This morning on Copyblogger I read a piece by John Truant that discussed the negative affect that playing by the rules can have on a business...
"If you're doing everything right, but find yourself unable to stand out from your competitors... I can guess what's missing. You're following too many conventions, societal norms, expectations of friends, 'the way things have always been done,' and best practices... To stand out, you need to think outside the box. You need to play by fewer rules... you need to look at what you've always done and what most people do and ask if there's a better way."
Interesting advice that we could all likely apply to our own lives and business. For me, of course, my wheels started turning on how this applies to PLM. It didn't take long; before I knew it I was thinking about our business. Then our customers, and then our competitors.
As PLM companies go, Aras is pretty unconventional. We give our software away for free, we hardly ever fill out an RFP, and we rarely fly out to demo for anyone. It might surprise you to hear that we think about rules at all, but we do. When you're competing in an established market, you constantly question what you do, WHY you do it, and if there's a better way. I hope we never stop.
Then I thought about our customers and our potential customers. In my experience, the most successful customers are the ones who ignore the conventional rules of PLM implementation - like "you must start with CAD integration" (Ugh!) - and do what's right for their business. The successful companies are rule breakers! They reject "business as usual" and dreaded "best practices" (translation - everyone is supposedly doing it already) and focus on areas of their business where they can have a big impact in a short amount of time without spending their entire budget.
Finally, I thought about our competitors. The "big guys" who've been pushing the same rock - dated, hodgepodge technology + lopsided licensing model - up the same hill for 25 years. I can't help but wonder what their employees would say if someone asked them what rules they would break if they had the chance?
So what's the point?
"The rules you've been following have nudged you into a box. And if that box is serving you and everything is perfect, then great. But if life could be better... then it might be time to take a close look at those rules nad see which ones you can start to disobey."
As PLM buyers, seller, creator, user, or implementer, what PLM rules would you break?