PLM inherently touches multiple departments and areas of responsibility.  It can start at sales, but at a minimum will involve engineering, planning, production and segments of manufacturing.  If your responsibilities are in engineering, then getting other departments to buy-in can be challenging.  Executive sponsorship cuts across these boundaries.  So, the real question is “how do I get the bosses to buy-in?”  The short answer is, in part, by identifying the business values at the P&L level.  PLM values can be tied to one or all of three areas on the P&L: revenues, cost of goods sold (CoGs) and overhead.  Thus, doing more for less will most likely be found in CoGs and overhead.