Product management
Product management in companies a function that deals with the planning , control and monitoring of products and / or services during the product life cycle from the market up to removal from the market concerned.
General
The distribution of products and services is the main business purpose and the most important source of profit . Therefore, an organizational unit or body must be entrusted with the task of dealing with the products / services to be marketed. Companies divide their entire product range ( industry ) or assortment ( trade ) into individual products and / or product groups or services and can then assign these to individual product managers. The assignment of individual products to positions leads to the function of product manager .
tasks
Product management has at least three tasks, namely product analysis, product concept and product optimization. The products / services manufactured in production are initially examined for strengths and weaknesses (product risks) as part of the product analysis, whereby any faulty production must first be detected by quality control . This is followed by a conception phase, which is particularly necessary for new products and which determines possible product risks. Ultimately, the task is to optimize, i.e. to tailor the products to individual customer requirements, provided that they are not standardized mass products . Product management thus makes a decisive contribution to product quality and customer satisfaction .
Product management continuously collects information about competing products and ensures the implementation of product or financial innovations . It has to help shape products / services through processing, taking customer expectations into account, and to exclude product risks. Documentation and any contract drafting also belong to the tasks of product management. In the context of the separation of functions, there are also interfaces to other areas (e.g. marketing , customer service ).
As the market continues to develop, it is to be expected that customer expectations of the services offered and thus also the competitive relevance of individual performance features will change. This results in the need to constantly analyze and document these changes.
Organizational issues
Product management can be organized as a matrix organization , staff unit or line organization . The matrix product management is equipped with authority to issue instructions to functional areas; instead of the authority to issue instructions, there are only advisory , informational or preparatory functions in a staff unit . In the latter case, product management as a staff unit reports directly to corporate management or marketing or sales management. Within the line organization, it is perceived by line units. This is particularly advantageous in companies with very heterogeneous product groups. Different product and market knowledge are required here. All of the organizational forms listed have their respective advantages and disadvantages. In practice, the choice of the organizational form should be made dependent on the overall company structure, the management style , as well as on the products, target groups and sales channels .
Benefits of product management
Well-implemented product management helps to gain more and better quality knowledge of the product, technological changes and the corresponding market: competitors and customers . This enables well-founded product and market-related decisions, and the shorter decision-making paths enable the company to react more quickly to market developments . The corresponding product-related measures can be implemented faster and better coordinated. In addition, the management as well as the marketing and sales management receive support from product management. Another advantage is that the product manager's view as opposed to sales not on the sales , but the yield is aimed. Thus there is a driving force in the company that strives to increase the product contribution margins .
Role of the product manager
Self-image
The product manager bears the entrepreneurial responsibility for his products, consequently he can also be called the CEO of the product. This means that the product manager is required to be the product market expert in his field, i. H. is the person in the company who knows their products and the corresponding markets best. His goal is to make his products a success.
Tasks and responsibilities
Examples of positions as Product Manager are: market and competition analyzes perform, product and product-specific service improvements abut job specifications ( specifications ) formulate new products and product-specific services, in the creation of functional specifications involved, launch concepts create and implement the sales support and training as well as field staff accompany you during customer visits.
The product manager is responsible for the development of the product strategy as well as for the planning, implementation and coordination of the measures derived from it and for permanent and final control. It is his job to manage his products across departments.
The product manager moves in the field of tension between far-reaching responsibility and a lack of authority. To deal with this challenge, the product manager needs communication skills, motivation and enthusiasm.
Product management in companies
Product management is typically divided into three areas: strategic product management, technical product management and go-to-market, which is illustrated in the model of the open product management workflow. In addition to the tripartite division, it shows which tasks and steps must be carried out by product management in the course of a product cycle in order to manufacture an innovative and profitable product.
Strategic product management
Strategic product management includes all strategic aspects and tasks that are required to make an existing or future product (more) successful. These include a. the information analysis, the development of a concept as well as coordination and optimization measures. There is a similar procedure for this in technical product management:
Market analysis
In the market analysis , existing market problems and trends are identified.
To determine market problems, it has become established to conduct interviews with customers and potential customers (reports), with specific questions being asked about existing problems. Market trends are determined by analyzing studies or with the help of market research . It should be noted that the results are checked with the help of larger and regular surveys and that a market problem only relates to one persona (“ stereotype for a group of people with specific characteristics and specific behavior”) in a specific scenario . If there are several products / markets, these can be structured according to criteria such as market segments , product segments, functions, technologies or regions and later illustrated in a product-market matrix , for example. The market segmentation is of particular importance; strategic product management focuses on the target segments that contain the greatest market potential and require the lowest costs.
Business analysis
Both for future market messages and for improved communication with customers, it is important to determine the attributes and added value that differentiate the company from the competition in the long term: "Whoever can do one thing best should do one thing that he can" . A competence analysis forms the basis for this. A competition analysis and a SWOT analysis can provide further clarity . While the competitive analysis gaps u. a. shows the items portfolio , price model, market message and communication analysis, the SWOT analysis determines the position of the company in a certain market. In addition, the analysis can show what opportunities for further development and difficulties in implementation exist.
Goal setting and product strategy
If the strategic starting situation of the market or company has been adequately analyzed, goals must be defined and a product strategy developed. When operationalizing the goals, the four dimensions of goal content (what should be achieved?), Target extent (how much should be achieved?), Time reference (when should the goal be achieved?) And scope (which area should the goal apply to?) ) to pay attention to. The prerequisite for the dimension of the scope is the delimitation of the market into supplier-related, product-related and demand-related market delimitation for a simplified analysis of the relationships between suppliers , goods and consumers . In addition, dependencies and relationships between the goals must be taken into account, such as goal complementarity or goal conflict . In order to determine the product strategy, several individual strategy elements must be combined: portfolio strategies, market segment strategies, product-market coverage strategies, product-market growth strategies, price / performance strategy and others; A strategic construction kit helps with visualization .
In addition, the marketing mix (product, price, placement, promotion) can be used to establish a relationship between the factors product, price, sales channel and communication, which also increases the level of detail in the product strategy.
Profitability analysis
As part of the profitability analysis, it should be determined whether a new product idea should be pursued from an economic perspective. This includes a preliminary calculation , sales estimate , cost estimate and market share forecast . Also the investment account may (by a static method break even analysis , cost comparison , profitability calculation , calculation of amortization ), or dynamic method ( net present value , internal rate of return , annuity contribute to review).
Innovation and generation of ideas
For product management, innovation is the starting point for all marketing activities: “Only when you know the problem can you think about the problem and develop an idea for its solution. And if this problem has not yet been solved, the solution is automatically an innovation. " Innovation can refer to different areas such as sales channels or the combination of several products. In idea management , ideas are collected from internal and external sources, later selected and evaluated; here it is used to solve product problems.
Business plan
The business plan collects the results from the previous workflow and is company-specific. It includes product market analyzes, product market strategies, measures and business parameters; It is supplemented by detailed aspects from functional areas such as sales , marketing, etc. It also serves as the basis for technical product management and go-to-market.
Technical product management
Technical product management encompasses all aspects and tasks that are necessary to design a functional, physical new product. There is a procedure for this as in strategic product management:
Requirements rating
At the beginning, the requirements from strategic product management must be evaluated; these consist of the parts problem, persona and scenario; In practice, the information for this is written on so-called "story cards". With the help of an evaluation scheme with the criteria of importance, number of reports and priority, the requirements can be weighted and prioritized. The importance is based on the different types of customers in the following decreasing order: evaluating customer , potential customer, existing customer . The priority can be calculated by multiplying the importance and the number of reports. If necessary, the schema can be supplemented with additional information such B. costs, usability or time expenditure can be added.
Product development
If the requirements are sufficiently prioritized, they can be bundled in work packages and put in a sequence; To this end, the respective priorities are added up and an overall priority is calculated for a work package. The time required for product development and the costs that the work packages require must then be estimated. It can be helpful for the assessment to let the work participants rate their own confidence and to evaluate the difficulty of the work packages. Subsequently, engineers devote themselves to solving the work packages, giving the entire team information about their current status at regular status meetings and modifying the schedule due to possible delays. In order to check a product solution for its functionality or to reduce the risk of undesirable developments, the creation of a pretotype and a prototype is suitable . The idea of the pretotype is that the engineer has to ask himself if he would use the product himself; only when the answer is positive does the further product development process follow . A prototype is more advanced in terms of time: "A prototype is understood to be a new product manufactured for the first time, with which practical tests and further developments are carried out in order to demonstrate the functionality of technical solutions and to eliminate existing defects." Furthermore, the prototype can be confronted with potential customers and possible suggestions for improvement can be recorded through surveys, on the other hand they mean both costs and time for a company. Further tests with potential customers to check acceptance will follow until the product is finished ; a distinction is made between several test phases: concept tests, partial product tests (e.g. name or taste test), holistic product tests, other test market procedures.
If a product has now been sufficiently developed and tested, in the last status meeting it is checked again whether the finished product meets all requirements and it is finally approved.
literature
- Christian Dechêne: Product Management. In: WISU - The Business Studies. Volume 46, No. 1, 2017, pp. 63–69.
- Peter Kairies: Professional product management for the capital goods industry. Practice and modern work techniques. Renningen 2017.
- Frank Lemser: Strategic Product Management according to Open Product Management Workflow. The product management book that explains the product manager's tasks step by step and provides practical tools. Norderstedt 2017 ( full text online , PDF, free of charge, 8 MB).
- Frank Lemser: Technical product management according to Open Product Management Workflow. The product management book for technical product managers and product owners, which explains the tasks and roles as well as the prioritization of requirements. Norderstedt 2018 ( full text online , PDF, free of charge, 3.4 MB).
- Dieter Lennertz: Product Management . Planning - Development - Marketing. Frankfurt am Main 2006.
- Herbert Lippmann, Anette Orth: Seize market opportunities with product management. Sternenfels 2013.
- Erwin Matys: Praxishandbuch Produktmanagement. Basics and tools for successful product marketing. Frankfurt am Main 2001.
- Klaus J. Aumayr: Successful product management. Tool box for professional product management and product marketing. Wiesbaden 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Michael Kleinaltenkamp, Wulff Plinke (ed.): Market and product management: The instruments of technical sales. 1999, p. 67.
- ^ Andreas Herrmann, Frank Huber: Product Management. 2013, p. 3 ff.
- ^ Gareth R. Jones, Ricarda B. Bouncken: Organization: Theory, Design and Change. 2008, p. 363.
- ↑ Peter Kairies: Professional product management for the capital goods industry. Practice and modern work techniques. 2017, p. 20.
- ↑ Peter Kairies: Professional product management for the capital goods industry. Practice and modern work techniques. 2017, p. 21.
- ↑ Peter Kairies: Professional product management for the capital goods industry. Practice and modern work techniques. 2017, p. 36.
- ↑ a b Peter Kairies: Professional product management for the capital goods industry. Practice and modern work techniques. 2017, p. 16.
- ↑ Erwin Matys: Praxishandbuch Produktmanagement. Basics and tools for successful product marketing. 2001, p. 29.
- ↑ Erwin Matys: Praxishandbuch Produktmanagement. Basics and instruments for successful product marketing , 2001, p. 28.
- ↑ Peter Kairies: Professional product management for the capital goods industry. Practice and modern work techniques. 2017, p. 17.
- ↑ Andreas Herrmann, Frank Huber: Product Management Basic Method Examples . 2013, p. 3-4 .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Strategic Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 3-4 .
- ↑ Klaus Aumayr: Successful product management - tool box for professional product management and product marketing . 2016, p. 130-131 .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Strategic Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 70-73 .
- ↑ Henry Ford: Quote .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Strategic Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 60-61 .
- ^ Günter Hofbauer, Anita Schweidler: Professional product management . 2006, p. 208-211 .
- ^ Andreas Herrmann, Frank Huber: Product Management . 2013, p. 88-90 .
- ^ Klaus Aumayr: Successful product management . 2016, p. 236-239 .
- ^ Günter Hofbauer, Anita Schweidler: Professional product management . 2006, p. 387-389 .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Technical Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 92 .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Strategic Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 92-95 .
- ^ Klaus Aumayr: Successful product management . 2016, p. 250-252 .
- ^ Günter Hofbauer, Anita Schweidler: Professional product management . 2006, p. 250-252 .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Technical Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 28-40 .
- ↑ Frank Lemser: Technical Product Management for Open Product Management Workflow . 2018, p. 50 .
- ↑ Seibert: Quote . 1998, p. 305 .
- ^ Günter Hofbauer, Anita Schweidler: Professional product management . 2006, p. 415-417 .