PLM Perspective: Close but no Cigar- A Review of PTC’s Website for PLM Resources

It is time to rejoin our tour of the web for PLM resources. Last week I reviewed Oracle's site and this week I will share my perspective on PTC's much improved site. Before we start to dissect the PTC site I wanted to revisit the Oracle blog article:Journey to the Center of the Web-PLM Vendor Websites. I received a response from Oracle on the blog which I thought was well done on their part. It is very important for vendors to monitor the web and stay on top of information related to their products. Sarvesh Jagannivas, VP of Oracle PLM Product Marketing, Steven Young Direct of Oracle PLM Product Marketing and Kerrie Foy-Babbage, Manager of PLM Customer success all responded to the blog. They agreed that PLM could be more prominently featured on the Oracle website and they are currently working on ways to accomplish this objective. They also wanted to emphasize their presence on Twitter with http://twitter.com/agileplm, Facebook with http://www.facebook.com/OracleAgilePLM, their blog- http://blogs.oracle.com/plm/, and their Linkedin Group-http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=66440. I did mention some of these in the article but I wanted to make sure readers had the information and I commend Oracle on their commitment to social media as a means to interact with their clients and prospects.

As we review the PTC site it might be useful to have some context about my background regarding PTC. As with Oracle I have had ties to PTC having worked as a reseller for PTC products from 1992 until recently. Zero Wait-State was a reseller and then an agent with Tri-Star up until March. Currently, we still have a large number of customers using PTC products and we continue to support these customers, provide services and also develop integration products for PTC technology. As with Oracle I will attempt to be objective in my comments and you can determine how authentic my observations are. Historically, PTC 's website reputation was not good. It was fairly common for my clients to complain about how difficult it was to find information on the site. It was poorly organized, buggy, and the information was dated. PTC has put a major effort into addressing these issues over the past few years. I must confess I haven't been to the PTC site recently so when I looked it up for this article I was pleasantly surprised. PTC has made great strides in improving this site and making it a great place to go to look for information regarding their products. However as the title to this blog implies while they have made great strides and do have a very strong web site there are a few things they need to address to make it even better.

When you arrive at PTC.com there seems to be a less is more mindset which is good. You have a bar across the top with headings like products, solutions etc. They also have a three item graphics box that features a timely video and some information about upcoming events and support. It's not spectacular but I think it's fairly effective. There are a few points worth noting about the front page.

• Since this is the most trafficked page on their site it would be a good idea to promote their Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter presence here as a way to bolster participation in their social media initiatives.
•  I would add product lifecycle management to the software capabilities list and tie it to PDMlink.
• One of the feature areas on the front page is called PlanetPTC. This is a new forum area created by PTC and looks very robust with areas for all of PTC's different products including PDMlink. This forum requires the user to register on the site and is a good way for PTC to identify people interested in their products and understand what products and solutions they are looking for. I would feature this more prominently on the front page and probably use a graphics to really draw attention to it.
• The events link is below the fold. I would suggest they move events to the graphics window and try to always have an upcoming event rotating in the window to attract participants.

If you hover over the Products menu at the top and then hover over Windchill you can click PDMlink from a long list of products PTC offers under the Windchill brand. This will take you to a standard page that features a video window at the top similar to the front page but loaded with different content. There is some text about what the product does and then a menu on the right side that provides access to some of the items PTC has identified as critical for potential customers. They also have links for Brochures, Data sheets, Demos , Presentations, etc. I like that you have all of this in one spot and that everything is in context with PDMlink but I suspect there is more content about PDMlink elsewhere and I am not sure about where to go to find it. Here are my thoughts about this page.

• If I click demos there are only five listed, and only four presentations listed. I would suggest linking these menus to a new page where a more thorough list of items can be provided. I realize you can drill down to specific modules in the Windchill menu but it would be nice if there were other ways to gain access to demos or presentations. Having all demos, events and presentations for Windchill centralized would be really helpful so that you can see what is available without having to go to each module page.
• At the bottom of the page they have a "What's new with Windchill" link. I would put this at the top since it most likely is not seen under the fold at the bottom of the page.
•  I really like how the videos change depending on what module you pick. Unfortunately when you move over to the "Business Initiatives" tab under "Solutions" the videos seem to stay the same regardless of which initiative you pick. I assume this is related to the content PTC has available but it might be worthwhile to add a few more videos to this area to round it out.
• I did actually find a "Product Lifecycle Management" solution page thru another menu but the content on it was surprisingly thin. Given that this is one of PTC's core capabilities I would definitely populate this with more information especially the videos and events and I would consider having a link to PDMlink on this page.

All in all I think this is a really good structure and is consistent throughout the website. The framework is excellent but the content needs to be made accessible thru other means that are more centralized.

I mentioned the lack of any information about PTC's social media initiatives around Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin earlier. I don't know if this is by design due to their Social Product Development offerings or if it is an accidental oversight. PTC resources are very active on Twitter and the Pro/Engineer-Did You Know site on Facebook has almost two thousand fans. They have a number of groups on Linkedin including a Windchill specific group with over a thousand members. I think it would be beneficial to promote these sites and Twitter users on their website to generate more activity around these different mediums and create more buzz for PTC. Looking at Hubspot's web grade PTC 's grade is higher than any of their competitors but they lag significantly when it comes to traffic. Using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter to drive traffic back to their site would be an excellent way to bolster their numbers.

In conclusion it is fairly obvious that PTC has taken steps to make their website more valuable for their clients and to move from just a digital brochure. The PlanetPTC site looks very useful and they have a lot of video content and demonstrations that will allow prospects and customers to better understand their solutions. On the negative side they lag behind their competitors in site traffic and need to centralize their demos and events to make it easier for people to find the content on their site. They also need to bolster their PLM content to provide more generic information about product development and industry best practices and to be less oriented toward directly promoting their technology. PTC has made great progress and have an excellent site but still have some work to do so it's "close but no cigar" for now.