Strategic product management consultancy
Align the corporate strategy and the product market strategy
Use the corporate strategy to guide product market strategy and product roadmaps (and sometimes the other way round). The product market strategy should be clear to all C-level executives, and they must be involved in its creation to have the ownership necessary for making it a success.
By establishing a first-class product market strategy, the company can move away from generic strategic planning focused on budgets and high level goals – and instead engage people on a real and tangible strategy that touches all areas of the business.
Drive competitiveness and profitability forward
Drop the “urgent” small thinking focused on fixing short-term challenges. Instead establish a product market strategy and roadmap that will drive the company’s competitiveness and profitability forward long term.
Move ahead of competitors and move closer to customers by establishing a product market strategy that addresses the future market problem and builds on the resources and unique competences in the company.
Find the “next big thing”
Find the next market, the next product, the next customer segment or the next innovation by taking a new approach, or by leveraging the creativity in the organization in new ways. Trying to answer new types of questions generates new insights.
Find new ways to engage with existing customers or target a new segment that your company will be able to dominate.
A roadmap process that works and a governance that keeps the product strategy on track
Get top management behind the product strategy with an effective product strategy and roadmap process. Making the product strategy successful requires support from all areas of the business – especially Sales, Development and Supply Chain.
By establishing a professional governance, you can enable the right types of discussions between these areas – and anchor the buy-in and ownership for executing the product strategy.
Get strategic insights from a Customer Advisory Board
A Customer Advisory Board can be a way to get solid intelligence about your most important customers’ future business model and future value drivers. At the same time you can deepen the relationship and build trust with key stakeholders and decision makers with these customers.
With the right setup and process, the new insights can anchored in your business strategy, your product roadmap, and in how you build business cases for new products.
Solve the market problem
The paradigm is shifted from focusing on the product to focusing on solving the market problem.
To deliver products that solve your target customers’ problems, you must identify and deeply understand your customer and the underlying market problems. These problems may be stated directly as customer needs or implied indirectly.
Make sure you invent a product of great value, not just a great product.
Product management offerings
MAP CURRENT STATE
Map current state of Product Management: 1. Leadership, organization & people, 2. Tools, 3. Processes. This provides an overview of current successes, weak points and potential benefit from improving various aspects of your product management.
IMPROVE LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATION & PEOPLE
Often the product management function spends too much of their time on operational firefighting and too little on strategizing. We can help your by establishing strategic alignment, by designing an effective product management organization or by implementing a program for product Manager competence building.
- Strategic alignment
- Product management role and organization
- Product Manager competence building
- From product to Value focus (value understanding, value building, value capturing)
- Market and customer driven (solving the market problem)
- Business Governance (product decisions & reporting)
IMPROVE TOOLS
Part of maturing the product management function is to implement strong tools that the whole organization understands and respects. The could be tools for e.g. business case & product plans, for reporting or tools for documentation.
- Business cases
- Customer and market segmentation
- Product plans (decision material)
- Risk management
- Competitor benchmarking
- Product KPIs and reporting
IMPROVE PROCESSES
Processes that spans across multiple functions can be difficult to succeed with. These are typically the processes that matter the most in order to become more effective as a company. Improve e.g. how you do product roadmapping, portfolio management and go-to-market; this could make a big impact on your P/L.
- Go-to-market process
- Product roadmapping
- Portfolio management
- Product development and way-to-market
- Market requirement mapping and collection
- Product business case process and follow up
WORKSHOPS & FACILITATION
Get the people in your organization – and also your partners (customers, suppliers etc.) engaged in your market strategy, your innovation or how to deliver more value to your customers. We have a good track record for Customer advisory board, Customer value creation workshops, Innovation workshops and how to Digitalize your offerings. Everything from a 5 people executive team to a +75 people event.