OpenBOM: Looking back in 2019

A new year is an opportunity to look back and check what we’ve done, what is our purpose and what we would like to achieve next. You need to step back to see what you did because in day to day craziness, we often forget the things we accomplished.

The slowdown Holiday season is a natural time to think and reflect on what we achieved. Today, I want to share the things we achieved at OpenBOM during 2019 and give you some thoughts about how we plan to start a new decade.

1- The number of customers grew up x6 times

The past 2019 was the year we put a laser focus on the creation of repeatable business use cases in a specific segment of manufacturing companies. We purposely focused on small and medium-sized manufacturing companies leveraging the OpenBOM organic growth process and focusing on the value-based model to convert free users to paid customers. The effort paid off and we have seen strong growth in the number of customers.

2- Introduced New (Professional User and Company) subscriptions

We maintained monthly product updates with new features and fixes for users and customers. We made two major enhancements in the OpenBOM subscription model and introduced OpenBOM professional user and company subscriptions. We’ve been working closely with users and customers introducing new features, tweaking existing one and providing fixes.

3- Introduced major OpenBOM functionality to support Design To Purchase Process

The vision of OpenBOM is to develop new digital technologies and tools to help manufacturing companies to build products. While it sounds like a very generic purpose, we understood that new processes should be established to focus on optimizing the most painful work and inefficiency for everyone in manufacturing companies. We also learned tons of things that are specific for small and medium-size manufacturing businesses and engineering teams.

We learned the critical importance of connected processes between design, production planning, and purchasing. OpenBOM Design To Purchase process is combining functions that can be ready to used and at the same time to provide full flexibility in data management, configuration, and customization. We’ve been continuously learning how to provide a rich set of functions and focusing on simplicity.

4- Established and formalized a repeatable OpenBOM sales process

From the early days of OpenBOM, we’ve been laser-focused on customer support. Check out user stories and G2 reviews – you will see how happy OpenBOM customers with our support, which is 100% online. To have customers from San-Francisco to New Zeland and to maintain this level of support is a big challenge and we learned how to make it with a higher level of efficiency and integration between support and engineering maintaining multiple time zones. support is much higher

Our goal for 2019 was to learn to establish a repeatable sales process and I’m proud to say that we did it. We are not done by any mean and we are actively listening to users, customers, and partners how to do better.

5- Strength our partnership with key vendors, Improved key integrations

There is a strong demand for integration in engineering and manufacturing software. PLM tools are strategically positioned to connect with the data coming from CAD systems and sharing data with accounting, ERP and other planning systems.

• We partnered with Oracle NetSuite and achieved the status of “Build for NetSuite” for our OpenBOM application. Read more here. The NetSuite integration is a playbook for all OpenBOM ERP and enterprise integrations.
• We completely redesigned our Autodesk Fusion360 integration and established a new integration with Autodesk Eagle. OpenBOM is fully integrated with all Autodesk Design Systems for Manufacturing – Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Fusion 360 and Autodesk Eagle. Read our press release here.
• We redesigned and enhanced integrations with Solidworks. The redesigned integration is coming next week.
• We created a new integration with QuickBooks
• We develop prototypes of new integrations with PTC ThingWorx Navigate
• We made custom development of OpenBOM integration with 3DEXPERIENCE

6- OpenBOM Named as a High Performer in the G2 Winter 2020 Grid® Report

I was thrilled to see a growing number of OpenBOM G2 reviews and G2 Winter report. Check reviews here. By the end of the year, OpenBOM Named as a High Performer in the G2 Winter 2020 Grid® Report for Product Lifecycle Management. You can see the G2 PLM Grid here.

Conclusion and Thoughts about 2020.  

I’m excited about the coming new year. In my view, 2020 is the best time o be in the PLM business. Our strong focus on PLM for small and midsize manufacturing companies is a foundation of our growth. Our unique technologies combined with functionality and value proposing connecting engineering, planning and purchasing functions provide an unmatched ROI in the industry.

I also want to share a bit about new stuff that will be coming from OpenBOM in 2020. These are things we are working on already. Some of them will become available in January and some of them later during the year. OpenBOM integrated 3D viewer and storage is coming. We are also planning to enhance the revision and lifecycle features of OpenBOM (there is a strong demand for that). An enhancement of inventory and purchasing functions will be coming as well. We will be doing research, development and looking for a partnership to improve OpenBOM cost planning features. This is not a full list and we are looking for comments and feedback, as always.

I’m grateful to have OpenBOM Team. We’re grateful to our users and customers. Thank you for your support and commitment. Together we will make future PLM, engineering and manufacturing technologies better.

THANK YOU ALL.

On Behalf of the OpenBOM Team.

Yours sincerelyOleg Shilovitsky

PS. Read OpenBOM customer reviews on G2 Crowd to learn what customers are saying about OpenBOM. 

PPS. Try OpenBOM today by registering to FREE OpenBOM User Subscription.  

Let’s get to know each other better. If you live in the Greater Boston area, I invite you for a coffee together (coffee is on me). If not nearby, let’s have a virtual coffee session — I will figure out how to send you a real coffee.

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my Beyond PLM blog and PLM Book website