Benefits of product management

Why can’t we make products and directly start marketing?
What is the necessity of product management?
Why should we invest in product management?

Identifying the Need for Management of Products

These are the basic questions that owners of startups and small businesses ask regularly. However, they must remember that effective product management is a key element between customers’ needs and business objectives. It helps drive innovation and also the market success. When you understand users’ pain points and market trends, you can take care of the development process to create the kind of solution that resonates with the pain point. The benefits of product management can be sensed from the fact that it empowers companies to deliver impactful solutions that give growth and also a competitive advantage.

In my previous blog, I have explained the entire process of product management. The benefits of product management can easily be recognized from my previous blog where I talked about the fintech industry.
I will be writing this blog based on one of the interviews that I gave at in product management seminar in Pune.

Q: What is the most important benefit of product management?
Me: Market understanding is the major advantage that we get when we manage any product properly. A product manager nicely understands the needs of customers and market trends. They are well aware of the competition and so a nice product can be built to cater to user demand more effectively. Through product management, we know about the needs, preferences, and pain points of the audience.
It helps in the proper segmentation of the market based on demography, psychographics, and behavioral factors to find the most suitable customer segment. With the help of proper feedback integration and hence iterative development of the product, we can ensure better success of the product in the market.

Q: How does strategic planning of product lifecycle help the business owners?
Me: Strategic planning plays a very important role in defining the vision of the product, strategy, and roadmap. Thus, it synchronizes the product with the objectives of the company. Strategic planning helps us to clarify the product vision and the problem that the product aims to solve. Major benefits of product management are risk assessment and creating a road map that outlines the key features and milestones.

Q: Could you please clarify your point on risk assessment?
Me: We as a product manager will identify potential risks and uncertainties that can hinder the success of the product. Then we can build different strategies to mitigate these risks. This can be done through different approaches like conducting market validation experiments, gathering user feedback early and often, and also monitoring key performance indicators to record the progress.

Q: How do cross-function collaborations help the product?
Me: Cross-functional collaborations are one of the key benefits of product management. (I have explained it with a case study in product management in the pharmaceutical industry). It helps in team alignment which helps to remove silos and it also promotes teamwork. It helps to leverage wider perspectives and also expertise to solve complex problems. We facilitate brainstorming sessions, workshops, and problem-solving exercises to generate creative solutions. And after the success of the product we have people and teams to celebrate.

Q: Why is the prioritization of features important?
Me: It is a critical aspect of product management that decides the features to take forward. We assess market opportunities and competitive dynamics to identify areas where products can have a competitive advantage. This prioritization is done by looking over the resource constraints like budget, time, or available talent. This prevents us from useless waste of our hard-earned resources.
Prioritization is an ongoing process that continuously evolves as we get new information and market dynamics change. Priorities are adjusted based on customer feedback, market trends, and business objectives. So ya, this is also one of the benefits of product management.

Q: How do you do feature selection?
Me: We use a very simple framework: MoSCoW method- Must have, should have, could have, Won’t have. To find it out we use KANO MODEL and thus we know the effort required for each feature.

Also read: Market Research for Product Development

Q: Would you please let us know how product management helps in risk mitigation and how it ensures smoother product launches?
Me: Risk mitigation in product management means identification of potential risks and also taking steps to reduce its impact on the success of products. Here is how it works:

• We identify potential risks that can affect the development of the product, its Lunch, and also the performance. It also includes market competition and some technical challenges. Resource constraints, regulatory requirements, and more.
• Once we identify the risks, we calculate their likelihood of occurring and the potential impact they could have on the product and also the overall goals of the business.
• Then we develop strategies of risk mitigation to address the identified risk. We take preventive measures to avoid any risk by conducting thorough market research. We also involve contingency plans to reduce the impact of risk and then we also develop alternative solutions.
• We track key indicators to detect early warning signs and also take timely correct measures to solve them. Sometimes it includes adjusting timelines, reallocating resources, or reviewing project scope as needed.
• We also maintain communication with stakeholders, members of the team, and other related people to keep them informed about the status of identified risks and also about the actions we took to reduce those risks.
• The most important benefit of product management is continuous adaptation and
• learning experiences. Risk mitigation is an ongoing process that requires learning from past experiences and also adaptability. We incorporate the lessons learned from previous projects and apply them to future projects to improve risk management practices continuously.

Q: What other benefits of product management are there that you would like to share?
Me: Since we have already covered almost all the benefits of product management, I would like to talk about a few more important points. Product management also helps in:
1. Maximizing return on investment by focusing more on delivering value to customers.
2. Improving user experience by developing user-friendly products.
3. Innovation by exploring new ideas, technologies, and market opportunities.
4. Career growth of product managers as professionals gain experience in strategic planning, leadership, and product development.

Conclusion:

In this blog, we have seen the benefits of product management in great detail. We talked about how it helps in market understanding and cross-functional collaboration with various teams. Product management also helps in the prioritization of the most important features and helps us in the iterative development of products for better innovation as per market and technological trends. It also helps in improving user experience and innovation of products. We can increase ROI by doing product management and also mitigate risks of product management and launch. All this helps us in making a nice product and launching it smoothly and also look over to its complete lifecycle in most successful way.