How do you use digitization to improve product management? Our guide outlines the strategies and thinking behind the future of managing product.
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For a company, product managers are like conductors for an orchestra. They set the pace, have an overall understanding of a work, form a harmonious unit from different characters, give precise assignments, instructions and feedback. Digitization influences product management and changes the weighting of tasks.
How you can use digitization to improve product management
Product managers largely determine and control the design and development of products. They ensure that a product comes onto the market at the right time, in the right scope and at the right price. They keep the product attractive over the entire market phase. They are the guarantee that everyone involved pulls together.
A basic requirement for successful product managers is knowing customers with their problems and needs, the market and the competition. It is also a prerequisite that product managers are given responsibility for a product. In this context, one speaks of product sovereignty, which has the goal of reconciling the interests of a company with the interests of customers. Put simply, digitization is the use of digital media for a project. For example, that buyers can buy goods online and not go to a shop, or that robots perform production tasks.
Digitization future
The digital revolution has completely gripped us and is changing our daily lives. Digitization enables a company to react immediately to new customer requests and findings. A software program is quickly adapted using agile methods and made available to customers via a cloud.
Product management is becoming more important
Companies have the advantage that they are faster, more creative and more innovative than others and are constantly dealing with new technologies and trends. The best corporate structure for this is that with strong product management, especially if the product sovereignty is custom-defined and assigned. Product management is enhanced by a larger area of responsibility and more room for maneuver.
The fundamental tasks of product managers are not changing due to digitization. Market and competition analysis, creating the product strategy and business plan, product planning and requirements management are still part of the job profile. However, the weighting, content and execution of the tasks change. Sequentially:
1. New weighting of the tasks
Companies want to be successful in the long term and sustainably. In fast-moving, digitized market environments, this only works with carefully defined and lived strategies. On the corporate side this is the corporate strategy, on the product side it is the product strategies. The strategic focus of product management is to ensure that the path to business goals is pursued even in turbulent times and that the company is not thrown off the rails by unexpected market events and action.
Of course, technical and operational tasks must still be performed by product management, for example requirements management, but with an adjusted priority or organization.
2. New content of the tasks
The customer is at the center of everything we do. The dynamics of digitization mean that customer analysis is expanded. Customer experience and ecosystem complement the analysis practiced so far with a focus on the problems and needs of customer target groups.
In the customer experience, all points of contact of a customer with a product are considered, starting from the point in time when a customer first becomes aware of the product. In the ecosystem, the product is expanded to include customer services, such as free trial periods and special promotions. The product manager puts together an individual package that helps the company differentiate itself from its competitors.
3. New execution of the tasks
Digitization provides data in abundance. This enables decisions to be made based on real data and not based on assumptions. Product managers must be able to determine which data can be collected and stored under the legal requirements. You must be able to evaluate the data (or have it evaluated) and derive suitable measures from the findings.
All that glitters is not gold. This sentence also applies to digitization. Keywords like digital detox and digital burnout should be mentioned here. It is up to the product managers not to go overboard and to exploit the immense scope of digitization in a socially responsible manner.
