In Stay Sharp Episode 106, Digital Product Series: Who is Propel Software, co-hosts Jonathan Scott and Juliann Grant continue their series introducing some of the more innovative and interesting companies in the PLM arena you might not have heard of. This time, it’s Propel Software, courtesy of Tom Shoemaker, VP of Product Marketing, mechanical engineer by training, poker player, and fan of Spinal Tap. Tom joins Jonathan and Juliann to turn the conversation “up to 11” about Propel’s unique value proposition.
Propel’s Point of View
Rather than confining themselves to being “a PLM company,” Propel’s goal is to provide everything an organization needs “to make, market, sell, and service their product—and have it be a successful enterprise,” Tom says. Going beyond PLM to a comprehensive, holistic view that’s all about product success makes them significantly different than anything else on the market. Tom adds, “You take all those things together and our purview is decidedly broader than just engineering.”
Propel finds a market “in industries that tend to do a lot of contract manufacturing. Tend to source a lot of their components. Where their problem is less about managing captive engineering resources, and it’s more about choreographing a global supply chain with global partners to make their product and to make it successful,” Tom explains. Those industries aren’t the ones making “planes, trains, and automobiles,” but are typically companies making products with shorter lifespans, a big service component, or items that can be configured or engineered to order. They’re also often companies that tend to rely on contract manufacturers or that get a large proportion of their value from the supply chain.
Another unique aspect of Propel’s approach is that their software is built on top of the Salesforce platform. The genesis of that decision reveals a lot about Propel’s business philosophy: don’t reinvent the wheel, instead, use something that’s already world class and create your own value by putting your business logic and intelligence on top of it. Salesforce as the foundation doesn’t mean a customer wanting to use Propel has to own Salesforce already or use anything else it offers. But that choice of tech stack as an example of Propel’s philosophy and approach to problems might resonate with some manufacturers. As Jonathan says, “It’s a different value prop. It says something that hopefully—as we’re talking about in the podcast—helps people understand where Propel sits and say, you know what? That’s a lot like our philosophy or we really see the value in that. That’s what we’re connecting here, helping people understand that.”
Propel’s DNA
The single largest industry making use of Propel is med tech—medical device manufacturers, medical devices, equipment. The software is most useful for discrete manufacturing, Tom says, “High tech, consumer electronics, industrial equipment. Fire suppression equipment, industrial cookware and cooking machinery, configure to order material handling equipment. And then we have consumer products, sporting goods manufacturers ,and things like that.” Industries that aren’t really a fit are processed-based, continuous, or batch manufacturing—or the big OEMs in auto or aero industries.
Tom shares an incredible example of a customer that’s seen significant growth in their business through using Propel. The fact that the customer has perfected the ability to get products to market with great speed really illustrates that “Time to market isn’t just in engineering,” Jonathan says. Reflecting on that customer’s success, he describes one of the company’s founding principles, “Great product? Not if the world doesn’t know about it. But if the world knows about it and your sellers and distributors know about it and can sell it, then you’re going to be successful.”
Collaboration is a cornerstone of the company as well as the product—in fact, Tom frequently describes Propel as “collaboration software. “That’s what it is,” he says. “It brings to the table people that have been kind of stiff armed out in the past. That’s the DNA. Success depends on you bringing a lot of these different parties together, so let’s help our customers do that more effectively than any other solution out there.” He goes on to compare their work as similar to a decathlon. “To win the decathlon, you have to excel in 10 things, and if you do really, really well in all of them, you’re the world’s best athlete. That is our objective. To be the world’s best athlete by unifying these things together and doing what it takes to help the customer be successful.”
Learn More About Propel Software
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including where to find Propel to learn more, the new phrase and acronym they coin to describe their software, why another of the company’s core principles is to embrace systems that do a single thing really well, and more.
Be sure to check out Stay Sharp Episode 106: Digital Product Series: Who is Propel Software and join us each week for a new podcast.
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