IDC Insights: Manufacturing Product Life Cycle Management 2010 Predictions

About a week or so ago I attended the IDC Manufacturing Insights conference call where IDC outlined its 2010 Predictions for Product Life Cycle Management.  On the call Joe Barkai, IDC PLM Practice Director and  Benjamin Friedman, IDC PLM Research Manager took the conference call attendees through IDC’s predictions and trends for the Manufacturing PLM market.

Here’s my summary of IDCs top trends in PLM

1. Innovation and Business Alignment.  In 2010, IDC says there will be an increased focus on aligning PLM innovation with business strategy, making sure innovation is ‘productive’ and is helping the company achieve growth.
2. Enterprise PLM is Maturing.  IDC is saying that PLM is becoming an important factor in the entire enterprise decision-making discipline, but more progress is needed to integrate all manufacturing systems across the organization.
3. Socializing” Product Development:   Social computing has had an impact in marketing and support.  In 2010, we should all expect the social computing trend to have an impact on product development. Innovative firms will figure this out in 2010.
4. Rising Demand for PLM Value:  IDC says that in 2010, PLM vendors need to demonstrate value and relevance.  IDC is encouraging vendors to emphasize integration, interoperability and open source.
5. Visualization for Better Decision-Making:  Decision makers need to see the information in new and different ways in order to help them make better decisions.  Expect an increasing emphasis on the importance of making sense of all the data collected and stored via advanced analytics and visualization tools. 
6. Technical Content is Back.   IDC says there will be an effort by companies to introduce new technical related services and improve the quality of existing services as a way to differentiate their products.
7. Factory of the Future.  Smarter and more intelligent manufacturing is a big trend.  IDC says to expect an increased interest by manufacturing companies in the area of intelligent factory networks that can “design anywhere, build anywhere, sell & service anywhere”. 
8. Beyond Discrete Manufacturing.  IDC believes that PLM software can and will be implemented in some non-traditional areas, like process manufacturing, retail and consumer goods, and perhaps even financial services.  
9. PLM in the Cloud.  IDC says adoption of enterprise cloud-based PLM solutions will slowly begin to take off.  All the right drivers are in place and many of the concerns are being resolved.
10. M&As to Close Gaps.   IDC says that given the economic climate, some firms will take the opportunity to merge and / or acquire other firms in order to build scale and/or access new markets.

Personally, I’d like to see a lot of focus on prediction number 3.  I don’t see many firms leveraging social computing yet as a way to innovate the product development process.

The webinar was recorded and you can check it out by going to IDC Insights Predictions 2010: Manufacturing Product Lifecycle Management (registration required).

For more information,

• Check out the IDC Manufacturing Insights web site: IDC Manufacturing Insights Website
• Visit the IDC Manufacturing Insights Online Community
• Check out IDC Manufacturing Insights Newsletter
• Follow IDC PLM analyst Joe Barkai on twitter at JoeBarkai

Comments

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