New development is the focus of product management, delivering solutions that serve market needs. It should not fixate on profitability. a&s looks at identifying customer problems, incorporating changes and future scalability throughout the product life cycle.
New development is the focus of product management, delivering solutions that serve market needs. It should not fixate on profitability. a&s looks at identifying customer problems, incorporating changes and future scalability throughout the product life cycle.
Dreaming up a product requires creativity, as well as teamwork. Innovation rarely takes place in a vacuum, requiring effort to delve into market needs. After careful consideration, those customer issues are then translated into a finished solution.
Product management covers the entire product life cycle, but the main focus is on driving new product development. A differentiated product that delivers unique benefits and value to customers will make it a successful and profitable one. Too often, though, profitability becomes the top priority, resulting in poorly thought-out product launches that have little differentiation or do not offer a migration path for existing equipment.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay afloat, but good product management goes beyond making a quick buck. Product managers should have an in-depth understanding of customer problems to develop a solution that meets or exceeds their expectations. Generating ROI is important, but is not the ultimate goal of product management.
Once the solution nears completion, a marketing plan ensures that the sales team, channel partners and end customers are aware of it. After the product launch, the product manager can monitor market changes and adjust the next release accordingly.
Catering to Needs
Product management boils down to being in touch with the market. A manufacturer will gather input from system integrators and distributors. End users are also consulted, either through events at trade shows or site visits. Product managers need to conduct due diligence before sitting down with R&D to discuss specs.
Understanding market acceptance requires maintaining good two-way communication with channel partners and end users who are using the solution. “Besides reviewing market research reports, product managers must be externally focused to understand the voice of the customer, to the point that they must be closer to the customer and accompany the sales team on customer calls and end-user demonstrations,” said Daniel Cremins, PM of March Networks. “In some cases, the customers themselves have a hard time describing what solution they really want, and a site visit to the end user is required to document use cases on their day-to-day activities. Market analysis, competitive environment and understanding who the target audience is shape what the solution will be.”
Customer feedback includes product ease of use, installability and reliability. Product managers then separate the “must-have” requests from “nice-to-haves,” based on their marketplace understanding, Cremins said.
After understanding customer needs, the sales team can determine whether a business case can be made for specific requests. “Our very experienced local sales teams help us quantify the true size of market for each new product and what the respective price point should be,” said Peter Ainsworth, Senior PM, Europe, Samsung Techwin. “The solution to minimizing the wastage of R&D funds should be very simple — to listen very carefully to the opinions of the people who really ‘know' and that is the installers and system integrators who are the closest to the end users.”
Understanding business initiatives help pinpoint weak points in the customer's operations. “For example, a retailer might need a solution to measure customer footfall or customer dwell time,” said Andrew Pigram, Technical Director at Norbain. “We've helped design systems for a large car manufacturer, who wanted the service managers to be texted as a customer was driving into the premises for a car service. So we put in a VIP LPR system linked to the service-booking system for their retail outlets. It could be any interested party; the higher up the chain, the better for us. That's where you get good ideas.”
Getting feedback means regular meetings among distributors, integrators, manufacturers and end users. While not everyone meets at the same time, different events — product demonstrations, training seminars and site visits — cater to specific needs. “We have quarterly meetings with product management, sales and major suppliers,” Pigram said. “We work with them on that to get a lot of feedback, and then they can come to our sales meetings as well.”
Product managers can visit an average of three end users per month. “Once on site, the visit is typically at least half the day, to spend the necessary time with the customer to understand their needs and day-to-day operations,” Cremins said.
The supplier's product management team will also train distributors and customers on their latest solutions and find out about market requirements, Ainsworth said.