Recently the roadmap for Oracle Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) was hit with a brick wall when Oracle announced End of Life in 2027. With this inevitability looming large, Agile users are forced to seriously consider a proactive change in route and—in the most dire cases—take the nearest exit.
The Agile PLM Risk Assessment Quiz is designed to give you a chance to reflect on the effectiveness of your business risk mitigation, and really consider if you’re leaving yourself open to disaster — like a sudden forced shutdown, disgruntled users, or a security breach.
In other words, it’s your chance to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Determining Your Risk
With a team of Agile PLM software experts—including two founding members of Agile—we’ve determined key factors that might help indicate how close you are to crashing into the proverbial brick wall.
Factors include:
- Which capabilities are most critical in your day-to-day
- How much you’re investing in resources and support
- How much your business relies on the Oracle product portfolio
Regardless, what we’ve found is that it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when.’
YOUR RISK EXPOSURE:
Agile users need to remember—these threats aren’t always visible. The clock is incessantly ticking, marking the relentless march towards a future where the Agile system's limitations become insurmountable barriers to growth and security.
These reasons are why your Agile PLM system may be your biggest liability:
Security: The stories are more and more frequent. Cyberattacks on major Fortune enterprises like American Express, Samsung, and UnitedHealth amounted to serious losses. Or ticking time bombs like the common software Log4j, which the Director of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency called “the most serious vulnerability she’s seen in her career.”
Regardless of your industry, risk management is a top-of-mind concern. Whether it’s protecting sensitive product information, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards, navigating legal and commercial requirements, or simply making sure all vulnerabilities are covered, your enterprise solution is the deciding line between surviving and thriving.
Version Locks: As part of daily business processes, IT runs frequent security scans and is notified when something needs upgrading. Systems like Windows, Weblogic, and Java are running on unsupported and outdated versions not up to security industry standards because Agile no longer complies with the newer versions. These are not only huge security holes, but they also leave the business exposed to supply chain disruption, product data degradation, validation issues, and overall decreased functionality.
Increased costs: When your IT cost management starts to include all the third-party vendors writing code for Process Extensions or integrations, VPNs for security, and constant Oracle support—you’ve long since passed diminishing returns on product costs. As opposed to cloud PLM solutions that are designed to support real-time collaboration among stakeholders, enabling rapid iteration and innovation.
Losing Talent: For years, the attraction and retention of talent have been increasingly more difficult in the manufacturing space. That’s because prospective and current team members alike know how much better they could have it. With every other digital touchpoint in their lives catering to them with convenience, automation, notifications, and constantly improving user interfaces, they know that Agile PLM is miles behind the curve. And they will leave to seek out a company that knows it, too.
Falling Behind: Each day spent tethered to an outdated system is a day lost in the race toward innovation. Functionality that streamlines workflows and accelerates the product development process across the entire value chain is an advantage your competitors likely have already. Already, businesses are leveraging methodologies that enhance product quality through adaptability and proactive decision-making. Not to mention, significantly reducing time to market—so their new product can be available before yours.
For Agile Users Facing a Roadblock...
It’s time to try working without feeling the constant threat of security breaches.
Instead of clunky, siloed data management with manual uploads, it’s time to try a truly continuous digital product record that connects product management to quality management to marketing and field service.
Instead of writing code for every change order, it’s time to try in-app change management using custom configurations and no code.
Instead of insecure integrations with outdated code, it’s time to try modern APIs that can seamlessly integrate with common ERPs like Netsuite and Microsoft Dynamics.
YOUR NEXT MOVE
If you find your risk is higher than you thought, it may be time to seriously consider making a change.
Agile users who are facing a major roadblock should pivot to a cloud-native solution—one that’s built on a robust, continuously updated, modern platform like Salesforce. While Oracle Cloud is an attempt to rise to this occasion, it’s time to try a solution that’s been built on the cloud from its very inception. Propel Software was developed with legacy PLM users in mind, to offer them a familiar user experience but with the benefit of continuous innovation.
Data migration and project management can be scary undertakings, but it’s easier when you remember you’re losing profitability every day you’re on Agile. Plus, Propel has proven success with Agile migrations and a support team to walk you through it every step of the way.
Try the low-risk, high-reward solution. Speak with an expert today.
