In the modern world, M&A is something that happens all the time. Manufacturing companies are not an exclusion from that. Manufacturing companies are acquiring other companies to increase their market presence, bring new technology, people and products. This is a place where the need for software managing portfolio of products, programs, projects comes out. Few days ago, the following picture caught my attention (thanks FB miss-understanding of things page)
I found this picture very self explaining and shows the reality of portfolios in some well-know brands. I’m sure most of the large brand-companies in manufacturing domain can come with a similar presentations shows brands, portfolio, products. It made me think that the importance of portfolio management part of PLM is probably undervalued. Portfolio management represents “top-down” view on product families, structures and ends up with Bill of Materials.
What is my conclusion? These days top-down view of products becomes more and more important. The ability of PLM software to manage this top-down view becomes an essential part of PLM technologies alongside with BOM and configuration management. Many companies just cannot manage their information without breaking up into portfolios. What is your experience in this field? Speak up and share your examples (if you can). Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
