is Over. Navigate to the followinglink to read the article and watch video. Here is an interesting quote from the summary:

Don’t try to be "social": the big social platforms are created. You can’t create a social company, it’s just a checkbox. "The last 500 social companies funded by the VC community are all worthless. I’m serious."

Integration and User Experience are the key

There are two important things that, in my view, can make a difference in the future of social software. Integration and user experience. Social web created a completely different level of expectation for software. It is a different user experience. To have it successfully replicated and integrated into mission critical business processes can make a difference. One of interesting examples I’ve seen recently is the announcement of Yammer integration into SAP Software.

Yammer, software for creating social networks inside businesses, just released a new feature that connects Yammer with the central component of SAP’s enterprise resource planning software. That means SAP customers can have on their computer screens a network ticker, like the updating sidebar on a Facebook page. Instead of the latest news about friends, this sidebar delivers updates whenever something relevant to people’s jobs happens inside their SAP systems.

Another interesting example came from Nuage -new company announced very recently on a horizon of PLM. It is still very little can be found on their website. One of the resources Nuage shared is a whitepaper by Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity. Read more about this on Jim’s blog – Social Business – What if Facebook Didn’t Fail for Product Development? The important quote from Jim’s whitepaper is the following one:

The greatest benefit will come from combining the collaborative power of social computing with the control provided by PLM. As Going Social with Product Development explains, “While social networking by itself can provide value, companies that develop a strategy to leverage the concepts behind social computing in a product development business context will likely gain greater advantages in product profitability than others.”

What is my conclusion? I think, companies made first initial baby-steps in social enterprise over the past few years. Few important lessons: 1/magic word "social" does solve the problem; 2/user experience is very important; 3/integrate into mainstream business flow and solve significant business pain is a key. I would like to quote one of my friends saying that this is what differentiate between "pain-killer" and "vitamin" software. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture courtesy of w3c social web report.

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Social PLM and anti-social efficiency

February 6, 2012

Social is one of the topics I’m discussing frequently on my blog. Today, I would like to take a different angle on social and collaboration. I was reading Real Time Rick blog – Commenting PLM, Workplace Efficiency and my iPod. Rick was talking about PLM, collaboration and what is required sometime to get the job done. Here is an interesting passage from Rick’s post:

While I would never be called an ‘introvert’, I do find that my best work is done with my office door closed and my iPod just loud enough to block any background noise. I find my mind wanders if it’s too quiet; I need to have something to listen to. I wind up joining conversations that are going on outside my door. Next thing you know, I’ve lost an hour or three.

It made me think about some modern "social trends". Walking into many offices lately, I figured out one interesting trend – massive migration of people into "open" (aka more social and collaborative) workspace. According to companies, environment in such type of offices is provoking people to "collaborate" and working more efficiently. I’ve heard exactly this opinion when visited new offices of Dassault Systems in Waltham, MA.

I decide to dig a bit inside. Navigate your browser to the following article – Open Office Space: The Good, Bad and Ugly. Have a read. I found this article quite interesting discussing in details all pros and cons of open office. The following two opinions convincing pro and against open office caught my special attention:

Why open space is bad: A study by Australian scientists published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management concludes that open space offices are bad for employee health. The research found that in 90% of cases studied, “the outcome of working in an open-plan office was seen as negative, with open-plan offices causing high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure, and a high staff turnover.” Germs are also more easily transmitted, leading to more employee sickness and a loss of production. Another negative risk to the company’s bottom line is the potential for theft of company secrets. In an open office space, the odds of someone seeing or hearing confidential or business-sensitive information increases considerably. And a leakage of proprietary information can not only destroy profits but can destroy entire companies too.

Why open space is good: It’s not hard to see how an open office design can facilitate more teamwork and better communication. In support of this premise, a 1996 research study published in the Harvard Business Review revealed that companies that had modified their business processes by, among other things, migrating from private spaces to open environments realized performance increases averaging 440 percent.

It made me think about modern trends of social software. Social software can solve some problems of open space location and at the same time still to support advantages of working in "online" open space.

Looking for some numbers to support ideas of how social software improves productivity in manufacturing companies, I found results of research published by Jim Brown in his Social Innovation Crystal Ball Prediction for 2012. Take a look on the picture below. Numbers are self-explaining.

What is my conclusion? Here is my "anti-social" efficiency conflict. I like social environment and social software. However, when I need to get my job done, I need to switch off my phone, disconnect twitter, close my email and focus on what I’m doing. So, thinking about various social innovations, I remember about how to have the ability to close my office door… Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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CAD & PLM CEOs and Social Channels

January 22, 2012

Brian Shepherd joins twitter. Earlier this week, I learn from Alan Belniak (@abelniak) twitter, that he helped Brian Shepherd at PTC to get going on twitter. First of all – welcome on Twitter, Brian! This event made me think and search for other CAD / PLM execs on twitter.

The topic about what is the appropriated “social level” for CEOs and other execs is widely discussed. Many blogs and books provide multiple recommendation about how to manage an appropriate social CEO image. Navigate to the following link to read series of Forrester posts – Social CEO. You can find many other publications about the same topic. Speaking about execs on social channels, I can bring quite interesting publication about Google’s execs on Google+.

Carl Bass, Autodesk CEO is on twitter, and I can confirm he is a real person. I followed his tweets during past AU2011 and can confirm he is real on twitter.

I found an interesting twitter account – Jim Hepplemann Ghost. The account is actually real fake of Jim Hepplemann.

I didn’t find twitter accounts of Bernard Charles and Tony Affuso.

What is my conclusion? I think the decision to join social channels is personal and corporate at the same time. The most important is personal commitment. Forrester provided reasonable recommendation, in my view. So, I’m glad to see “social CEOs” and other execs and, at the same time, can understand others. Just my thoughts… YMMV.

Best, Oleg

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What 2012 holds for Product Lifecycle Management?

January 3, 2012

Beginning of the year is a time for New Year resolutions and "annual predictions". Few days ago, I shared my plans forBeyond PLM activities in 2012. To predict what is going to happen during coming year is usually very thankless work. In the middle of December, I’ve made my broad prediction that 2012 is going to be a year of PLM rock stars (ready my post The Enterprise and PLM will rock in 2012). Today, I want to share what I think will be in a focus of PLM companies in coming 2012.

Autodesk Cloud PLM

With no doubt, it is going to be "the PLM event" of the year. Autodesk is going to make Nexus 360 Cloud PLM available in the end of Q1/2012 or beginning of Q2. That was my impression from AU2011. The expectations are high and the level of speculation about what Autodesk will release is going to be on the same level. It is going to be a big challenge for Autodesk. Even if the majority of their initial customers are SMB manufacturers, because of volume, Autodesk can potentially generate much bigger numbers from their PLM products. However, Autodesk needs to watch carefully the level of expectation and the delivery to keep the promise of making PLM different.

Dassault SolidWorks V6

It seems to me, we are going to see SolidWorks V6 preview later this year during SWW 2012. Over the past two years, we’ve heard lots of pre-announcements from SolidWorks about their cloud platforms, Enovia-based development and future use of CATIA kernel. I believe some deliveries need to happen in February in San-Diego (SWW 2012 home town)

PLM Maturity and Unification by mindshare vendors

Top 3 major PLM providers – Dassault, Siemens PLM and PTC will continue their competition for platform unification and big names wins. These days, all large manufacturers are using pieces of software from one of these companies. In many cases, companies are using software from multiple vendors. All 3 vendors are coming with the idea how unify PLM implementations using their proprietary platforms. It becomes very complicated for large companies to keep going with multiple platforms. The trend of "unification" on a single platform will continue in 2012. Because of a very high cost of change, top PLM companies will continue to do all possible to convince customers to commit towards migration to new platforms. We are going to see more of such wins in 2012.

Emerging Trends: Social and Mobile

Even if both "social" and "mobile" are hot outside of PLM, I don’t believe these two words will generate big news in 2012 for PLM. After all, these two trends (or technologies) are just enablers for PLM implementations. I expect to see more mobile applications coming from existing and new vendors.

Product and Technological Shopping

I also expect main CAD/PLM vendors to continue their shopping spree. Money is not an issue for them. Even if the amount of new companies in the industry is not big, four dominant CAD/PLM companies will try to gain advantages by acquiring smaller companies with proven products or interesting technologies.

What is my conclusion? Enterprise has a potential to become "cool again" in 2012. There are many interesting things going outside of enterprise in consumer software and web development. These products and technologies can put enterprise IT on fire in 2012. Large scale data management, social web and mobile – these technological enablers will be dominant in the new PLM development in 2012. Mature software vendors will continue their fight for the future market share increase among their existing (and overlapped) install base. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Image: Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Microsoft Socl and Social PLM Thoughts

November 21, 2011

Do you know what is Microsoft Socl? I didn’t know until yesterday. However, now I know. It is a new research project by Microsoft, which supposed to become a next social network. Mashable just wrote about it four days ago here. Who is behind this project? This is what Mashable article says:

First published by The Verge on Wednesday, Microsoft tells Mashable that, “Microsoft’s FUSE Labs is an internal research group working on a number of forward-looking projects related to future possibilities around social search. Socl is one of the projects that we are exploring. We’ll let you know as soon as we have more to share.

However, watch the video:

You may ask me- how it is related? We already got MySpace, Facebook, Google+… now what? – Socl. Here is the point. As you probably know, I’m less interested in social networks, but more interested in PLM management.

Will PLM lose social competition to CRM?

The PLM vendors recently speaking a lot of “social” and how it is going to change their product offering. I had a chance to write about it multiple times. However, I want to point out to one specific blog I wrote 2 years ago (24-Nov): How many social platforms we need for enterprise? I wanted to get back to the same question again when I was watching socl video by Microsoft. At the same time, PLM vendors are developing social platforms – PTC, Dassault, Autodesk… Everybody is trying to play this social card.

I can see a very significant problem for all PLM social solutions – they are disconnected from people. Don’t take me wrong – obviously people are using PLM solutions in enterprise companies. However, the majority of people are not. Remember, time ago, PLM competed with ERP about “who” owns the item definition. ERP won, PLM lost the competition. Why do you think it happened? In my view, here is the reason – you have to to touch “Item Master” to manufacture the product. So, you will use ERP and it manage Item masters. You are not necessarily needed to touch “item” to run PLM. You can do it, of course. However, it happens much rarely. The same happens with social and CRM. If you are contacting your customers – you must be social. Therefore, everybody will touch Salesforce.com Chatter or similar social platform from CRM provider. However, PLM social platform will be downgraded to people that touch PLM platform only.

What is my conclusion? Social platforms cannot change the position of a system in the organization. You need to have people around the social platform to make it work and progress. It happens to CRM, but it probably won’t happen to PLM. So, maybe PLM vendors need to focus on something 100% of the users need? Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Engineers and FaaP (Facebook As A Platform)?

October 20, 2011

There are many discussions these days going around cloud and confrontation between large technological companies. If you miss the following article – The Great Tech Wars of 2012. Apple, Facbook, Google, and Amazon battle for the future of innovation economy, please have a read. Time worth spending, in my view.

I can see more evidence Facebook’s attempt to become a platform beyond social network. It comes from the news about Facebook building their own data centers as well as many others. I was reading Design News article – Autodesk preps Facebook Tech publishing plug-in yesterday. I made me think about some interesting angle how Facebook can be used to communicate between individual designers, manufacturing companies and consumers. I specially liked the following passage:

Inventor Publisher users can certainly post their documentation and animations to any of these sites today, but there are extra steps involved, and they can’t do it directly from the software. With this preview, Autodesk is adding a publishing wizard via a new icon on the software’s toolbar. Simply click, and the tool will specify the proper steps to get a video or exploded CAD animation posted on line. The tool also has some Custom Presets that allow users to publish their creations and be sure they’re in keeping with corporate standards.

The following picture was published on Design news. In a nutshell, you put the content on the Facebook in an easy way. I’d love to try this plug-in when it will be available.

The direct communication between tools and Facebook is specially important, in my view. These days, usability is a key. Your potential customer can drop using your product just because few extra clicks (or steps) he needs to make every day.

What is my conclusion? The idea of communicating via Facebook is an interesting one. If your potential “consumer” is using Facebook as a primary communication and social tool, the effect can be fascinating. I need to think more about use cases and practical scenarios. At the same time, content is collected by Facebook. Companies like GrabCAD is collecting engineering content these days on their sites. Sounds like a competition… Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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How to place PLM in a Social Network? Kill M…

August 25, 2011

I can hear more and more conversations about social aspects of the future enterprise software. Social is trending. Will it be successful? I think many people are trying to find an answer on this question. Is it possible to apply the word “social” to everything that requires improvement and converts it to gold? We can see new social trends are coming on the market as “social CRM”, “social PLM”, “social ERP”…

I’ve been reading Dion Hinchcliffe’s Next Gen Enterprise blog early this month - Why The Next App You Use Might Be In A Social Network. Dion is talking about the convergence between the social networks and enterprise business applications. I found the following quote enormously important:

While social networks are still just getting their sea legs in most organizations, the next big leap forward — in addition to social analytics – is likely to be the integration of our productivity and line of business apps into our activity streams. Will this unleash a significant new value? Very probably. But it’s also possibly the big integration opportunity that businesses have long looked for.

Take a look on the following picture Dion brings to show the concept of social applications and activity streams.

The important element of this strategy is the so-called “social application wrapper”. Dion is talking about extension to Open Social. Follow this link to learn more about Open Social. What does it mean from the standpoint of infrastructure building? Social becomes a platform? Together with standardization and connection to existing software platforms/products from IBM and other vendors it sounds like a future social middleware for enterprises.

PLM – product data management first!

The ideas explained by Dion made me think about transformation PLM software needs to make in order to fit this model. Until now, the fundamental elements of every PLM deployment were coming from CAD /Design software and Product Data Management software. Look on every successful PLM implementation – you will find these elements there. PDM as a platform for PLM expansion assumed “management” of important product data assets (document records, bill of materials, etc.). To be very blunt, every PLM system was present first as a data container and only after that organizations were planning future expansion in different business areas associated with product development and manufacturing.

Kill the “M”?

Now, the question I’m askig is how to put PLM in a social container? In my view, the recipe can be simple – Kill the “M”. Apps placed into the “social application wrapper” will be disconnected from product data management roots and operate in a loosely coupled way. It will allow to them to delivery a granular functional approach and, at the same time, allows collaboration via social wrappers.

What is my conclusion? If I’m taking “social application wrappers” seriously, future PLM implementations will look differently from what we have today. Social Platform (container) will establish a ubiquitous communication between people and will push Apps that will be capable to serve engineers and other people in the product design, engineering and manufacturing. Sounds like utopia? Maybe. My hunch – the next confrontation in the enterprise will be not between two enterprise platforms, but between social platform (social application wrapper) and enterprise data management platforms. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Collaboration: From Old Concepts to a New Reality

July 19, 2011

I wanted to touch the topic of “collaboration” today. The term collaboration is very broad. Hit Google to search for “collaboration” and you will see Google counter jumps to ~240’000’000 results in 0.2 sec. The word “collaboration” has lots of meaning. Navigate your browser to the Wikipedia link about collaboration and you will see all of them – from arts to business and technology, including kibbutz, military, business and some historical meaning coming from a second world war. I found the following one as the most appropriate in the context of engineering and manufacturing software:

Due to the complexity of today’s business environment, collaboration in technology encompasses a broad range of tools that enable groups of people to work together including social networking, instant messaging, team spaces, web sharing, audio conferencing, video, and telephony. Broadly defined, any technology that facilitates linking of two or more humans to work together can be considered a collaborative tool. Wikipedia, Blogs, even Twitter are collaborative tools. Many large companies are developing enterprise collaboration strategies and standardizing on a collaboration platform to allow their employees, customers and partners to intelligently connect and interact.

Now, let’s move to PDM, PLM and other “sorts” of collaboration. Engineering software (including PDM/PLM) is practicing active usage of word “collaboration” for the last decade. For some reasons, marketing fellows decided that the term is selling well. So, they oversold…

These days, “collaboration” means almost nothing. Collaborative PDM (cPDM), Collaborative PLM (cPLM), Collaborative… Engineers actually hesitate to say “I’m collaborating”. One of the most strong opinions, I’ve heard about collaboration came to me in the comments to my previous blog post about collaboration:

I work as an engineer. So after seeing this social trend proposed for CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM I cannot bear anymore and have only one thing to say! This is all bullshit and we engineers do not need it! Let me explain a of course…

First of all in a typical environment the only person to whom I want to collaborate is another engineer and I will come to him ,or email, with direct problem or issue to seek advice or help. In most cases he is even sitting in the next room to me. I do not want to collaborate with all the people in the company, I do not want to collaborate with people who do not understand what is the difference between bolt and nut, and I will not :) ! And later constantly get email updates that new answer is posted, this is worse than SPAM! I do not want to collaborate with PR, Marketing, Manufacturing etc in an endless thread of useless suggestions about the fastener type, color, button, shape etc. Because all these things should be defined already in specification, if they are not and you still have to ask all that from the people mentioned above, this means that this project will lead to a disaster and will be a huge money drain. Management should act immediately if these things are happening in a company

New Social Way

Last two years, we are facing a massive influence of social networking and other internet-related technologies (i.e. Web 2.0) on what before we call collaboration. One of the most “passionate” about that - Vuuch is proposing to stop usage of word “collaboration” in the context of collaboration software. Vuuch proposes a very interesting term called “Enterprise Social System” to explain the technology to revolutionize the way engineers can collaborate (oops.. work together) based on the more efficient contextual information sharing. Navigate to 1 hour length webinar which will take you step-by-step into a new “social way” of working together. When I think, Vuuch is really innovating by trying to find a new way to solve the old problem, I found the following passage from Vuuch blog a bit provoking.

But we never use the C(ollaboration) word to describe Vuuch. In our minds, there’s a bright line between the capabilities and usage patterns in Vuuch and a legacy system like SharePoint. And we understand that until the conventional wisdom catches with Vuuch, many people need to use transitional terminology to feel comfortable.

It explains, actually, why Vuuch is using word collaboration internally in the software:

The Reality – People Just Want To Drink a Beer

I can see these days are really going to change a lot in the way people collaborate or just simply working together. The changes are coming from a complete new set of technologies and tools we have at our disposal to communicate and share information. Here is my short list – mobile, communication and data sharing. It becomes much easy these days to communicate. Think about a mobile device you keep in your hands. Your ability to contact people changed completely for the last 3-4 years. It is true not only from the standpoint of capability, but also from the cost standpoint. Communication, including broadband web access, video conferencing and tele-presence allows us to talk with people remotely almost without any problems. Finally, data sharing technologies were improved dramatically. In my post – PLM Online Data Sharing: From Spreadsheets to Databases, I discussed various products and technologies that can help you to share data. Here is a part of one comment I’ve got related to data sharing capabilities of Google Docs: The bigger advantage is total freedom of device…your laptop, an associate’s laptop, your phone or iPad… Just look at what college students are doing with cloud technology…a good barometer of what they will expect once in the workforce.

What is my conclusion? I think, collaboration is a word that will continue to live with us forever. However, technologies, product development and marketing will move towards something simpler and well understood. I think, future engineers will share screen, part, bill of materials to work together without thinking about how collaborative or social a particular software is performing. This is my view on the reality of collaborative software. What is your take?

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Engineering Software and Business Trends in 2011

June 24, 2011

It is a middle of the year, and it is a perfect time to evaluate and talking about business trends. Lot’s of people are ready to relax before long awaited vacation season and summer holidays. What are the topics that we need to keep on our desks and get back to them later this year? This is the question I asked myself few days ago on the plane taking me from Tel-Aviv to Boston. I was reading Business IT Trends 2011 written by Frank Völkel in SAP Info. Take a time, read the article and analyzes. I found some of them are very interesting and relevant in the context of PLM projects and Engineering Software.

Tablet PC and Mobile

The post PC era is coming. Take a look on one of the previous posts – PLM and post-PC era. Something is really happening in this space, in my view. Here is the interesting quote from SAP Info article:

More than a third of the conventional PC market is set to be taken over by tablet devices, making every third new PC a tablet computer. At least, that is what analysts Goldman Sachs are predicting. If we believe the mobile advertising company Smaato, by 2013, there will be more smartphones with access to the Internet than there will be conventional PCs.

I can see PLM vendors are really recognizing “mobile” and iPad story. Last week PTC announcement of two mobile application during PlanetPTC event is another confirmation of high interest of PLM industry in this space. Earlier last year, mobile applications were announced by Autodesk, Dassault and Siemens PLM.

3D Images and Videos

This is an interesting trend. Consumer trend led by manufacturers of 3D devices. At the same time, it starts to proliferate in the business spaces as well.  There is a high interest in 3D from multiple players in the market. It starts from games and continues into 3D street navigation, 2D photo transformation into 3D and some others. I’ve seen few interesting applications and technologies in this space in the past, and I think the number of people and companies in this space is growing.

Social Media and Mobile Options

Talking about social media is not a new thing. I’m covering this topic for the last 2 years on my blog. The new trend of potential combination between “social” and “mobile” option is coming. The number of smart phones and other communication devices is growing. Businesses are using social channels to inform customers about new product features and product failures. However, the most interesting business trend I can see related to the ability to generate additional business with the help of social media. Here is the quote:

However, a central topic for many decision makers at companies is: How can the increased attention gained through social media be translated into new orders and – ultimately – a tangible increase in sales? So far, no one has been able to prove whether Facebook and Twitter activities have led to customer sales.

Now, think about PLM products. The ROI of PLM product suites can be completely different if PLM based information can be used outside of the company to generate additional business interest. Virtual product guides, visuals, online discussions – this is just a short list of what social media can do what it goes mobile with people.

Apps replacing Bulky Software

The era of small applications is coming. People are finally getting it and use it in their everyday life. However, how Apps can get into business space? Here is the deal. Apps can be a disruptive force for many existing software suites. You can get them easy, install on your mobile device and connect it to existing databases, data source and product suites. Read the following quote from the sameSAP Info article:

Apps can be downloaded free of charge or purchased, and can be used in office scenarios, to increase productivity, as tools forvirtual desktops, as voice-over-IP applications, as location-based services, or to access complex ERP software at major companies, to name just a few examples.

PLM software suites developed high level allergy from businesses as something heavy, complicated and costly. Shift your mind to Apps and you can have a different world. The main focus for existing companies and newcomers, here is to watch a precise use case that can be interested to end users in the company in order to sell Apps to them. Examples of useful Apps can be product sales tools, management dashboards, shopfloor applications, etc.

Cloud and Virtualization

Cloud companies are taking more and more attention in consumer and business life. Google Apps, Dropbox, Netflix, Amazon, etc. This is just a short list. Here is the interesting quote:

According to market research company Gartner, total revenues generated from software as a service (SaaS) amounted to U.S.$ 9.2 billion in 2010, which is 15.7% more than in 2009 (U.S.$ 7.9 billion). And SaaS is playing an increasingly important role in the area of enterprise software. In the near future, many organizations will, for example, dispense with their own infrastructures for e-mail, backup, and security – and save costs by renting instead.

I can see two factors turning the cloud into something disruptive in manufacturing and PLM space – cost and IT usability. This is especially interesting in the context of small manufacturers.  Cost is one of the major showstoppers from the side of these companies to deploy PLM solution. Another one is IT needs. If coming solution on the cloud will provide a significant differentiation in this space, it can be a turning point for many of the existing manufacturing companies keeping their PLM plans on hold.

Real Time Analyzes and Data

Last, but not least. Manufacturing companies are swamped in the data. It is everywhere. However, to analyze existing data in manufacturing companies is not simple tasks. Read the following quote:

Almost all companies – regardless of the industry in which they operate – are today fighting against an ever-rising tide of data: The volume of data they have to manage is on the increase, both for transactional and analytical applications. What’s more, creating reports from ERP and CRM data is becoming increasingly time-consuming. And the data is at least two hours old, so no one can really talk about “real time” in such cases. At the end of the day, the various interfaces and software applications result in high total cost of ownership (TCO).

I think, new technologies are coming to solve these problems. Some of them are coming from the web based solutions (Google, Facebook) and some of them are results of hardware improvements, memory availability, etc. To provide data analytical solutions for PLM can be an interesting opportunity.

What is my conclusion? These business trends are hot and energizing. Some really interesting things happen outside and PLM vendors need to watch it. I can see trends that can add some additional benefits to existing software suites. PLM vendors can have leverage the following trends - improved 3D, mobile, social, etc. On the other side, I can see disruptive stuff – Apps replacing existing software suites, cloud architecture that can significantly decrease the cost of existing solutions and improved data and analytical software that can make traditional data management outdated. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

(pictures are courtesy of SAP Info blog)

3 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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