A Journey to Product Management

We often see companies developing products they cannot sell. We often see companies selling things that aren’t developed. High performing Product Management enables companies to sell what is developed and develop what we can sell.

Do we have the right skill set in our sales force to sell not only products but complete solutions including an extensive service offering?

Product management is a key organisational process for high tech B2B companies involving more or less all parts of the company. Product management role is built on three pillars - Product Planning, Product Strategy, and Product Marketing. Product management as four key areas is

Product planning: Making sure that the right product is offered

Product marketing: Enabling the product to reach its potential

Product strategy: The guide for product value delivery over the life cycle (Connects selling with development, making sure what we develop can and will be sold and that we market what we have in our portfolio or road-map).

Creating insights: Understanding legacy, ecosystems/markets and driving forces (Insights is not only the market insights but also about our own capabilities and strategies- cutting edge designs, the foundation for generating a product strategy and to tie it all together)

As product managers we have to identify and leverage market opportunities in the ecosystem and create solutions to solve multi-dimensional user problems.  Product planning and Product marketing are clear outputs from Product Management. The Product strategy shall be used in product planning but also in product marketing. The problem is often to be found in product planning or in product marketing. But to deliver it we need the strategy and the insights. Reality check is a crucial part of the role as Product Manager. Product Managers must never be afraid to speak up and give factual input.

Key interfaces for a product manager are: corporate management, development, operations and sales & marketing.