Plex manufacturing makes happy customers – which leads to healthy growth

I recently attended PowerPlex, Plex Systems’ annual user conference, the largest in their history with over 1000 attendees. It was hosted in the biosphere that is the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville Tennessee; I think I have finally figured out how to navigate the vast property (anyone who has been there knows that the place is absolutely massive, over a beer I am happy to share a funny experience…it involves different shades of green and trying to enter the wrong room).

Show me some numbers!

Enough about my issues with hotel lay outs, what was not confusing from my time spent in Nashville was the positive energy that was running throughout the event. The high level of enthusiasm as well as the positive attitude flowed through the event – Plex truly is living up to their goal of making their customers “happy ERP customers.”

Some highlights from the event:

• It is all about being the best manufacturer possible – Plex’s community of customers is truly touching a large part of the global economy. From main stage, CEO Jason Blessing, highlighted some impressive numbers of what Plex solutions are powering throughout their installed base:
  • 6m items are being produced weekly.
  • 41m quality checks are taking place per year.
  • $25b worth of customer revenue generated annually.
  • 945b pounds of materials handled on an annual basis.

Some impressive numbers indeed. The lesson to be drawn from these figures is that, as manufacturing remains a vital driver for the economy, Plex continues to play an important role in making this happen. Bottom line as Jerry Foster, VP of Research and Development, said, “Our job is to ensure manufacturers can manufacture more efficiently every day.” It was clear from main stage as well my hallway conversations that Plex remains true to this mantra. They are completely laser focused on how they can partner with their customers to be the best manufacturers possible.

• The core is solid, but now it is time to improve the edges – The core functionality for Plex is humming along, while Plex certainly is not resting on their laurels, there was discussion around the work Plex has been embarking on with complimentary aspects of their solution. One such area was an emphasis on a new and friendlier user interface, calling it Plex UX. This is not a minor challenge for a company like Plex and the customers they are servicing. Unlike other software providers, the Plex software is truly being leveraged from shop floor to top floor. Plex UX has to be adaptive to a shop floor, which contains many environmental challenges, as well as users who maybe interacting with the software while wearing gloves or other manufacturing gear. At the same time a head of manufacturing, CFO or COO needs to interact with the same software in an office environment. Not a simple design challenge. Look for this to be rolled out in Q4 of this year. The interface is also only as useful as the data and insights that are available, that is where their Plex Insight comes into play. This offering empowers Plex customers to extract the right data from their systems, truly giving a full understanding of data that is being processed. A third new offering is Plex Connect, a platform to connect the vast expanse of data generating parts of the Plex environment. This is most exciting, to this author, when it comes to tying the data being produced from IoT enabled parts of the manufacturing and supply chains. Potentially a real game changer for Plex. In addition to these new offerings, Plex spoke at length of their partnerships with Workday, Demandcaster and Salesforce. Highlighting their focus on bringing together enhanced cloud based offerings to their customer base.

• Lets get serious about some toys – Apple watch, Google glass, wired clothing, GoGlove and wristband technologies from the likes of Myo and Nymi were all highlighted as areas of continuing focus for Plex. Good. At Constellation Research we are constantly challenging our customers to think about and to be willing to explore areas of digital disruption that can and are impacting their industries. Plex’s continue efforts to explore how they can leverage new technologies and more importantly how they can work with their customers to utilize these new offerings will continue to pay dividends. Plex’s work in the wearables space is of particular interest. For example, they discussed working with clients on connected vests to make the shop floor safer. Environments where heavy machinery, such as forklifts, are constantly in motion, being able to have safety measures such as IoT enabled vests, which can alert drivers of workers on the floor – preventing accidents. The opportunity for Plex is to take some of these learning and offerings and push into areas they currently do not have a presence – think warehousing and even yard management. As IoT, wearables and even drones become more prevalent on shop floors, look for Plex to continue to explore how to make sure these allow companies to manufacture more efficiently.

As I wrote a few months ago after attending the Plex analyst day, the company continues to push towards some lofty heights. Based on the financials the executive team shared with us this growth is being reflected in the numbers, especially impressive is their average annual revenue per customer, which is trending upwards. It is clear that Jason and the executive team are also putting more wood behind the arrow as they are targeting another 100% increase in quota carrying sales executives by end of year. It was also evident in the customer stories from the likes of Accuride, Sanders Fine Chocolates, Fisher & Co, American Axle and Floracraft to name a few.

Of course the road ahead is not without challenges. The company is pushing up stream into larger accounts, which will start putting them head to head with a new batch of formidable competitors. There is also global expansion. While their solutions are being used in over 20 countries, at some point Plex will need to target and close business with manufacturers that are not headquartered in the United States. While they argue there remains plenty of business in the domestic market, for Plex to truly achieve some of the goals they have they will have to target some global geographies.

A good challenge for Jason and his team, one that will determine how far Plex can go. As long as they focus on making “happy ERP customers,” Plex will continue to have success.

Plex – working hard to get their fill

Another week another analyst day…this time it was to Detroit and a meeting with Plex Systems. Between my attempts to discover where South Detroit was located and enjoying a great tour of the Sanders Fine Chocolate factory, I was able to spend an educational day and half with the Plex executive team. The time was well spent getting an update on where Plex ended up in 2014 and where they are heading for 2015. A few take aways:

Cloud remains the theme of the day. Plex continues to push and leverage the fact that they have been focused on delivering their solutions via the cloud since day one. That all their applications and solutions are 100% cloud focused. While the reality is that users are not 100% sold on going all in with cloud based applications, the tide continues to turn. By some estimates close to half of Chief Supply Chain officers are still hesitant about the value of the cloud. However it is our contention that much of that is due to only hearing terms like “multi-tenant,” “no version upgrades,” or “lower TCO” to describe the value of the cloud. There continues to be a gap in the market of solution providers demonstrating what NEW business models the cloud allows. The elasticity the cloud offers, the ability to quickly achieve network effects or even the fluidity the cloud offers need to be the reason to leverage the cloud. For example the ability for Plex to quickly get on line a factory gives their customers the necessary flexibility to make the business decisions necessary in the current manufacturing environments. The value of the cloud is in the new business models it allows the users of cloud applications to take advantage of, not simply that it will cost less than on premise. Plex has an advantage that they are fully focused on how the business models the cloud offers, but other vendors are quickly closing that gap.

Plex continues to get its house in order: What struck me from CEO Jason Blessing’s opening discussion was the pace at which they are ramping up quota carrying sales representatives. They have doubled the number of sales reps in 2014 from 2013 and plan to continue on that trajectory in 2015. But what is more important is their reorganization of the team. Separating the farmers from the hunters, as well as assigning a team to focus on the process industry, a new focus for Plex. I realize that at times banal items like number of sales reps is not as fun to discuss as new feature function, but the reality is I have yet to see a product that sells itself. You better have the boots on the ground to drive the revenue. Plex is also making continued investments in their R&D, more than doubling the amount invested year over year in 2014. What remains to be seen is can Plex hire the right people to their sales team and will their efforts in R&D keep pace with their renewed efforts in the customer acquisition side? Based on their domestic addressable market they should have plenty of targets to go after for their pipeline. But we will also keep an eye on their potential global expansion – where will Plex make their first true foray into the international markets? China, Germany or maybe India?

Is the portfolio ready for prime time? Plex’s approach to the market by offering a three level approach: full ERP, dual ERP or Hybrid ERP is just a fancy way of saying you can buy our full suite as a stand alone, use it in conjunction with existing ERP system or buy our point solutions. An underlying theme in the discussions was Plex’s move towards enhancing their overall solution portfolio but also starting to approach more sales opportunities with stand alone modules such as MES, Supplier quality, EDI or Inventory Management. This strategy resonates with what we believe the market has an appetite for. The days or major ERP overhauls are past, even if there continues to be disgruntled customers using large ERP solutions from the usual suspects. But point solution sales or tackling parts of the ERP puzzle will continue to be ripe. The challenge for Plex is around their portfolio. They mentioned many stand alone MES opportunities, but what about the other solutions. More importantly where does their product road map go from here? Whether they have more solutions to fill out their overall portfolio as well as sell as stand alone offerings. For example – warehouse management (WMS), forecasting and planning engines or even demand sensing analytical engines. Plex must be shrewd in their decision of where to invest moving forward.

Overall it feels as if bright days are ahead for Plex. The market opportunity is ripe, they have been building on their extensive experience in the discrete manufacturing space, demonstrate a dogged focus on making their customers all “happy ERP customers” and have a cohesive management team. However, they are approaching a stage where many companies begin to lose their way or hit the proverbial wall. It will be up to the executive team to continue to have a laser focus on their primary markets and ensure they are judicious with the development of solutions and applications that complement this strategy. Often companies begin to chase shadows and false hopes while trying to maintain their growth rate. They spend too much treasure and human resources in solutions that are too tangential to their core business or chase markets that are just beyond the reach of their core competencies.

Some will win and some will lose, it is up to Plex to be the former.