Think like a product manager

Introduction

Managing products is the cornerstone of a successful business. The product manager plays a crucial role in the product management process. No matter if you’re new to the role of product manager, an experienced product manager, a product leader, or just considering a career in product management, the topics covered in this module will provide a strong understanding of what you need to know about product management. They lead a team of cross-functional employees to achieve the product’s strategic intent with the mindset of a manager or CEO of the company.

Figure 1: Product Management

In what sense is a product defined?

Products consist of specific features (functions, features, benefits, and uses) and can be tangible, such as physical goods; intangible, such as software or services; or a combination of both. Anything that is sold can be considered a product. A product is a collection of attributes that help us as people (customers and users) to get things done. Intangible product benefits can be either tangible, such as those associated with physical goods, or intangible, such as those associated with service benefits. A product can be part of a different product or product line, packaged with a collection of products, or proposed as a solution or system to adhere to wide sets of customer requirements. The product can be further divided into modules, components, terms, etc.

Figure 2: Product Building Blocks

Business Models of Products

Products are developed by businesses and marketed to customers. So, there can be below different business models:

B2B (Business-to-business) Model

In B2B (Business-to-business) model, customers can work inside of a company.

Figure 3: B2B

B2C (Business-to-Consumer) Model

Companies sell products directly to consumers as in a retail store or online in the B2C model.

Figure 4: B2C

B2B2C

Companies sell products to other companies, and then the company sells them to the customers.

Figure 4: B2B2C

For instance, Red Hat partners with Amazon for Cloud Service by providing products like RHEL, OpenShift, Ansible, etc.. As a whole, it benefits the customers.

Product Lines

Groupings of products that cater to similar markets or solve a particular problem for the customer are called product lines. A product line is a diminutive product portfolio.

Example:

Red Hat has several different product lines like Red Hat Storage Server, Ansible, OpenShift, Fedora, etc.

Figure 5: Red Hat Product lines

Product Portfolios

Portfolio refers to the collection of all products or product lines within a business unit or division. An organization’s portfolio could include existing products that may be at varying stages of their own life cycles, as well as incoming products.

In many companies, many products and product lines are assorted commonly to make up a product portfolio.

What is Management concerning Product?

In product management, the person in management is the product manager. The product manager is a business manager, designated to imagine and perform in whole the same way as a CEO or general manager sway.

Responsibilities of Product Manager:

• Segmentation of markets, recognization of target customers, and collection of customer insights.
• Evaluate the industry and meet and race.
• Formulation of product plans.
• Blending and synchronizing.
• Leads cross-functional products teams.
• Prepares plans or estimates budget and analysis of several outcomes.

Conclusion

The product manager remodels the eugenics of the organization up and down as well as transversely business functions. While product management is on the organization diagram in many companies, the roles and expectations of product managers tend to diverge widely. Product management presents a framework for elasticity in the use and governance of key business exercises crosswise the organization. Product management is uniquely established as the unique horizontal business function that assists to integrate and synchronize the work of others crosswise the organization.