Last week, I broke my longest “no traveling” period of 25 months to attend CIMdata Industry and Market Forum that took place in Ann Arbor, MI. For many of us attending the forum, it was the first trip after COVID, which brought a lot of excitement about the opportunity to have a live in-person conversation about PLM topics. There have been so many changes in the PLM economy over the last two years. Although we’ve been in touch remotely, physical presence makes a big difference.

Although I’m still digesting news and materials, I wanted to share the top 5 things I learned during the forum.

2021 PLM Market

The global market exceed CIMdata expectations with a growth of 10.7% (compared to 7.6%) and achieved $59.9B. There are no signs of slowing down, the market looks very healthy and CIMdata is optimistic about future growth.

Although the overall PLM market is important, a more narrow look at cPDM vendors can give you a better perspective. cPDM segment growth was $19.5B with a growth of 8.2%. The vendors on this list aren’t new actually, so you can get an idea about their position.

Digital Thread and Digital Web

CIMdata is coining a new definition that is getting more and more popular – Digital Web. It applies to all digital transformation use cases and, in my view, has a good chance to proliferate in the industry.

The concept of the graph representing product information is strong and the amount of supporters for the graph lifecycle model is growing.

M&A and money

The industry keeps growing through the acquisition of smaller companies by larger ones. Nothing new here, besides CIMdata, announcing the unprecedented number of M&A events in both technology vendors’ and resellers’ businesses.

In the slides above you can see some of the company names and solutions.

Top 12 PLM Elements

CIMdata reinforces the top 12 elements of successful digital transformation. The list has a bit of a buzzword smell, but the topics make sense. Take a look –

What is my conclusion?

The PLM industry looks healthy and growing. This is obviously one of the best news for all companies in the field as it indicates that despite COVID and other crises we are living through, companies keep investing in technologies and informational solutions. The number of acquisitions both across vendors and resellers is super impressive. It means most of the vendors are aggressively looking at how to get ready a solution that they can scale rather than, to expand their revenues and influence. The next 2-3 years will be super interesting as companies will start actively applying all recommendations in the field and it will raise a lot of interest to all providers of PLM technology available SaaS. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg 

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

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