Thursday, March 22, 2018

Essentials Of Strategic Product Management

By Karen Reed


Managing products often involve planning, forecasting, production, and marketing of a value chain. This is a desirable undertaking for continuous improvement of the article or substance through innovation, value orientation and to optimize the utilization of resources. Product management is an important organizational role that gives an article or substance a competitive edge in a globalized and liberalized market.

A strategy for continuous and daily thinking and execution is integral to the development of competitive products and tapping into the identified market opportunities. A manager takes into consideration the market and competitive conditions supported by robust research and lay out a vision that meets the value and need expectation of the customer.

An article or substance manager is basically involved in all aspects of developing products. These aspects may include rollout plans, value management, value chains and definitions. Not restricted to only that, managers also have the responsibility of coming up with market strategies, product forecasting etc. To be effective, any system should have a seamless interdependency between the different relevant departments or units within a company.

The input of the customer is critical towards understanding the customer's business challenges. This will be helpful in enhancing the quality and value of an article or substance, either by enhancing an already existing article or scrapping it altogether. Additionally, this affords managers an opportunity to critically investigate market opportunities in order to develop attractive, strong and competitive products that solve the problems of the customer. This can be done using tools for information collection on enhancement ideas and letting stakeholders have their say for consideration by the manager.

Innovation and enterprise are two qualities a manager must possess. These help when dealing with particularly difficult products. In such situations, an effective manager should be innovative and not restrictive in his search for a viable solution.

The forecasting stage is very important. This is where contingency plans are made against any unforeseen circumstances. A strong contingency plan indicates that a manager is well prepared for any future changes that may be caused by internal or external forces.

A result oriented approach will go a long in ensuring that set targets or goals are met. The manager maintains focus on driving the sales outcome of the article with keen responsibility in research, data collection and analysis, review of key performance indicators. This contributes greatly to strategy review and planning for action as and when required. Based on this, the manager is able to ensure adequate allocation of resources to execute on vision as well as strongly and confidently articulate the strategy and direction of an article or substance.

A good system results in good products. A good system is reliant on the effective working together of different departments with different functions and level of expertise. This ensures that an article or substance goes from its planning stage to its successful execution.




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