Clarity on PLM

I had the chance to talk with … SAP and their customer Colgate in June, and learned that they have been hard at work improving the way manufacturers innovate. I was attending an SAP customer event on PLM to get updated on the progress of SAP’s PLM efforts. SAP continued to showcase their new PLM interfaces (now including Recipe Management for the process industries). But the thing that caught my attention most was a presentation on a newly co-developed solution for product innovation codenamed “Edison.” While this isn’t a formal SAP product as of yet, it shows some real promise on how companies can use social computing to drive innovation.

Note: Hopefully this wasn’t the only thing I learned in June, but things have certainly busy and I am behind in sharing!

What they are Doing

The solution, presented jointly by SAP and Colgate, is labeled as an “idea management” solution. To me that description falls a bit short of what they have developed. The solution handles a broad range of the innovation process, including:

• Idea Solicitation – to help target innovation as opposed to an all purpose suggestion box
• Idea Submission – to capture ideas from participants, including any supporting media they choose to submit
• Review and Processing – to help companies find the ideas they want to focus on, including search, filtering, sorting, tagging, and commenting
• Evaluation – allowing companies to score innovation and promote the good ones
• Execution – although this was a little less clear to me, this is the idea that the promoted ideas would flow into SAP’s PPM solution to turn into product development projects

The first thing that stood out to me as evidence that this was based on practical experience was that they didn’t assume that getting more ideas was better. I run into vendors all the time who like to talk about helping their manufacturing customers get more ideas. All of my research and interviews end up with the same conclusion from manufacturers: “I don’t need more ideas, I need help sorting through all of the junk to find the good ones!” Manufacturers want better ideas, and they want a way to make sense of the volumes of input they get. Kudos to Colgate and SAP for getting this right, which I have to imagine came from Colgate’s real-world experience in innovation.

Another thing I was impressed with was the objectives of the project. They set out to build something “simple, usable, flexible, and extendable.” As well thought out as the solution seems, it doesn’t appear that they over-designed it. The solution does not look or feel like SAP, but instead is a light, web-based experience. While this might not be appropriate for the highly transactional world of traditional SAP solutions, it is ideal for this application where broad use by untrained participants is a key to success. After all, you don’t want all of your innovation coming from a few trained insiders!

One final point that Colgate made which I think is important to consider, is that the solution is not only valuable in the front end of innovation but throughout the new product development process. In fact, early use of the tool at Colgate has helped solve supply chain issues like cost reduction.

Implications for Manufacturers

The use of social computing techniques to drive innovation is beginning to take shape. SAP is clearly interested in providing this capability, as are standalone innovation management solutions such as Brightidea, Imaginatik, Ideajam, and others.  Some upcoming research I will publish soon with Kalypso shows that many manufacturers are getting started in the use of social media in innovation, and those that did are going to increase usage next year. Times are changing, and it will be interesting to see who can best take advantage of this new opportunity.

So that is what I heard from SAP and Colgate, I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it. Who else should I be paying attention to in this space?

A quick peek into some research on … on social computing for product development. Why does Facebook miss the mark? Can it be fixed? I have been talking for some time about the potential value of social computing in PLM and have mentioned before why Facebook will fail. I am preparing for a presentation next week, and decided to pull my thoughts together. So here they are, I look forward to your feedback.

The Research Findings

There are two parts to the findings. The first is a list of concerns that I have heard, here is a short list:

• What relevance do status comments and photos have to do with serious engineering?
• How will we protect intellectual property?
• What does Facebook know about business processes or how to manage them?
• What does Facebook know about engineering data? CAD files? Projects? Engineering in general?
• Why would I trust my business performance to a technology platform like Facebook that doesn’t appear stable or perform well (sorry Facebook, that is just my practical experience not a sound technical analysis)?
• How do I have time to pay attention to this in addition to everything I already do?
• How do we address security concerns?

OK, part two. Can it be fixed? Yes, but I doubt they will do it. There are two reasons:

• They are not focused on this and don’t have domain expertise
• They don’t have the ability to connect to the underlying context, the product data

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Let’s see what Facebook can teach us about PLM. Here are my thoughts (and if you happen to be in Helsinki next week stop by to see this live):

Implications for Manufacturers

Don’t look to tools like Facebook to help you with social computing in PLM. But don’t discount the concepts. Learn from them. They are compelling. And manufacturers are getting started. In fact, I look forward to sharing research that I am doing with Kalypso that gives some great insight on what companies have been doing.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on Facebook failing in PLM, I hope you found it interesting. Yes, I know they didn’t design to tool for product development, so I am really not picking on them. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research (and some “mythbusting”) on a post by Christopher Null on Yahoo News titled “Facebook and business don’t necessarily mix.” Great, catchy headline. But does it really reflect the underlying research from MIT? I don’t think so. I will also share some comments posted on the PDMA blog from a study by Kalypso that don’t sync up with the commentary. And, I will provide an opportunity for you to speak your mind by participating in a current research study on social media and product innovation.

Commentary and Reactions

I don’t know the author of the post, but when I read it something didn’t sit right with me. For the most part, maybe it was that the title of the post didn’t match the underlying premise. To be fair, I know that some editorial gets “help” with their titles to grab attention (which this one certainly did, at least to me). But here are my thoughts (and feel free to “bust” them yourself, I realize I don’t own all the right answers).

Facebook and Business Don’t Necessarily Mix (Busted) – OK, I know I am picking on the title. But let’s own up to two realities:

1. You don’t have a choice. People on social networks are going to talk about your products. Whether you initiate the conversations or someone else does (customers or competitors), it is going to happen. As the post in PDMA ”Do you use social media in innovation?” points out, Social media on your terms is a much better idea than letting others take control of it for you. You MUST get ahead of this.

2. This isn’t what the MIT research says. The post Mr. Null references, “Pitch may fail on Facebook – Study: Social media don’t always create good buzz“, is much more aptly titled. What is says is that buzz can be positive or negative, and that it can actually hurt sales. According to the Boston Herald blog, the research (which I haven’t read, and is not published yet as far as I know) quotes the author as saying that “found that online buzz only helps when new products are at least half as good as consumers expected.” Now that is interesting! The author, P.J. Lamberson, an MIT Sloan School of Management visiting assistant professor, is said to use math to study large networks.

“Conventional Wisdom” (Plausible) – Mr. Null starts his article with “conventional wisdom now holds that if you want to have a successful product launch, you need to exploit Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to get the word out about your product.” Is this really conventional wisdom? Are most companies using social media today? My experience says no, but I could be wrong. I will admit, my focus is more on social computing for product innovation, product development, and engineering (PLM) and not product launch. But my experience says that companies are experimenting with the use of social media, but it is far from standard operating procedure. The only evidence I have is from some preliminary results from the study being run by Kalypso (Disclosure: I am helping them run the study) that indicates that the use of social networking and social computing in product launches is still not fully developed. In fact, only about 1/2 of companies are using social media for product launch. Further, companies that are using social media are only using it on a small percentage of their initiatives. In other words, we are very early in the use of social media, and it is far from conventional wisdom. On the other hand, the preliminary results show that about 90% of companies that are using social media for innovation are planning to increase usage next year, with none indicating they were reducing it.  Why is this Plausible and not Busted? The research is not done – please participate in the survey and I will share results back with you via the blog.

Bottom Line (Busted) – After being generous with the last mark, I was fully planning to Confirm the post’s bottom line. Then I read it again to copy it here, and I disagree. “The bottom line is simple: Viral marketing, in which a conversation about a product is actively encouraged, can turn good or bad in ways that traditional marketing and advertising typically cannot. Unless a business pays careful attention to the tone of that conversation, the company could find itself shelling out millions on a viral ad campaign, only to have the unwanted effect of decreasing sales instead of increasing them.” I copied the whole comment over, because I agree with the first part. Yes, viral marketing can turn bad. But then it says business need to pay attention to the tone of the conversation. The underlying study (from what I can see) doesn’t say that. It says that your products have to meet expectations. In other words, it’s saying you can’t just manage the tone because it is out of your control.

Implications for Manufacturers
So what should manufacturers do? Learn from the study. What I hear is don’t over-hype your products, and don’t try to push a bad product through social media. It seems to me the harder you push how great a product is, the more likely you are to get dissenting view from customers. The study doesn’t say your product has to be good, it just has to meet expectations at least half-way.

Continue to experiment and learn. Social media is changing the way we interact with products. Be a part of the change and experiment. The last bit or preliminary data I will share from the Kalypso study is that those that are doing it are seeing business benefits (revenue, time to market, reduced cost). This is real, get on it.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social networking and business, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review free research and white papers about product innovation and product development from Tech-Clarity.

What I learned this week … came from a blog post  in the PTC Social Product Development blog. The post, How will PLM get Social, was written by … me. OK, perhaps this is cheating a bit, but PTC asked me to write a guest blog post and I liked it so I decided to share it here as well. The question I think this posts answers is “if social computing in PLM is going to provide value, how will the PLM industry get there?”

The Potetential of PLM and Social Computing

I have posted a number of time (see Going Social with Product Development as an example) that I believe there is significant business value to be gained from the intersection of social computing in PLM. Why? Because product development is inherently a team activity. Getting a product right requires contributions and feedback from people from all corporate walks of life. The most brilliant technical product that doesn’t fit a market need is wasted technical beauty. The fantastic market breakthrough that can’t be manufactured effectively is at best a squandered market, and at worst an opening for a competitor to introduce the leading product in a market that you created. The blockbuster product that can’t be introduced into new geographies is a lost opportunity. OK, ok, you get the picture and I know I am preaching to the choir. There is gold in the hills of social computing in PLM, even if it’s just inside the enterprise. And if the opportunity for innovation internally is high, extending outside is potentially greater.

So if we agree, the question becomes “how do we get there as an industry?” Here are my thoughts:

Figuring it Out

I believe that manufacturers need to experiment and learn to see what works. This is an area for process innovation, not an area where standard best practices apply. This is uncharted territory, and requires exploration. Multiple pilot projects, sharing ideas with other companies, and a willingness to fail are important factors to success. It will take a while to get this right, but those that get there first will not only have the advantage of their success. They will also have the advantage of the knowledge and experience they develop through the process.

Building It Out

Most of the early efforts will require custom work. As of today, there are no standard, off-the-shelf applications that provide everything a company needs on a “plug and play” basis. There are lots of components available, but they need to be assembled and integrated to meet needs as they are defined. Without proven best practices, it is hard to expect a standard solution! Having said that, some PLM vendors are helping blaze the trail. They are investing in helping manufacturers “figure it out” based on their own understanding of product development and building social capabilities directly into their products. (Note that by the fact that PTC asked me to contribute to their blog on this topic, you can safely assume that they are taking social computing in PLM seriously.) These built-in enablers are a big boost to manufacturers in helping enable their programs as they learn and experiment to determine where the specific business value is for their particular company.

Institutionalizing It

As the manufacturing industry becomes more experienced, best practices will emerge. At that point, PLM vendors will have a business process “template” to build from in the same way they had when building applications for configuration management or concurrent design. At this point, the infrastructure vendors (such as Microsoft) will have many of the core capabilities available in their technology stack. Those common components can then be assembled, tailored, and integrated into existing PLM business processes to create socially-enabled PLM. The key in institutionalizing these capabilities is to combine the generic social capabilities with the knowledge of product development, and then integrate the general capabilities into solutions that handle the specific needs of engineers and product developers (such as protecting intellectual property, linking to product configurations, etc.)

Implications for Manufacturers

So what does this mean to today’s manufacturer? First, get started. It’s challenging to start on a journey when you don’t know the final destination. That is something that is being discovered along the way, and you can change course as you go. Start with small investments and short programs that contribute to corporate learning. Second, partner with your PLM vendor. Share your emerging best practices with them so they can help drive their product strategy. Some are investing today, others will follow suit. Be a part of the build-out. Finally, take advantage of the institutionalized, standard solutions as they become available. Share in the investment that your PLM vendor has made and implement best practices. But don’t wait for them to emerge, help create them. One company’s best practice isn’t always as advantageous to another. Focus today’s efforts on unique value that helps your company achieve its business strategy.

So those are my thoughts from the PTC blog reconstructed here, I hope you found it interesting. There is more that could be said, but I will leave it at that for now and I look forward to your feedback. I also invite you to read more of my thoughts on social computing in PLM on the ClarityonPLM blog by clicking the “social computing” tag in the tag link.

What I learned this week … was a retrospective look at an article analyzing how industry-specific PLM application are. The review was in response to a comment on my post In Search of a Common PLM Definition. I had a little bit of fun with the review, and I thought I would share it here. In fairness to Oleg, I decided to use my “mythbusting” technique that I used on him earlier in the year in Mythbusing ERP-PLM Integration.

Responses and Reactions

Need to Document and Prioritize PLM Requirements (Confirmed) - I start by saying companies should document and prioritize requirements. I believe that holds as true today as ever. And I think that you might agree, so let’s confirm that as a statement that holds up today.

Inegrating PLM to Manufacturing (Plausible) - I use “technology transfer” as an example of a very industry-specific part of PLM. For those that aren’t as familiar with the term, it is effectively translating the product as defined in engineering / R&D (and PLM) into a product that can be produced, up to and including instructions for automated plant equipment. This is an area that really hasn’t come to be in most PLM solutions. The example holds trues as industry specific, but despite efforts in Digital Manufacturing (DM) and Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) - most manufacturers are still not yet integrating PLM to plant solutions like Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) or Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM). The opportunity is still compelling, but I thought we would be further ahead. Hats off to my old friends at Sequencia for being ahead of the curve.

Product Portfolio Management in PLM (Confirmed) - I use Product Portfolio Management as an example for a general solution. I think this one still stands true, and is a hot topic in product innovation and product development today.

My Bio (BUSTED, big time) - Most importantly, what was I thinking with that bio picture? I think I thought it made me look like a serious analyst. Instead, I just look like I have a stomach ache (and seriously need a haircut). Yikes. Busted. Definately.

So that is a brief look at some old research with the benefits of hindsight, I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it. I look forward to additional commentary (although not on the picture, the glasses, or the haircut please).

NOTE: I use the “mythbusting” concept out of pure admiration and respect for such a brilliant concept, that helps kids (and adults) learn about how cool engineering can be while entertaining them.

A quick peek into some research on … product compliance for formula-based companies in a report titled Issue in Focus: Product Compliance – The Hidden Tax on Innovation: Enhancing Innovation in Formula-Based Companies through Real-time, Automated Compliance Monitoring. One of the predictions that came true in Mythbusing Product Innovation and PLM 2010 Predictions was that PLM would expand to address product compliance. My past reports, such as the report on Making Product Compliance Sustainable, focused primarily on regulations like RoHS and REACH that impact product people that make discrete items like electronic or mechanical devices. But formula- and recipe-based product developers face their own set of compliance challenges. This report focused on their needs, and how PLM systems can help reduce the manual workload burden placed on them by product compliance. 

The Research Findings

The research included interviews with consumer goods companies including Revlon, Zotos International (a division of Shiseido Co,. Ltd.) and made a few key observations:

•  Early compliance checking helps avoid rework and speed time to market in product formulation and testing by ensuring product contents are acceptable early in the product development process
• Manual product compliance processes are slow, inneficient, and inhibits innovation by forcing key innovators to spend inordinate amounts of time looking up information and making it difficult for them to try new, innovative ideas quickly and with confidence

Given the need for early compliance checking and the potential for these checks to grind product innovation to a halt, companies appear to be between a rock and a hard place. The report goes on to discuss how real-time, automated compliance monitoring can help relieve the innovator of this compliance burden so they can focus on developing great products. This requires an infrastructure that:

• Provides knowledge of global compliance requirements
• Recognizes the full composition of their raw materials
• Understands the product formula as it is being designed
• Checks compliance real-time as the developer innovates
• Provides full, electronic documentation of compliance

There is more detail on each of these requirements in the report.

Implications for (Formula-Based) Manufacturers

For companies that develop and manufacture formula-based products, the compliance challenge will only grow. Government regulations and consumer sentiment will continue to push companies with greater scrutiny of their product contents, and restricted material lists will continue to grow. On the other hand, consumers will continue to reward innovate new products. In order to meet both demands, product developers must have the right tools to innovate rapidly, but with the comfort that there is a system behind them that will keep them out of compliance trouble.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on making product compliance more efficient for product developrs in formula-based industries, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … the use of social computing and “Web 2.0″ techniques to enhance product collaboration. The report, Issue in Focus: Product Collaboration 2.0 - Using Social Computing Techniques to Create Corporate Social Networks not only discusses how social media and Internet-based technologies can improve product collaboration in corporate social networks, but also how manufacturers’ use of social computing allows them to capture and leverage the interactions as a new source of corporate product knowledge.

The Research Findings

One of the key messages of the report is that companies are starting to embrace social computing and “Web 2.0” capabilities to take advantage of social media for business purposes, creating “corporate social networks.” It is important for many companies to make a clear distinction between personal use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, etc.) and “real work” using social computing. While many large companies have shut down access to social media sites, these same concepts offer the ability for engineers, product developers, marketers, manufacturing resources, sourcing, and others in the product innovation process to share and contribute.

There are two primary threads to the research:

• Improving Collaboration – As reported in my previous post and research Going Social with Product Development, capabilities like presence detection and interactive file sharing help make existing collaborative processes better. This is particularly important to replace the day-to-day “water cooler” conversations that have disappeared in today’s globally dispersed, virtual organizations and support processes such as concurrent engineering. For example, manufacturers can create a virtual “community space” to give team members a central location for information. This collaboration extends beyond Engineering as well, and helps product developers include downstream considerations from Manufacturing, Purchasing, Quality, Service, and other departments early in the design process.
• Capturing Product Knowledge – Another key finding of the research is that as manufacturers adopt social computing in PLM, they are developing a digital record of the product development process. Decisions, discussions, false starts, brainstorms, and other interactions can now be captured and stored electronically. Using PLM, they can also be associated to the product and the project to form a permanent record of the process. By integrating this social interaction with search capabilities in PLM (see Unlock My Product Data! Business Intelligence in PLM), the potential to turn collaboration into a corporate asset is tremendous. Beyond capturing internal knowledge, corporate social networks can also be used to collaborate with suppliers and customers to gain better insights into the “voice of the customer,” capture requirements, and generate new product ideas - developing new knowledge and intellectual property (IP).

Implications for Manufacturers

There are significant business benefits to be unlocked by applying social computing techniques to product development. Manufacturers have an opportunity to improve collaboration inside and outside of the enterprise by leveraging these new techniques. After all, social computing is about sharing content within a community. Isn’t that what collaboration is all about? Sharing and getting feedback? And while the thought of using Facebook or Twitter to share your intellectual property may not sound that appealing (as we discussed in Flogging the Facebook for Product Development Horse), the same concepts are being applied to (and integrated with) PLM.  I believe that these capabilities will be a big part of product innovation moving forward, and that companies that get started sooner will have a big advantage over their peers. This is a new and exciting frontier, and we all need to explore and learn so we can tap the new potential ahead of the competition.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on social computing and collaboration, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? What are your plans? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

And as always, please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

A quick peek into some research on … the recovery of the software and hardware industry in this AP piece Analyst firm says tech sector to recover in 2010. The data has me thinking about what state the PLM market will be in this year. From all signs I can see, things are looking much better. I am looking forward to hearing from some of my peers in the analyst community that cover PLM directly, but for now here are some thoughts and – as always – my thoughts on how this will impact manufacturers.

The Research Findings

Here are some snipits from the AP release:

• Forrester Research Inc. … expects global spending on technology products and services to grow 8.1 percent in 2010, to more than $1.6 trillion
• Forrester also said U.S. spending is expected to rise 6.6 percent, to $568 billion
• Last fall Gartner Inc. forecast 3.3 percent growth in global technology spending
• IDC, said in December that worldwide tech spending would grow 3.2 percent in 2010

These are very good numbers. The fact that they don’t agree doesn’t bother me because it is not clear that the big gorillas in the analyst community have any standard definition of the market, they use different data sources, and as all manufacturers know a forecast by definition is wrong. But if you look at each of these, they are trending positive. With that in mind, we know several things:

• The software market is expected to recover
• PLM was growing rapidly (double digit growth) prior to the downturn
• The PLM value proposition is stronger than ever, and more companies have proven the value

I am not an economist, but I like the way this looks for 2010. I have also had the opportunity to talk to a number of manufacturers, and they are still very excited about PLM. I expect demand will be for core PLM, but also for other product innovation, product development, and engineering solutions as I mentioned in my post Mythbusting Product Innovation and PLM 2010 Predictions.

Implications for Manufacturers

Hopefully you and your vendor made it through the downturn. The past year saw many manufacturers take a survive and thrive approach to the market, leaning out to make it through the down market but innovating to be ready to capitalize on the recovery. This time was very though on software vendors as well. Although there were acquisitions, there was not a mass market consolidation as some might have predicted. If your vendor made it to see 2010, the chances are pretty good they will have a better year this year. Hopefully, all of us in the manufacturing and manufacturing software community will.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on Product Lifecycle Management in 2010, I hope you found it interesting. I am looking forward to COFES (Congress for the Future of Engineering Software) where Cyon Research will report on the buying intentions of manufacturing and engineering companies. I had the opportunity to join Brad Holtz in conducting and presenting part of last year’s research on the impact of the economy on the engineering software market, and plan to do the same in Scottsdale this year.

Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.

What I learned this week … came after long reflection on my predictions for product innovation in 2010. As you may have noticed from the sparse number of posts in December, I must have been doing a lot of reflecting! I decided to look back at my 2008 research at Aberdeen Group called “The Product Innovation Agenda 2010″ to see whether or not my predictions came true, and bust those that didn’t. I hope you find it interesting. For a look at my take on this last year, please see the post What I Learned: Product Innovation and Engineering “2009 Style.”

Disclaimer on my Lack of a Crystal Ball

First, I want to say that my predictions were not based on a crystal ball or some supposed deep insight into the world of product innovation. As a researcher, I always find it better to ask the people who know the answer instead of guessing. In this case, I surveyed manufacturers about their plans for improving product innovation, product development, and engineering between 2008 and 2010. Then, I compared what the leading companies were doing – and planning to do – differently than average and poorer performing companies.

Predictions and Outcomes

Based on the prior research, here are my thoughts on where we stand as a manufacturing and engineering community against our plans for 2010:

Overall, I feel pretty good about how well the study predicted where companies would focus their efforts. Clearly companies made adjustments based on the economy, but the fact that PLM can help both the top-line and bottom-line was a big benefit.

What Did I Miss?

I missed the impact that social computing would have on product innovation processes. The report touched on open innovation and standardizing innovation processes, but I didn’t ask the right questions to see how the explosion of social networking would impact product innovation. I am not sure that if I asked the right questions that manufacturers would have been able to predict the boom in these technologies and their applicability to product development. I hope that I have made up for my miss by reporting on the trend in posts such as Going Social with Product Development, Social Computing Drives Innovation, Social Innovation in Simple Terms, and Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Study Good Sign for Social Computing in PLM. This is a space to watch in 2010 and companies plan on how to compete in 2011 and beyond.

Implications for Manufacturers

Last year I saw companies adopt a “survive and thrive” approach to innovation due to the down economy. The economic downturn forced companies to run lean and many had to downsize. But many companies I studied were keeping at least a subset of their resources on future innovation to be ready for the return of the market. I noticed that the long-term strategies for PLM were the same, but companies were shifting PLM strategies to short-term tactics to reduce cost and get the most out of existing resources.

Predictions for 2011 and Beyond

This year:

• I expect to see continued emphasis on innovation and PLM.
• I believe many companies will be picking up where they left off with PLM strategies, but maintaining their focus on keeping costs in check.
• PLM will continue to expand, as discussed in What I Learned: PLM, Please Take 3 Giant Steps Forward, and will play a large role in helping companies improve product innovation, product development, and engineering on a broad scale.
• Social computing will have a profound impact on product innovation, and 2010 will see many initiatives exploring the value that the intersection of web 2.0 technologies and process have with PLM.

So those are my thoughts on the past, present and future. I hope you found it interesting. What does 2010 and beyond look like to you?

A quick peek into some research on … the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 technologies. The report, The State of Enterprise Adoption Q4 2009, is an interesting read from the “2.0 Adoption Council.” The analysis is brief, but the insights are strong and the authors promise more detail in the future. My first introduction to the research came from a blog post on ReadWrite Enterprise titled Enterprise 2.0: Study Shows Adoption is Real with a strong statement that “Manufacturing Has Surprising High Adoption.”

State of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption

I would suggest reading the underlying research, because (as you will see below) I have a different interpretation of the results. But with my high level of interest in Social Computing in Product Development and PLM I do see some positive signs from the study. Thanks to Oleg for his Enterprise 2.0 Adoption and Social PLM post which pointed me to a blog (and then subsequently to the underlying research). I have a slightly different take on the implications of the findings, but that may be because research is frequently left open for some level of interpretation. Regardless, we both agree that things are moving in a positive direction in regards to PLM and social computing.

The Research Findings

As always, I encourage you to read the study. The report clearly shows that participants are adopting “Enterprise 2.0.” The report itself does not provide a definition of Enterprise 2.0, but because the participants were pre-qualified I assume they have a good understanding. For the rest of us, here is a definition we can use that I took from Wikepedia:

Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in “enterprise” (business/commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication.

The report shows that the majority of survey participants still see Enterprise 2.0 in the stages of early adoption. But in their own companies, there are typically multiple projects going on. This to me indicates that there will clearly be leaders and laggards in the adoption of social computing techniques in the enterprise. This is where companies will be able to differentiate themselves and gain advantage over their competition.

Manufacturing is well represented in the survey respondents, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. The industry chart just shows the participants in the research, and the fact that 15 companies out of 77 that took the survey describe themselves as “high tech” and 7 describe themselves as “manufacturing” doesn’t really point to a larger trend that manufacturing is leading in social computing. What I do find interesting is the anecdotal comments in the report that “It is heartening to see that a drive to improve collaboration has taken hold in an industry (manufacturing) which is notoriously difficult to change rapidly” and “… our manufacturing members express the most frustration with introducing change.” This clearly reflects the conversations I have been having with manufacturers.

Implications for Manufacturers

So what does this mean for manufacturers? As much as I would love to jump to the conclusion that social computing is booming, I interpret this differently. I see this as:

• Manufacturers are very interested in social computing
• The early adopters are hard at work figuring it out
• Progress has been cautious (for the most part)

My beliefs on how manufacturers will adopt social computing in product development has not changed:

• Most manufacturers will start with the low-hanging fruit of improving collaboration, and most will start internally
• Manufacturers will be more likely to adopt social computing techniques when they are incorporated into applications they trust such as PLM, which will protect their intellectual property (IP)
• There will be significant value gained by those manufacturers that adopt social computing to improve product innovation, product development, and engineering performance

This study offers some good validation that some thought-leading manufacturers are moving towards Enterprise 2.0. I wouldn’t read too much into it in regards to a general trend, but there is clearly something going on that manufacturers need to learn about and start experimenting with.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on the adoption of Enterprise 2.0, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Please feel free to review more free research and white papers from Tech-Clarity.