Success story shows what PVM is and why engineers should care.
In the world of smart home and power solutions, Savant Systems has emerged as a leader. As the parent company of the Savant and Savant Power brands, as well as GE Lighting—acquired from General Electric in 2020—the company’s commitment to providing energy-efficient smart LED fixtures and bulbs for every room of the house is clear.
In a bid to stay ahead of the competition, Savant adopted Propel’s Product Value Management (PVM) platform to streamline its operations and deliver improved customer experiences. This was highlighted in a podcast hosted by Propel Software, called “Unlocking Business Value With Digital Transformation.” The discussion on digital transformation was led by Propel CMO, Dario Ambrosini, who spoke with Savant’s Beth LeClerc, VP of Business Systems Architecture and Web Services, and Angie Larson, Senior VP of Service and Customer Operations.
LeClerc and Larson emphasized the importance of a seamless connection between business and IT, extending the product vision beyond its attributes and prioritizing visibility through preemptive notifications for enhanced customer satisfaction. This resonates with every organization looking at driving value from product lifecycle management (PLM) and associated innovation strategies. So how is PVM different from PLM?
Building on Savant’s example, this article discusses the significance of PVM, why engineers should take note of this new acronym, and examines its intersections and diversions from PLM.
PLM enables innovation in pursuit of excellence
To thrive in a competitive market, OEMs seek to achieve steady-paced innovation by balancing a diverse product portfolio, fostering full data connectivity across a cohesive ecosystem and combining product and service scalability and personalization. Driving this change is often digital transformation by transitioning or combining old and new technologies and mixing distribution channels, subscription models and end-user support. Excelling in this quest for excellence requires a clear vision from business leaders, strategic partnerships and a robust tech ecosystem that seamlessly connects consumers and product records.
At its core, value creation is about delivering products, services or solutions that not only meet but exceed the expectations of customers. This involves a meticulous and relentless focus on innovation, quality, efficiency and customer satisfaction. It goes beyond mere financial gains, extending to the establishment of a positive brand image, customer loyalty and the ability to adapt and thrive in ever-evolving market conditions.
Achieving excellence requires a holistic approach that permeates every facet of an organization. This includes fostering a culture of change and agility, investing in research and development, optimizing operational processes and ensuring a seamless integration of technology. It involves a commitment to continuous improvement, a responsiveness to market dynamics, and an unwavering dedication to meeting the evolving needs of customers.
Beyond tools and technologies, PLM serves as a strategic enabler for organizations seeking to deliver high-quality products and associated services that meet customer expectations and maintain a competitive edge in the market. So, one of the primary goals of PLM is to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes, ultimately contributing to the creation of value. As a result, there is a significant overlap between the concept of value creation and the objectives of PLM.
PVM emphasizes the value by connecting innovation to marketing
In a 2013 whitepaper from PwC entitled “Strategic Product Value Management: How companies Improve Innovation, Reduce Costs and Mitigate Risk,” Volker Staack and Reinhard Moebius referred to value management as “a comprehensive means to connect a company’s portfolio strategy to execution.” They described how to connect design to value (top-line growth) and design to cost (bottom-line growth) imperatives to manage product commercial viability and profitability—driving cost throughout the product lifecycle and until obsolescence.
While both PVM and PLM are related concepts that involve managing various aspects of a product throughout its lifecycle, they can be interpreted as serving different purposes. PVM and PLM have nuanced differences and the terms are not fully interchangeable.
PVM primarily concentrates on maximizing the overall value that a product brings to the organization and its customers. It encompasses aspects such as optimizing costs, improving product quality, ensuring market responsiveness and driving innovation to enhance the perceived value of the product. The scope of PVM extends beyond the technical aspects of product development to include market considerations, customer satisfaction and overall business strategy.
PVM aims at maximizing the value that a product delivers to customers, from development to commercialization: it involves aligning product features and capabilities with customer needs, ensuring competitive pricing, product marketing alignment, embedding B2B platform feedback loops and optimizing the overall value proposition while integrating product information and customer quality feedback loops.
PVM and PLM, although serving distinct purposes, should not be seen in opposition. Instead, they can complement each other, forming a comprehensive approach to product management. Both PVM and PLM contribute to the overarching goal of delivering value through innovation and efficient operational processes. PVM’s emphasis on strategic value creation aligns with PLM’s focus of systematic management across the product lifecycle. Recognizing the synergy between the two allows organizations to harness the benefits of both approaches for a more holistic and effective product management strategy.
Savant Systems boosts performance through PVM
For engineers, understanding the significance of PVM goes beyond its immediate impact on a company’s bottom line. It empowers engineers to create a cohesive and efficient foundation that seamlessly integrates various aspects of a business. Savant’s journey with PVM highlights the transformative power of such a strategic technological integration.
LeClerc highlighted that PVM helped Savant drive a world-class consumer experience. “Not only does PVM help us manage multiple product lines, but it also helps us manage multiple distribution/sales channels with variable product access, training/certification, support tiers and volume requirements. All of this with an end goal of a world-class consumer experience,” she said.
In addition, she expanded on the fact that Savant saw huge benefits in connecting its customer relationship management (CRM) and PLM data to drive effective decisions and reduce time to market by 74% with its e-commerce store. For example, she added, it provided the “full visibility our customer team has to product category adoption trends, from a high-level channel view, all the way down to an individual customer-level view.”
LeClerc elaborated on the fact that “Savant supports tens of thousands of SKUs, both off-the-shelf and custom/made-to-order products, with external customer tools to design systems, order hardware, software and subscriptions, track shipments, view warranty by project and even create technical engagements and kick-off return merchandise authorization processes. This concept-to-customer commercialization approach has allowed us to not only deliver Savant solutions to our customers, but also to deliver our customers fully integrated partner products from more than 30 companies. In addition, we have been able to support multiple strategic acquisitions, quickly assimilating product information into our system and allowing for customer purchases within one day of the acquisition closing.”
Propel and Salesforce enable Savant to work more efficiently, blurring department lines and unifying back-end and front-end teams into one holistic team.
The success story of Savant is a testament to how a well-implemented PVM strategy can drive not only business growth but also enhance the overall engineering and product development process. By adopting a holistic PVM approach, engineers can contribute to the creation of robust, scalable and future-proof operations that lay the foundation for sustained success in a rapidly changing technological and competitive landscape.
