The product manager

Dhe increase in more competitors and sales markets has required customer-oriented development and continuous product launches over the last 30 years. The pressure for more innovations, for lower prices, variety of variants, ecology and a better design leads to an ever increasing complexity even for simple products. This complexity requires a responsible manager - the product manager (PM). Increased job advertisements, training and further education, surveys and congresses for product management prove the increasing importance.

Weaknesses in product management

Switzerland's first Product Management Festival took place in Zurich from 16 to 19 September 2013. A consensus of the international speakers and participants was that the role of the PM is not clearly defined and that communication at the interfaces is often very challenging. This much became clear: The PM is not a clerk - he is the manager of his product.

The PM analyses the market and competition and looks for new trends. He creates business cases and specifications for the core and extended product. Experience with customers shows that decision-making bases

New products based on gut feeling?

for a new product are still vague and dependent on gut feeling, political or grown structures. In technically oriented companies, functionally overloaded products or products that are not oriented towards true customer needs are too often launched. This wastes important development resources and leads to high costs for all parties involved.

Communication in the interfaces plays a special role. The PM presents his ideas to the management, takes part in development meetings and user tests, supports market launches, is on site with the customer and much more. Surveys show that due to too many activities and projects, unclear structures in the important initial phase of product planning, product requirements are not defined holistically or not all interfaces are consulted. Early communication with internal and external parties, such as R&D, design, QM, testing, purchasing, production, sales, after sales services, marketing, enables a broad specification coverage. This prevents additional expenses for new prototypes, expensive purchasing, express transports, reworking in the event of quality defects, etc. in later project phases.

As a product life cycle (PLC) manager, the PM maintains the product already launched in the market. Updating product data, launching special models or relaunches, product extensions are all part of this task. To do this, he needs up-to-date and reliable product and financial key figures at all times, as well as resources to implement the marketing measures. In reality, data acquisition is tedious and the resources in the PLC are often not planned for in many departments. Additionally, discontinuing an unprofitable product is also part of the process. Studies show that product elimination is actively done in only 40 percent of companies. Unattractive discontinuation planning takes too much time and resources. Nevertheless, inventory costs tie up a lot of financial capital that may be missing for more important investments.

What a product manager needs

A PM is the egg-laying jack-of-all-trades - but not the jack-of-all-trades! What other profession offers so many different activities

The danger of dispersal

fields of activity, cooperation with interfaces, creative potential and opportunities for success? The associated tasks and competencies are high. These vary depending on the size and nature of a company. However, it is important that the PM is aware of his various roles and that the function is understood internally. In this way, fears, conflicts of competence or duplications can be avoided.

In order for the PM to be able to act successfully, he needs freedom of action as well as clear competence regulations. The minimum level of competency is product sovereignty, knowledge of all the

technical and financial data of his product as well as the delegation of tasks to other departments for product improvement or idea development. Changes in the specifications, design or scope of delivery may only be made in consultation with the PM. Therefore, the PM is responsible for the qualitative product acceptance.

Success factors in product management

Time and again, customer orientation, innovative ability and cross-departmental cooperation are cited as success factors in product management. The trends towards more sustainability, shorter product life cycles, increased interaction with customers and product differentiation remain current. The following three areas influence the success factors mentioned in product management:

1. integration in the company

The organization of product management (chart 1) is a decisive factor for success: Is PM a separate department or subordinate to marketing and technology and has a certain dependency from this position? As a profit-generating function, an independent area is best suited for product management. Companies with a good customer orientation and a will to improve achieve a permanently better positioning in dynamic competition.

Communication is almost everything

A reliable and always available collection of information is essential for a PM who creates new visions or reports to the CEO. This requires the provision of the optimal software, data and information as well as cooperation with other departments. There are many data sharing options available today, as well as Business Intelligence (BI) software, which make the accumulation of data much easier. Any waste of time due to duplication of work, searching for information, unclear data versions must be eliminated in favor of more market research and strategic tasks (Lean Product Management).

In addition, financial resources for customer and trade fair visits as well as market research etc. are also important. Short approval procedures or PM budgets support the ability to innovate and shorter product realizations.

2. employee know-how and personality

Some PMs come from other departments and move into the exciting field of PM - but they don't necessarily know the true expectations that will be placed on them. The personnel

Gain time!

department must therefore select the right people for product management and ensure their optimal development. In the last five years, there have been a variety of training opportunities in product management - as seminars lasting several weeks, courses of study or NDS. Additional know-how in the areas of marketing, requirements engineering, project management, communication, etc. also facilitates professional work as a PM.

3. standardised processes

A survey of 320 companies by Planview in 2012 showed that for 53 percent, innovations do not reach the market fast enough and the delays of a product launch cannot be quantified. With these numbers, any commercially minded leader would have to immediately optimize processes to eliminate the immense waste of materials, employee time and costs. What are the two essential processes for product management operations (Chart 2)?

a) Define and determine processes

The creation of a product management process (PMP) with specific activities supports a reproducible, qualitative and controllable product launch. The methods and tools for analysis, decision-making, controlling and documentation should be identical for all PMs in the company. This enables representatives, other departments and external partners to quickly find their way around and provide orientation on the next steps. Templates and checklists reduce unproductive activities in PM and result in a high potential for more creative time and innovative solutions. The wheel does not have to be reinvented for every development.

Comprehensive phases in product management from idea generation through planning and realization of the product to market launch can be mapped in such a process. 90 percent of companies today still rely on manual and informal methods for obtaining customer feedback and yet are surprised that they develop "past the customer"; priorities and requirements change too frequently (and catapult development costs through the roof!). Customer integration is important to product success at all stages. Customer integration can be covered by process design just like other activities such as market analysis, business case, product specification, design briefing, technical documentation, launch planning, etc.

(b) Product life cycle

Maintenance in the PLC is the task of product management. What to do when the product is launched and when to do it? What key figures are expected? What information needs to be communicated and to whom? Process design in PLC ensures routine tasks in all departments, enables better resource planning. Benchmarking and customer feedback are carried out regularly, KPIs are defined and monitored. Thus, the necessary product or marketing measures can be initiated promptly and ultimately lead to greater customer satisfaction. The PLC process includes, for example, controlling, updating product data, communication measures, relaunch and phase-out planning, sales campaigns, complaints management, customer satisfaction analyses.

Conclusion

A functioning product management is decisively responsible for the product success and the influence on the development costs. Incorrect or late products have a direct impact on margins and sales.

The product manager is an entrepreneur of his product. Therefore, the demands on a PM from a professional and personal point of view are very high due to his interface function and his diverse roles and competencies. An optimal organization and defined processes and responsibilities support the interface function of the PM. With the growing importance of product management, there are clever software solutions (PLM and BI) that simplify the processing of information. With the establishment of a professional PM and a multitude of parallel projects, there are more and more external project and product managers who provide support in the event of bottlenecks in process optimization or product management. This additionally increases the chances for safe product launches.