Five Sources of Business Intelligence Product Managers Should Use

The Product Manager’s job is super challenging. Product Managers should set the tone for building the right thing at the right time. This is a huge responsibility as the resources involved are very valuable and expensive, and therefore must be used wisely. Having said that, there’s no 100% success in product planning. When you innovate you can also fail. 

When planning roadmaps, the Product Manager’s job is to increase the chances of success. Good Product Managers plan as if they don’t know anything and are looking for as much information possible to increase their confidence.

Whether you are an early-stage entrepreneur, a Product Manager looking for a Product-Market-Fit or a Product Manager in a company that is in its growth stage, here are the 5 go-to sources of information you should learn from:

1. User Feedback

Your users know more than anyone what your product needs. Ask them for feedback, but keep in mind that this is a biased data sample. Be careful not to allow specific feature requests to distract you from your business goals and product vision.

2. Competitive Analysis

You thrive to build a product that provides a unique value to the market, but your competitors want to do the same thing. Map your product against competitor tools. Learn what people like and don’t like about competitors’ products, and what users wish they had (high importance and low satisfaction from existing solutions). 

3. Sales and Customer Success

No need to look too far for valuable product feedback. Your salespeople and Customer Success team are regularly communicating with your customers. Learn from them about common feature requests, existing customers’ usage, satisfaction, and trends.

4. Market Research

To plan and execute the right strategy, you should study industry reports about your product domain. Look for industry-leading analysts’ reports that track and monitor the market to learn what types of products work for whom and why.

5. Qualitative Data Analysis

Opinions are great but look for supporting data. If you have actual user data on your product (or similar products), you have a powerful source of business intelligence to make informed decisions on which ideas are worth pursuing.

The above is a MUST, but remember that you should also pick the brain of other teams within your company, such as the development team, marketing, design and more.

To Summarize

Working closely with the above sources will help you:

1. Set the right goals and KPIs
2. Plan and execute great product strategy
3. Increase the confidence of your decisions
4. Find market opportunities and innovate 
5. Make sure that the product is heading in the right direction

What other sources of information are you using to make informed decisions?