Product Management, key to Business Strategy!

Properly managed, a product will contribute to a company’s profitability over a long time span. Over its life cycle the complex, operational and strategic decisions made have a direct financial impact. There are many advantages in bringing in external expertise to this strategic discipline. Below are some challenging situations when this could or should be put into consideration: 

o	Increasing complexity of products and related offers 
o	Safeguarding large investments in R&D
o	Expanding existing business into new business areas
o	Outsourcing of product design / production
o	Introducing innovative pricing strategies to maximize revenue
o	Desire to introduce software licenses (value based offers)
o	Aligning price structures with product packaging

Operational experience comprises:

•	Product Management & life cycle strategy
•	Product data management
•	Product packaging, licencing and pricing
•	Trade compliance & customs classification
•	Release management & strategy
•	Project management
•	Obsolescence & compatibility strategy

Bringing external experience to an internal innovative process gives the opportunity to benefit from a relational interaction with different expertise across boundaries in the organisation. Below are some critical situations when this could or should be considered:

o	Increased experienced competition in the market (e.g. cost)
o	Changes in regulatory environment
o	Unawareness of available academic research and findings
o	Products are outdated or reaching end of life (renewal needs)
o	Customer needs uncertainties
	- Difficulties finding representative references (mass market)
	- Isolation from customer due to secrecy or intermediators
o	Radical uncertainties due to situation complexity
	- Difficulties identifying the appropriate market segments
	- Uncertainty of the concepts appropriate to solve
	- Uncertainty of how to break down into discrete problems

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