How to Run an Effective PLM Demo?

Running a demo is a strategic task that can significantly influence stakeholders’ perceptions and decisions. When it comes to management of entire product lifecycle, creating a strategy for your business, and as a result, to introduce strategy for systems and product development process, supply chain management, quality management, document management, and overal PLM solutions, an effective demo not only showcases the features of the system but also demonstrates how it can solve specific challenges and integrate into existing processes. An effective product demo is one of the key element of success in the modern SaaS. In the current fast moving world, running the demo can be the one that gets you in the door.

But how easy is to give a PLM demo? The attention span of users is very short these days. The question I want to discuss in this article is how to run a success demo of PLM software, but not only that – how to run a demo the will give you a way to present the differentiators of the software compared to other tools.

I remember PLM demo meetings back 20 years ago. It was heavy dependent on PowerPoints and videos. The joke was that these PowerPoints and videos cannot fail. Back those days, vendors were selling PLM using their reputation. But the industry moves forward and the ability to show system and get a potential customer involved into this process can be an advantage if you can do it.

In my article today, I want to share some experience of running great demos. Some of them are pretty general, but some of them are very PLM specific.

Know Your Audience and Learn the Strategy

PLM world is very diverse. When you ask two people about PLM, you can easy get three (or sometimes even more) opinions about the same thing. Therefore, no matter what you sell, you start you demo from questions. Once you learn a bit about the strategy high-levels, you need to learn who are the people that sit in front of you.

Understanding the background about the company, PLM strategy (if any) and audience are the first step towards an efficient PLM demo. Identify whether you are presenting to engineers, manufacturing managers, IT professionals, or executives. Each group has unique needs and priorities:

• Engineers are interested in specific tool usage, design collaboration, integrations with CAD tools
• Manufacturing managers focus on BOM accuracy, production planning, or supply chain
• IT professionals need to see integration capabilities with other IT tools and security.
• Manager and Executives are concerned with ROI, strategic alignment, and scalability.

After you learn about a company you present to, people that came to the meeting, you mandatory question is what is your biggest pain. Tailor your demo to address specific pain points and not features you like in your own software.

Demo Game Plan: Speak About Solutions for Problems

No one wakes up in the morning and deciding to buy a software. The reality that people have problems and they are looking how to solve these problems. Therefore, when you create your demo game plan after learning about company strategy (or plans) and specific pain points, you need to focus on these problems. The ideal thing is to connect capabilities of the system with the problems.

1. Highlight Key Features: Focus on the most relevant features for your audience.
2. Address Challenges: Demonstrate how the PLM system addresses challenges mentioned by a prospect from the questions you asked.
3. Show Integration: Nothing is more important than integrations in PLM systems. Data, engineering tools, ERP, downstream apps. The list can go on and it is long. Illustrate how the system integrates with other tools and systems.
4. Emphasize Benefits: Companies are looking for three fundamental things – (1) make money (2) save money, (3) mitigate risks. Focus on them always.

Create a Realistic Scenario

The second most important thing in the demo, after focusing on problem solving, you need to get the story. Although, people believe that demo is about moving something on the screen, it is only partially true. While people indeed interested how you can operate the system and perform features, they are more likely to hear you and what you can to say. Therefore, the story is super important. Here are 5 things that needs to be included:

1. Show the key capability connected to the pain (eg. file management, BOM management, CAD integrations. This is. your “main dish” in the demo.
2. Show how you can save time by introducing a capability that removes burden (save time, such as eliminating manual input)
3. In the 21st century, data is the new oil. Therefore, you need to show some “smart capabilities” how you turn boring product data management and product lifecycle workflows in the data analytics or AI.
4. Don’t forget managers, especially if they are on the call together with engineers. Show how product lifecycle management tools can help managers to improve their life – schedule, control, tasks, etc.

Innovation is good, but keep in mind that in PLM, there are some specific capabilities that considered by everyone is a “timeless classic”. For example, check-in/check-out files if you demo PDM capabilities. BOM generation, and integration with ERP, tracking lifecycle from design to production (EBOM to MBOM). This is your homework. Do it and have it prepared, so you can get it and demo in front of the prospect without glitches.

Utilize Real Data

Use real or realistic sample data to make the demo relatable. Real data helps the audience connect with the demo, seeing its practical application. Avoid generic or fabricated data that may seem irrelevant. Don’t do any demo that focus on “test assembly”, “demo1”, “assembly1”, etc. Those are very annoying things that will ruin your demo.

One more about the real data. Pick the demo using specific customer and their tools. Try the same CAD system (don’t show CATIA to SolidWorks customer) , industry specific data (don’t show cars and aeroplanes to electronic design manufacturers

Highlight Integration Capabilities

Showcase the PLM system’s ability to integrate with other enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, and MES. Although, they might not be needed on the first day, demonstrate how these integrations enable seamless data flow and collaboration across departments. For example, illustrate how changes in the design phase automatically update the MBOM and trigger procurement processes in the ERP system.

Emphasize Collaboration and Traceability

Collaboration is a big word in PLM lexicon. To provide seamless collaboration between users is extremely important. There are several scenarios where collaboration is becoming vital.

• Collaborative Design, Reviews and Versions: Users are looking how to communicate more efficiently and develop things in global and distributed teams.
• Release and Change Management: Show how changes are tracked, approved, and communicated.
• Supply chain collaboration: In the modern manufacturing world, communicating with contractors and suppliers are clearly needed more than ever.

Eliminate Common Concerns

You need to be ready how to answer to typical IT/security people. Be prepared to address typical concerns such as:

• Data Security: Explain the measures in place to protect sensitive data.
• Scalability: Show how the system can grow with the organization.
• User Adoption: Discuss the ease of use and available training resources.

How to end the demo (and a meeting)

I recommend you to finish the demo with questions you capture during the meeting. Keep them handy and remind the prospect they wanted to ask. Finishing the demo with QA, gives you an opportunity to validate you didn’t miss anything.. This provides an opportunity to clarify points, offer additional information, and reinforce the benefits of your solution.

What is my conclusion?

An efficient PLM demo requires understanding the audience, setting clear objectives, and using realistic scenarios. By focusing on solving real problems, demonstrating integrations, and emphasizing collaboration, you can provide a compelling demo that highlights the value of the PLM system and its potential to transform your organization’s product lifecycle management processes.

Most important, plant the points for your next meeting already during the first demo. Every sales process include on average 12 touch points. By preparing your next steps during the first meeting, you create a good foundation for your sccess.

Just ny toughts…

Best, Oleg

Disclaimer: I’m the co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM, a digital-thread platform providing cloud-native PDM, PLM, and ERP capabilities. With extensive experience in federated CAD-PDM and PLM architecture, I’m advocates for agile, open product models and cloud technologies in manufacturing. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.