Last month, we published Part 1 of this series with an introduction to CPQ. We talked about what it is, identified its value proposition and asserted, “Why PLM would be the ideal foundation for CPQ.” For Part 2 of this series, we dig a bit further and talk about the workings of CPQ. We received a question in response to our first part that serves a great lead-in to the next section entitled “CPQ and the Business of Engineering.” The question was “why not run CPQ as a standalone application?” STOP. Add yet another application? That’s what we are urging companies to reconsider. In this section, we weave the topic of CPQ into the spirit of Business of Engineering. To help you position CPQ capabilities within the “To-Order” spectrum, Dick Bourke wrote a brief for the Best Practices section addressed, “Matching CPQ with the “To-Order” Spectrum.” What we hope to illuminate here is that there is NOT a “one-size-fits-all” solution.

We are pleased to kick-off the year with a multipart series geared to the business drivers of PLM. We’re calling this series “Pursuing the Promise of PLM.” In this first part, we’re laying the groundwork for why PLM needs to be a strategic initiative with executive sponsorship all the way from the top. On the other end of the spectrum, we get under the hood on workflow ideas. We’re also introducing our “In the Labs” section to the newsletter. This section is dedicated to projects and solutions underway that aim to solve some of the challenges that our customers are facing. In this issue, we’ll talk about Proposal Management for Engineer/Build-to-Order organizations. There is a lot of reading here. Take your time. Try an article and get to another article at a later date. By the time you’re done, next month’s issue will be coming out.

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