PLM, Excel Spreadsheets, Pain Killers and Vitamins

We like to compare stuff. Gadgets, cars, hotels, software. We can compare iPhone to Samsung, Canon to Nikon, Honda to Toyota. Software is a special category. When it comes to enterprise software it gets even more complicated. However, marketing comparison is a fascinating type of writing. Arena PLM blog posted a marketing writing – Using Excel for Bill of Materials (BOM) Management. The article compares BOM management using Excel spreadsheets and BOM management PLM tools (Arena tools implied, which is okay). Read the article and draw your own conclusion.

I have special passion for spreadsheets. In my view, (and I know many of PLM analysts and bloggers will agree here) Excel is stands out as one of the most popular PLM software tool in the industry. I have my reasons to like PLM spreadsheets as well as list of my “hate statements” about Excel.

Arena’s article reminded me famous marketing stories about vitamins and pain killers. The first is “nice to have” and the second is “must buy now”.  I think the value of PLM tools is obvious. But… here is my little “but”. If I compare lists of values, cost and features in that article, I can not come to an absolute conclusion about advantages of PLM tools. It creates some mixed feeling. First, there is no line that says “no” to any of features you can do with Excel. So, basically, I can do everything with Excel, but not in an optimal way (means I won’t die 🙂 tomorrow by keep using Excel).  Second, cost is emotionally on the side of Excel. It is very hard to compete with “free” that everybody can use. And, to switch to PLM tools, you need to change the way you work. Even this is not in the list, it implied when you compared “time to implement” between “immediate” and “days-weeks”. So, when you have organization using Excel and manages BOM, PLM is not in competition with Excel. This is another type of competition, which sales people often calls “competing with status quo”.

What is my conclusion? Few weeks ago, I shared my recipe how PLM can take over Excel spreadsheets. Here is the list of three recommendations – flexible data models, easy customization and excellent user experience. I’d like to add pain killers to the list. This is something that PLM is still missing in competition with Excel. The comparison should have “no/yes” notation. Today’s “poor/excellent” is still has a flavor of vitamins. PLM implementations are still hurting people and lose in the comparison to initially glamorous Excel spreadsheets. Engineers are spending too much time managing Excels, but the cost is hidden and not obvious to managers to step into longer implementations, higher cost and slow learning curve. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg