You’re struggling to keep up with the competition. How can you improve your performance as a Product Manager?

Continuous improvement should be the focus. Demonstrate Appetite and hunger towards learning. Perform a SWOT analysis for self-evaluation, seek feedback from colleagues, peers, have an open mind to take insights from the feedback. Prepare a development plan focusing on improving the shortcomings. Search for an Industry expert as a mentor who can guide and help to identify the gaps. Read articles, books to enhance your knowledge & be a passionate learner and listener. Be patient as success stories are not build overnight. Plan and work towards the growth with dedication and perseverance.

Use your strengths to build a niche which the competition can't match easily. If you're continuously trying to catch up with the competition, you may be missing something basic. Start thinking about some niche areas where your product can stand out by leveraging on strengths you, your team, your product or your organization inherently has. These could be product features that you or your team can think of, or have the capability to build or certain offerings your org can offer because it has the necessary resources available at sales or service end points. Use these to your advantage. Build a niche around your uniqueness without losing focus on the overall user experience.

Market research: Stay updated on industry trends and competitor products to identify gaps and opportunities. Customer feedback: Gather and analyze feedback to understand needs and improve product accordingly. Data-driven decision making: Utilize data to make informed decisions, measure KPIs and track the success of your product. Networking: Build a strong professional network to gain insights and stay informed about industry advancements. Skill development: Invest in your skills (tech, methodologies and leadership techniques).

if you are not able to compete with your competition there could be a number of reasons for that. The first step should be to identify the cause of the issue. Most of the solutions mentioned here align with building a product strategy to be able to compete, but also make sure the space you are competing has a niche and that you have a differentiated offering that can let you compete. It's definitely okay to close shop and say this space/market is not right for us.

Cultivate a customer-centric mindset, conduct thorough market research, and prioritize data-driven decision-making. Foster cross-functional collaboration, embrace iterative development, and enhance communication skills to articulate a shared vision. Develop strategic roadmaps aligned with business objectives, adopt agile methodologies, and actively network within the industry. Commit to continuous learning, establish effective feedback loops, and conduct regular competitor analyses. Implement robust risk management, define key performance indicators, and champion user advocacy.

Many individual development plans (IDPs) that come up after feedback sessions end up being superficial or surreal, so the ideal thing is for you to define a time period and list which actions you can do, which ones you need help with, and address your advancement plan realistically. Furthermore, it's important to have follow-up; talk to your manager so that this follow-up is respected through meetings at a defined frequency. 1:1 forums help to have this proximity and assist in the process of evolution.

There are 3 key things for me. Reflect, Continuous discovery & improvement, Set goals. The market and the industry is changing fast. To keep up with it, one should reflect always on what worked and what not. This reflection will help to understand the gaps, strength and weaknesses. As you do in product management, follow continuous discover throughout your work, as a person and professional. Identify the areas you can improve, learn new skills (not coding but persuasion, consumer behaviour, etc) and take feedback from your colleagues and work on it. Set goals for yourself in a way that SMART. This will give you a purpose to follow a path. Last but not least, speak to your industry fellows and keep learning.

Leveraging insights from competitors while unlearning ineffective practices is crucial. This empowers product managers to scrutinize their business models more effectively, gaining an edge over current and future rivals. Additionally, emerging business models often draw inspiration from diverse industries, and their efficacy is tested with existing customers. For instance, numerous startups in health, hospitality, and gig work have embraced Uber’s asset-light model. Product managers’ receptiveness to learning from both direct and indirect competitors, as well as other businesses and customers, is pivotal in driving success for their products.

This is terrible advice for a product manager if you want to be successful. The truth of the matter is that the most successful product managers adopt a servant-leader model of management. Hence, for any issue that arises, they hold themselves accountable. Conversely, all praise given to them is distributed to the individual contributors who did the work. Accept the blame, and hand out the accolades. This creates a bond with those you are trying to lead through influence: the product manager shields me from chaos while ensuring I receive recognition for my efforts. Servant leaders recognize that power is granted willfully, not taken by force. This directly opposes any PM claiming to be "the CEO of the product." Terrible mindset.

While it’s important for product managers to be aware of and to be closing competitive gaps between products, too much focus on the competition leads to a myopic view of the opportunity and stagnates innovation. If a PM solely focuses on closing competitive gaps, they will always be behind…and will only be as good as the competition. Real product innovators focus on the customer and their problems and then develops new features that solves those problems. These are things the competition doesn’t have. This offense vs defensive approach will help the PM to gain the upper hand with a tough competitor.

Solo me gustaría complementar lo ya se?alado lo cual comparto, es la pasión para hacer todo en la vida, estoy convencido de que la Pasión con la cual hacemos cada cosa en todos los ámbitos de nuestra vida, es el motor para sacar adelante cada uno de esos desafíos