What is product lifecycle management (PLM)?
Discover how product lifecycle management optimizes resources, fosters innovation, and ensures product success in a competitive market.
By: Thomas Broderick, Edited by: Marie Custodio Collazo
Published: June 19, 2025
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reports that only 5% of products succeed. Product lifecycle management (PLM) is crucial in ensuring those successful products rise above the competition. By overseeing a product's journey from conception to retirement, PLM helps businesses optimize resources, foster innovation, and reduce errors. In this article, you'll discover how PLM drives success, explore related career opportunities, and learn how to manage this vital process.
What is the role of PLM?
Production lifecycle management consists of different business best practices and principles. Teams of highly trained professionals collaborate to plan, refine, launch, and tweak products to meet consumers' needs. These teams work with the product until the company decides to retire it.
What are the essential elements of PLM
- The people buying the product
- The culture
- Product specifications
- Engineering and business processes
- Program and project management
Why is PLM important?
Product lifecycle management offers companies many advantages that include:
- Improving communication among customers, distributors, and vendors
- Optimizing resources across all business functions
- Encouraging innovation
- Reducing errors
- Keeping stakeholders informed of the latest changes
- Conserving financial, material, and human resources
PLM vs. product management
Product lifecycle management
- PLM emphasizes collaboration between the internal team, outside suppliers, and vendors.
- Team members focus on the product lifecycle from start to finish.
- Successful product lifecycle management ensures that a company uses its resources wisely.
Product management
- Product management emphasizes collaboration between internal development and marketing teams.
- Team members focus on product development.
- Successful product management ensures that a company produces a product that meets consumers' needs.
Careers in PLM
Successful product lifecycle management involves a team of highly trained professionals. Opportunities include:
- Technical product manager
- Data product manager
- Product marketing manager
- Project lifecycle management lead
- Project management specialist
Many of these roles exist in the field of project management, although each has a specific focus area. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, project management specialists earned a median annual salary of $100,750 as of May 2024.
What skills do product lifecycle managers need to succeed?
Product lifecycle managers and product managers have overlapping skill sets. These skills help professionals work with diverse groups of stakeholders, collaborate with peers, and react to quickly changing situations. You can learn these skills through formal education and on-the-job training.
- Agile principles: Product lifecycle managers must know how to reduce waste and respond to feedback. Mastery of different workflow management systems can help them keep projects on track.
- Communication: Communication skills help product lifecycle managers collaborate with outside vendors/suppliers and internal teams. Digital tools help managers gather feedback from these and other groups throughout the product life cycle.
- Conflict resolution: Conflicts among suppliers, vendors, and internal teams may occur during a product's life cycle. Product lifecycle managers must know how to help these groups find common ground and compromise.
- Flexibility: Managing a product's life cycle means reacting to unexpected changes in consumers' needs or broader economic trends. Contingency planning and risk management can help professionals build flexibility into their projects.
- Leadership: Product lifecycle managers oversee teams and provide feedback. Good leadership skills are necessary for offering guidance and support.
- Research and analysis: Data research and analysis help product lifecycle managers determine their products' strengths and areas for improvement. They can then turn this data into action plans for their internal teams.
How to become a product lifecycle manager
Step #1: Complete formal education.
Start learning product management in a certificate or a bachelor's degree program. These options provide you with the academic foundation that entry-level positions require. A certificate program can teach you how to:
- Define product requirements
- Find the right customers
- Manage teams
College certificates emphasize specific skills, such as lean product management. They also award credit, making them a great option if you eventually want to pursue a degree.
If you enroll in a bachelor's program, consider majoring in management. This major can teach you the fundamentals you need for an entry-level job. Core courses may include:
- Business policy and strategy
- Project management
- Principles of management
Step #2: Learn on the job.
On-the-job training plays an essential role in learning PLM. You can start this training before graduation by completing an internship. A business or management internship lets you:
- Network with experienced professionals
- Explore different roles
- Build your résumé
- Develop communication, conflict resolution, and research skills
Your academic and career advisors can help you find a placement focusing on PLM. If your college does not offer internships, check job boards for summer internship opportunities in your area.
In your first role, continue learning from experienced PLM professionals. They can help you plan your next career steps.
Step #3: Get certified.
Recent graduates and early career professionals can advance their careers through professional certification.
- Oracle Product Lifecycle Management Implementation Professional: This certification appeals to product design, portfolio management, and stewardship professionals. Requirements include taking one course and passing an exam. Oracle University certifications remain valid for two years.
- Standard Certificate of PLM Leadership: Offered by industry leader CIMdata, this certification course lasts five days and emphasizes process development and testing, product lifecycle management implementation, and development and testing. Other requirements include a final assessment.
- Windchill: Fundamentals Overview: Software developer PTC created Windchill to help companies streamline product lifecycle management. In just three hours, you can master Windchill's user interface and build simple tables.
Step #4: Advance your education.
Product management executive education programs are a great way to learn new skills without pausing your career. Most programs last 6–8 weeks and appeal to mid- to late-career professionals wanting to become better managers.
An MBA with a concentration in product management can help you specialize further and improve your résumé. A typical two-year program may comprise courses in:
- Product and brand management
- Digital storytelling
- Pricing models and operations
- Leading product strategy
Graduate outcomes include creating new marketing strategies and optimizing resources within your organization. Product lifecycle managers with an MBA can pursue a career as a director of product management.
Learn the skills for a career in PLM on edX
Learn more about product lifecycle management with edX classes and courses that can help you start or advance your career.