IT services are still some distance away from occupying a lead role in product companies, says Keshav Prakash, Country Manager, Serena Software. Speaking about the current trends in product management in an interaction with B.V.Shiva Shankar, Associate Editor, CIOL, Cybermedia, he said though product management is the point of convergence of IT and engineering services, IT has still a long way to go. But it was not before he hoped the meeting point was not far off.

CIOL: Tell us about the latest trends and advancements in product management?
Keshav Prakash: Product management is an organizational function within a company dealing with the product planning of a product/s at all stages of the product lifecycle and it is also a collective term used to describe the broad sum of diverse activities performed in the interest of delivering a the right product at the right time to the market place.

Product management is an occupational domain which holds two professional disciplines:- Product Planning and Product Marketing and yet retain the required synergy between the two disciplines. The technology advancements in the internet world certainly helping companies in promoting the product externally with Press, customers and Partners and reducing the time to market without having to compromise on the quality of the product. One of the significant trends in the industry is that the product companies are becoming more and more customer centric and that is reflecting in the way they conduct product planning, product marketing, program management and project management activities.

CIOL: Turning marketing information into product requirements is the key to the successful business. What are the technological requirements to achieve this?
KP: As I said, earlier, every product company is customer centric in today's world, ideally would want to convert the business requirements into profit, by incorporating the customer requirements in there products.

CIOL: Apparently there is a lot of scope for engineering services in product management, is it a point of convergence of engineering services and IT services?
KP: I would rather say, engineering services are vital to the success of the products, solutions and the companies, but I believe that the IT services are still some distance away from occupying a leading role in these organizations than what they do today - supporting the business. Things are changing and I am sure, the convergence is not very far off.

CIOL: What role do you see for technology in collaborating product planning and product marketing?
KP: Product planning and product marketing are very different, but due to the collaborative nature of these two disciplines, some companies erroneously perceive them as being one discipline, which they call product management. Done carefully, it is very possible to functionally divide the product management domain into product planning and product marketing. I believe Technology has a lot to offer here in collaborating the benefits of Product planning and Product marketing into business advantage.

CIOL: What are the factors that act as deterrents while defining the product management roles and responsibilities?
KP: Product management as a discipline is about what the product should be. Product managers are advocates for the customer's needs and desires. A large product might have numerous product managers working towards its success at a variety of levels, all the way from the junior product manager writing specifications about single feature sets to a product strategy director who has overall responsibility to executive management for the product direction.

People not familiar with the discipline of product management frequently get a product manager confused with other players. So it very important to have the Product Manager with required skillets and expertise and otherwise it could act as deterrents for this role. So you cannot have a developer, or a software manager, a project manager or a Marketer performing the product management job.

Developer - Developers are focused on the technology and not the overall product. Some great product managers are former developers, but it is difficult to do both at once. There is a natural tension between developers and product managers that should be maintained to create a balanced product.

Software manager - the software manager is a functional manager and usually not focused on the product or the customers.

Project manager - project managers are about how and when, while the product manager is about what. Project managers work closely with product managers to ensure successful completion of different phases in the product life cycle.

Marketer - while product management is usually seen as a marketing discipline, marketers are focused on the marketing plan and are usually not driving the overall product.

CIOL: Do you think the approaches for product enhancement and new product should be different? If yes, what should be the differentiator?
KP: It is very relative and the approach could sometimes be different too, it depends on the ease and cost effectiveness of creating the product or enhancement as desired by the consumer / market.

CIOL: What is the main driver for product management, cost or quality?
KP: Both are very important as they are like two faces of the same coin.