A product is anything that’s sold. Products are bundles of attributes that help a person (customer or user) do something.
Product Lines: Companies collect a number of related products into product lines. It is a grouping of products geared toward similar markets or solving a particular type of customer problem. A product line is a small product portfolio. For example, BMW Group has several different automobile product lines: the Mini brand, the Rolls-Royce brand, and the BMW automobile brand.
Product portfolio: A product portfolio is the set of all products, product lines, or other groupings within a business unit or business division. Portfolios can include existing products, which may be at various phases of their own life cycles, as well as incoming products (those anticipated, actually in development, or in the launch phases). In most firms, several products and product lines are grouped together to make up a product portfolio.
Solutions, Bundles, and Systems
Related products and services will sometimes be grouped into solutions, bundles, or systems.
Solutions: An organization that focuses on solutions should be structured to support solutions-based sales, marketing, delivery, and post-deployment services. Companies that effectively organize for a solutions or systems business may utilize a solutions marketing group or even a professional services unit. These people can stay “close to the market” or be intimately involved with a particular customer. In principle, every product should be a solution to some problem. If you assume that every product is really a benefit-filled solution, then every company is really in the solutions business.
Bundling: In reality, grouping products together when they don’t solve a customer’s problem from start to finish is merely the act of bundling. If a company wishes to sell a bundled solution, customers will eventually discover a weakness in one or more of the components and look for another way to solve their problems.
Product Elements and Modules
Another key distinction in the definition of products is the idea of product elements or modules. For tangible products, these are product components that may be treated as “black boxes” inside the product. These modules, elements, or subassemblies are, they are building blocks of a product that may require individual product management oversight of their definition, design, and integration with a larger product or solution.
Product management provides a framework for consistency in the use and governance of key business practices across the organization. Product management provides a framework for consistency in the use and governance of key business practices across the organization.
Product management Lifecycle
Customer and Market Insights involve researching, understanding, and generating conclusions and insights. Markets are dynamic, and your decisions about what you do and what you don’t do are informed by how you assess what’s going on and pivot as needed, regardless of where you are in the life cycle of a product’s business. Here, you’re tracking customer needs and preferences, soliciting input on possible designs, assessing industry trends, and figuring out what your competitors are up to. Your job in this area is to ensure that you and your team are alert to these dynamics and act accordingly.
Product Strategy Formulation refers to the work done to assess the business (past and present), synthesize a vast trove of business, financial, and market data, and cast (or recast) a vision for the future of the product’s business. From the vision, goals or targets are determined and investments aligned around initiatives that contribute to the firm’s future success.
Product Planning and Prioritization serve as a backdrop for decision-making. It characterizes assessments made by product managers and their teams to figure out what to work on and why. Product managers leverage tools such as business cases, product requirements, user stories, and other tools to plan futures and features.
Product Development and Introduction covers the involvement of product managers in overseeing the development of any new or enhanced product. It involves ongoing prioritization of features or feature backlogs and scope management. It also covers the ongoing verification of work being undertaken by development, including customer validation and product testing.
Post-launch performance Management In this area of work, attention is paid to data collection, assessment of performance metrics, and situating the product on the life cycle curve. Product health reports and other tools enable product managers and their teams to determine how to track performance and consider ways to optimize the product’s business. These might cover improvements to the product, enhancements to the customer or user experience, and adjustments of prices, advertising, and even channels from which products are secured by customers.