Luke Wang breaks down how to choose PLM software in six steps: map your current process and pain points, understand what PLM categories do, collect requirements from stakeholders, prioritize must-haves versus nice-to-haves, test solutions with demos and pilots, then decide. A downloadable checklist walks you through each stage.
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How do you find and purchase the best PLM software for your product development and merchandising team? Getting to the point where you can confidently make a final PLM purchase decision is often a long process. Let's take a look at the typical buying journey. As you can see, getting from awareness to purchase is anything but simple. But the reasoning behind such a complex process is simple: you want to end up with the best PLM solution for your business. You never want to rush into the wrong solution. But you also don't want to end up with merely a good solution, leaving the best solution on the table. So to ensure the best results, here's a rundown of 6 jobs your buying team needs to accomplish to purchase the best PLM solution. Job #1: Define the current state of your product lifecycle process. In this stage, you need to accomplish a few key tasks. First, identify opportunities for improvement. Take a deep dive into your PLM process and determine what's working and what isn't. Second, assess collaboration with internal and external partners. Consider the many layers of collaboration at play in product lifecycle management. Your internal teams constantly work together with external stakeholders. This collaboration takes time and needs to be efficient and error-free. If collaboration is inefficient, it'll take a long time to to bring new products to market. Third, evaluate time spent on data exchange and collaboration. There are thousands of bits and pieces of product data whizzing back and forth between internal and external stakeholders. Often, huge amounts of time are wasted ripping data in and out of Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and emails. And fourth, assess the business impact of the PLM process. Every miscommunication and inefficient collaboration process adds up Effects tend to cascade into more resources spent getting product from start to finish. Job number 2: explore the categories of retail software. An ideal PLM system covers steps 1 through 4 of the product lifecycle. You can see the many tasks a PLM system helps to fulfill. Each of these steps in the product lifecycle involves collaboration collaboration with external teams. Collaborators include everyone from internal merchandisers to vendors, manufacturers, and frontline sales reps. The PLM system you choose must allow all team members to communicate and collaborate on a unified platform. Your PLM system also needs to hand off seamlessly to other systems. One particular area of improvement that Shorefront brings to this process is integrating PLM and PIM functionalities in a single single system. If you decide to go with Shorefront, you won't need to worry about integrating your PLM with a PIM. Job number 3: Gather requirements from all teams. Now you need to think about how the whole team, both internal and external, is going to use the PLM. Good PLMs can be leveraged by every one of your team members and business partners. Many PLM options will address internal collaboration issues but lack the functionalities for external partners, so you'll want to be clear about whether streamlining external collaboration is a must-have. Job number 4: finalize and prioritize needs. Now it's time to finalize exactly what you want. Determine 1 to 3 features that will have the biggest impact on the PLM process. Decide between need-to-have versus nice-to-have features. And determine how adding this system fits into your current IT projects. Job number 5: Vet software solutions. If your business has an RFP process, this is where it begins. If not, here's some guidance on how to vet prospective vendors. We recommend: 1. Getting a custom solution demo. 2. Reviewing case studies. 3. Talking to existing customers. And 4, implementing potential solutions within smaller teams before rolling out the platform to your whole business. Whatever your vetting process entails, it's always best to compare several options. Job number 6: make your final decision. By this point, you should have narrowed the field to a top choice and a second choice. You'll likely want to schedule a custom demo of both products for the entire team. After you've received custom demos from your chosen PLM solutions, it's time to discuss the benefits of each with your team. After you've talked through benefits, addressed concerns, and established buy-in across all key stakeholders, it's time to move forward with a PLM solution. You now have a roadmap for vetting and purchasing PLM software. To dive into greater detail, check out our complete guide to PLM purchase and implementation. The guide features a detailed checklist you can use to walk through the implementation process step by step. Download a free copy today.
