I’m continuing to digest materials from last week’s CIMdata Industry and Market Forum 2021. Check my earlier blog – What happened with PLM during the COVID year. I’m always looking for an annual CIMdata report as it brings great insight into the underlying processes in the PLM industry and can give you a good bunch of ideas about what to do in PLM.

I picked a few slides from the presentation and annual survey made by CIMdata to speak about priorities and to make an assessment of where to invest in PLM.

If you’re busy and want only to remember one slide, take this one.

Everyone in the virtual poll made by CIMdata voted for the investment in cloud computing in the post-COVID time. So, if you do anything in this space, you’re on the right track. However, keep in mind that the competition will be increasing and many players that did not focus on cloud solutions before COVID time are trying to play the catch-up game.

Adoption was one of the biggest challenges in PLM implementations. The following chart with the priorities can give you an idea of what challenges are on the top list of priorities for PLM companies.

As you can see, the process overlap is in the top position. Traditionally, the integration was taking place in the first place. However, with the expansion of the solutions, it is becoming very hard to create a solution puzzle and connect pieces together.

A very interesting data point about business objectives in PLM investment. Top three – (1) faster, cheaper, better; (2) Lifecycle and (3) Technology simplification.

The last picture I captured is probably the indication that despite everything we have seen in PLM in the last year, companies are very conservative in the way they are looking at their priorities. Short term (1-3 years) is still very much traditionally oriented – engineering release, change management, configuration management.

What is my conclusion?

Investment priorities in the interpretation of CIMdata about PLM sound loud and clear – do the same you did, but differently – faster, cheaper, better. Keep in mind that companies are looking to continue the adoption of remote work, so companies will double down on their cloud investments. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM developing a digital network-based platform that manages product data and connects manufacturers and their supply chain networks. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.

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