81% of Industrial Companies Say SaaS Will Become Standard for PLM

Aras releases latest findings from its report, “Spotlight on the Future 2024,” revealing that cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) is fast becoming the dominant deployment model for enterprise PLM.

The report also found that there are several advantages and benefits industrial companies are expecting to realize from the adoption of cloud-based software, chief among them the ability to offload the task of maintaining one’s own infrastructure. Half of the companies surveyed cite automatic updates and ease of maintenance as key advantages of the cloud. Easy access to new features (41%) and increased flexibility (40%) also ranked high for industrial companies, with high security standards (39%), greater functionality (37%) and lower costs (35%) following closely.

“While organizations have been slower to adopt cloud-based solutions for PLM than they have for other enterprise software, we are seeing an acceleration over the past 12 months,” says Roque Martin, CEO of Aras. “These findings reflect what we are seeing in the market: cloud-delivery of PLM and digital thread enhances organizational agility and delivers real economic value.”

Key Takeaways:

• For applications that rely on data exchange, or make one possible in the first place, cloud-based technology is a game-changer. In fact, 93% of industrial companies responded that a flexible and adaptable PLM solution is important to them. 
• While 81% globally believed cloud was the new standard for industrial companies, there were some international differences. In the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and France, the approval rate for the cloud is exceptionally high at 91%. In the UK, it’s 88%, and in the U.S., 82%. The outlier is Japan, where only 60% of industrial companies believe cloud software is the new standard.