Article: Sequentlearning.com
The All Important Product Lifecycle - Are You Managing It Right? Product management is basically a parameter within an organization that deals with planning, production, forecasting and marketing of a product in the entirety of the stages of a product lifecycle. The objective of this exercise is to increase market share and profit margins, and to maximize sales revenues. A decision to eliminate certain entities is also a part of this process. The elimination process involves identification of candidate products, consideration of remedial actions, impact on business and implementation of decisions. For a product manager, it is necessary to have the knowledge of the market’s position and requirement concerning the company’s products. He is supposed to know which features and functions would fetch desired results, and thus has to have a strong sense of market analysis. Concerning product development, it is the main priority point of product management. The product has to have unique and latest features and properties, because ultimately, these are the factors that drive the consumers towards a product. Superior value and economy optimization are also important factors. Another important job of a product manager is to bridge the gap between technical teams and commercial teams. This is necessary because the technical team cannot focus on the commercial front to create a product that meets the company’s demands. On the other hand, the commercial team cannot handle technical parts. In such times, a product manager acts as a mediator whose job is to enable effective cooperation between the two teams so that the product so manufactured takes the form of something that was desired. Product management is thus a very tricky task to handle. If there is a new product in the pipeline, it is the manager that has to do all the monitoring. This monitoring does not stop even after product launch. The manager has to follow-up and analyse how the product is delivering on expectations and what issues have arisen. Based on this analysis, new improved versions of the product are developed. This loop indicates progress in improvement of a product or service, and helps in the growth of a company. Managing products also includes keeping a keen eye on product lifecycles, because ultimately, this parameter is the gauge of how specific merchandise is doing in the market. Every product has a life in the market, which pertains to the business/commercial costs and sales measures. Lifecycle management is a complex process that involves many different activities. It passes through different phases of professional disciplines and requires skills to handle. In the lifecycle of a product, these stages are:
The marketing stage, where the costs are very high, and little money is made. Growth stage, where sales are on the rise and economics are established. Maturity stage, where the costs are lowered due to abundance in production and company profits are also lowered. Saturation and decline stage, where sales volumes decline and profit becomes a challenge.
Seeing how actually complicated it is to manage products, many project management consulting firms have sprung up, which provide in-depth analysis of all the aspects concerning product management. Visit Sequentlearning.com to know more. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Bailiff is an expert marketer and author of many celebrated articles and blogs about the art of product management and advertising. He recommends SequentLearning.com as the best name to trust in case you are looking for product management consulting for your company.