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This article was originally written for and published by Tech-Clarity.
Tech-Clarity’s Jim Brown had the opportunity to join Propulsion 2025, Propel Software’s sixth annual user event and its second in-person conference. It was exciting to share in the energy from the manufacturers using Propel as they gathered to learn from Propel leaders, partners, and especially their fellow customers.
Propel continues to grow in both core PLM capabilities and further their unique Product Value Management (PVM) strategy under the leadership of CEO Ross Meyercord. In addition, they continue to leverage the capabilities of the Salesforce platform to bring new value to their product and customers. This year, Propel announced significant plans for AI with a robust approach that would likely be out of reach for most vendors their size, but is accessible to Propel and their customers through their relationship with Salesforce.
What Makes Propel Special
Let’s step back to discuss Propel’s unique scope. Their PVM (Product Value Management) platform integrates elements of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Quality Management Systems (QMS), and Product Information Management (PIM). We’ve written about PVM before and believe it’s a compelling approach for companies looking to better streamline product innovation, product development, and product commercialization. Salesforce also provides the ability for Propel to extend into the product service lifecycle.
Beyond the functional strategy, Propel is interesting because they inherit extremely robust and capable technology underpinnings from the Salesforce platform. Because of this, Propel was cloud-native from the start and can take advantage of Salesforce’s product roadmap investments. This showed up at Propulsion this year with the introduction of Agentic AI.
The Strategic, Transformative Power of AI
To get people thinking strategically about AI, Propel brought in R "Ray" Wang of Constellation Research, Inc. Ray gave an energetic, well-researched presentation on how companies can leverage AI to redefine and transform their businesses. He discussed examples where new technology opened the door for brand new business models, using CocaCola and Sam’s Club as examples. His talk set the bar for strategic changes similar to what Amazon did to redefine buying experiences as the internet and the world wide web gained traction. It was great food for thought.
Practical and Accessible AI
Following Ray’s talk about strategic, fundamental shifts that are possible by rethinking business were other presentations about how AI can help with more everyday, practical tasks. There was an interesting contrast in the presentations. Because the audience at the event was not necessarily those who could fundamentally change the business, we were encouraged that the following use cases presented by both Salesforce and Propel were approachable, practical, and achievable for the participants.
VP Solutions Marketing Kevin Crothers and Senior Product Marketing Director Jill Mueller demonstrated some of Propel’s current AI offerings such as extracting engineering specs to create PIM data, reading through product documentation to create quiz questions for field service teams, and summarizing product thread information about a serialized asset to create a unified digital thread from engineering and service data. These may not reinvent the business, but they can certainly improve efficiency, quality, and time to market. Although these tactical changes taken individually may seem small, they are achievable, can add value quickly, and in aggregate they provide very strategic improvements.
The Strategic Value of Salesforce’s Agentforce
Salesforce also presented practical examples, including asking questions in Spanish for AI to find and summarize information from English documentation, proactively noticing errors on an asset using real-time data, and providing a 24x7 agent on the website. These capabilities from Salesforce come from Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI platform. Propel is embedding Agentforce capabilities into their platform to create their AI offering, Propel One. Propel currently has two agents available on Salesforce App Exchange: Propel One for Product Engineering and Propel One for Product Information, and plans to ship a series of packaged agents with Propel One, and also allow customers to modify them or create their own to meet their unique needs.
Senior Product Manager Steve Toukmaji and Jill Mueller also presented on AI advancements. They shared Propel’s guiding principles that data is secure, humans stay in the loop, and they will focus on high value “jobs to be done.” They also went into detail about the Agenforce Trust Layer, a very mature approach to managing AI inherited from Agentforce. It’s another example of where Propel gains significant value from Salesforce R&D investments.
Furthering PLM Capabilities
Propel is what we typically call a supply-chain-centric PLM solution as opposed to an engineering-centric PLM. In this way, it serves manufacturers in fast-moving markets who typically procure elements of their product, such as high-tech, electronics, MedTech, consumer goods, and other related industries. Deep CAD integration, in this form of PLM, is a lower priority. Having said that, Propel’s customers are asking for more and Propel is responding. Propel plans to release DesignHub this fall with integration to 10 mechanical and electrical CAD solutions.
Chief Product Officer Eric Schrader shared further product roadmap plans, including demonstrations by Kevin Crothers and Director of Technical Product Marketing Michael Prom. These included trace matrix enhancements, visual communication improvements, and component insights to evaluate BOMs with help from their partner SiliconExpert. One of the more interesting concepts highlights the comprehensive nature of the combined Propel Salesforce offering, connecting product and customer thread in a holistic “Product Graph” that extends fully into the service lifecycle. There is much more than we could cover here, but the key takeaway is that Propel continues to invest across their PVM footprint in addition to introducing a robust AI strategy.
A Unique Opportunity with Agile Customers
There were a number of customer presentations, too many for us to detail here. We do want to mention one interesting trend we heard across the presentations. Several customers mentioned transitioning from Agile. As Oracle is no longer supporting Agile, many diehard companies are being forced to choose a new solution. Given the shared history and deep Agile expertise through Founder and Chairman Ray Hein and Eric Schrader, it’s no surprise they see Propel as a logical replacement option. Propel is not the only choice, nor the only vendor offering a safe haven to these manufacturers. But they are a logical consideration based on the history of the company, the PVM approach, the QMS capabilities built with traceability and compliance in mind, and the customer base.
Key Takeaways
Propel put on an energetic event and customers gained a lot from it. They highlighted key advancements in the product as well as their AI strategy. We look forward to following Propel’s progress and growth.
Thank You
Thank you Propel for including me in your user event. It was educational and enjoyable. We really appreciate events like this where you can see the enthusiasm of the customers and see them eager to learn from their vendor and fellow customers.
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