Research and Design through PLM

I would say , Product life cycle management (PLM) has emerged as a key ingredient of the business strategy for the Indian retail industry. In its initial avatar, PLM helped manufacturing companies in the form of computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) tools. Since then, Indian retail industry has also been increasingly adopting PLM to support their efforts in product planning, collaborative product development, validation and stock planning among others. The integration of PLM goes back right into developing new products and evolving new practices into manufacturing.

i think after IT, global manufacturing companies are eyeing India as an outsourcing hub for engineering design. Some global players have adopted a different business model and have outsourced their research and design activities to small niche players in India. PLM as a tool comes handy for such design centers. These two business models are the growth drivers for PLM markets in India. In addition to that, the domestic companies in sectors like automobiles, auto components, engineering services and hi-tech instruments are moving up in value chain and investing significantly in research and design. This will again provide fuel to the already growing PLM market.

I believe that PLM as a tool has tremendous potential to help domestic manufacturers as well as companies doing design outsourcing work for the global majors. There are three benefits to the global multinationals (or companies doing outsourcing work) from this. First, there would be no conflict among the designers working on the same design across different geographies and second, work can be done from any location which offers cost advantage. Also, the company's design division can work seamlessly round the clock.