Does being sales driven organization compromises product management?
Amit Kumar Singh
Business Head at India's #1 Real Estate Classifieds Platform - 99acres.com | P&L Ownership | People Leadership
In a start-up crazy India, innovation is a concept which is open to convenient interpretation by individuals. I am often asked by individuals if being sales driven organization makes Product Management a challenging role to innovate.
Well, Product Management is a means to an end and not an end in itself. It is an end to business, therefore such line of thought should be inquired with the objectives and we may find ourselves creating a "sellable" product.
A product not selling is perhaps falling short of really solving a genuine consumer problem. Now, there may be many reasons for not selling and there lies the opportunity for product management.
This opportunity is "innovation". It may come in any shape - price, positioning, product features or pivoting around un-expressed consumer needs or changing consumer behaviour with technology penetration.
Make no mistakes, blind sighted innovation may not help businesses move forward and at Info Edge, we help product management to align themselves with businesses to choose the innovation that helps in business.
I started this journey five years back and I feel that we "innovate" everyday.
Happy to hear your thoughts on this. Please leave comments to share your opinions.
Specialist in Strategy, Business Development, Category Management,Brand Monetisation & Business Process Improvement.
8 年Its true , initially a sales driven organization is myopic on product development. But they quickly can overcome that if there is a strong alignment between departments . The Products teams gets 1st hand feedback to work and provide the correct features to sell and provide customer satisfaction both internally & externally.
Ex CFO - Collegedekho.com
8 年A good product is the best tool a sales person can have. That is its test too.
Senior Engineering Manager at Microsoft | ex LinkedIn | MS in CS, University of Illinois at Chicago
8 年Amit your post is really informative. I think that sales teams can give useful feedback to the engineering team about the customer's needs and wants. Many a times, we engineers don't have a deep insight into what an average customer thinks. I think that the sales team can provide that feedback to us to help us innovate better. You are totally right that innovation cannot be an end in itself in a business setting. The picture is totally different in the field of research where innovation and invention can be an end in itself. But a business needs to solve the problems of a consumer in order to make profits.
Data Plumber
8 年"Sales driven" has two interpretations. 1. Creating products that sell: Product management must strive to create products that are useful, valuable and feasible. Feasible not only stops at technical feasibility but also includes feasibility to sell - pricing, sales cycles among others. This type of "sales driven" product management is perfectly fine and in fact helps firm up products. 2. Bespoke Product Management: Sales department is driven by short-term goals and a huge part of their compensation depends on how much they really sell. Hence, it is not unusual for sales to pressurise product management to do bespoke products - which do not scale, are unmaintainable and not really sustainable. This type of "sales driven" product management is dangerous.