Propel today announced the latest release of the Propel PLM Suite. Propel is a manufacturing industry solution that expands PLM beyond traditional engineering users and allows customers to actively engage in the product development and launch process.
By integrating Salesforce Sales Cloud with enterprise PLM capabilities, Propel makes it possible for everyone – customers, partners, sales, marketing, engineers, operations and more – to collaborate on changing product requirements, designs and tasks. As manufacturers continue to improve customer responsiveness, the solution helps companies drive greater customer transparency, more coordinated product launches and higher quality products.
Propel recently received the 2016 Salesforce Partner Innovation Award in Manufacturing with one of its customers, AMS Technologies, who is using Salesforce and Propel to transform how engineers, customers and suppliers collaborate on new customer-driven solutions.
Key Features for Propel
- Product Requests and Opportunities: sales representatives can accurately capture requests from their customers using Sales Cloud and manage the requests with Propel’s modern PLM capabilities
- Insights into Requests: manufacturers can more intelligently set product strategy by classifying and drilling down on customer requests based on request type, related products, customer demographics, and more
- Customer Collaboration: customers can be more engaged in the development process by using threaded discussions on product designs, suggesting new features and product redlines to bills of materials, and tracking product-related tasks
- Customer Product Approvals: manufacturing companies can speed up development by having customers review and approve product updates using configurable workflows
“Many firms are gaining a competitive advantage by working more closely with their customers,” according to Brian Sohmers, Chief Product Officer at Propel. “Propel combines CRM and PLM to deliver a customer-centric solution that helps manufacturers get the right products to their customers quickly and accurately. Whether you’re a high-tech electronics company or chemical manufacturer, you can now have customers directly engage with everyone in the product creation process – from the first interaction with a salesperson to detailed design discussions with engineers to understanding installation requirements from service partners.”
“We needed a PLM solution that could be customer-facing, easy to use for dispersed teams, and seamlessly integrated with our Salesforce system,” said Jan Meise, CEO of AMS Technologies. “With Propel, AMS Technologies can work much more closely with our customers to deliver the innovative solutions they need to succeed.”
