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Technology is the driver

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CIOL Bureau
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Technology that has moved away from customer sampling based techniques to data mining techniques by increasing the vastness and preciseness of customer data captured, has changed the very flavor of the product market. Throwing light on the role of technology in product management Stratify's Ramana Venkata, in an interaction with CIOL's B.V.Shiva Shankar, said technology trends like Web 2.0 enable self-adaptable marketing techniques by enhanced feedback mechanisms and focused interactions. H e said, this works both ways as in disbursing product marketing info too.

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CIOL: Tell us about the latest trends and advancements in product management?

Ramana Venkata:
Product Management has evolved from feature and performance management to encompass marketing and customer service as well. Today an enterprise software product management involves software implementation as well. The gap between a software product and providing it as a service has blurred considerably. Prioritization of feature requests by users, enhanced collaboration between different products (system integration, SOA), increased product applicability (installable product or software as service, phased implementation cycles, modular products) are some of the trends in product management.

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?

RV:
Product management is bigger in scope than engineering services and IT services. Product Management also encompasses design, sales, logistics etc. Product Management involves balancing engineering services and IT services for better customer satisfaction and increased reusability.

CIOL: Turning marketing information into product requirements is the key to the successful business. What are the technological requirements to achieve this?

RV:
More than technology it's the approach to building product requirements that is important. There are tools like UML, gap analysis etc. to depict use-cases, functional requirements. There is enterprise software available to help prioritize product features/bugs and customer preferences by managing marketing information. But a process that enforces clarity, checks, management of costs/schedule and proper communication is more effective for successful requirements gathering.

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CIOL: What role do you see for technology in collaborating product planning and product marketing?

RV:
Technology has made a marked shift in the way marketing information is collected. It has moved away from customer sampling based techniques to data mining techniques by increasing the vastness and preciseness of customer data captured. Technology trends like Web 2.0 enable self-adaptable marketing techniques by enhanced feedback mechanisms and focused interactions. And this works both ways as in disbursing product marketing info too.

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CIOL: What are the factors that act as deterrents while defining the product management roles and responsibilities?

RV:
Product Management activities cover a broad spectrum of things and are sure to overlap with some of the other defined responsibilities. A product manager is involved in opportunity assessment, drafting of product requirements, project management (engineering, support), marketing activities and the list can go on. Then there are overlapping products themselves, product managers working in close contours. As a result, product management responsibilities are evolved more often than they are defined. Therefore some ambiguity in role definitions is unavoidable.

Another factor is rapidly changing market conditions that requires management of different stages of product life cycle at the same time as organizations position their products in different market segments. This also requires the product manager to wear different hats.

CIOL: For whom do you think the product management is the most critical, producer or consumer?

RV:
Customers spend huge amounts on enterprise products, integrating them, customizing them. There are issues about compatibility & upgrades. Product companies have to keep innovating in order to stay ahead. Product management can be a triaging hub for product companies as well as the customers.

CIOL: Do you think the approaches for product enhancement and new product should be different? If yes, what should be the differentiator?

RV:
Product enhancement strengthens the existing products' portfolio. It helps in locking in customers, application upgrades are notorious for that, and acquire new customers for the product category. New product development involves differentiated requirements and captures a new segment. The differentiator between them is the 'fit' factor; product enhancement is concerned with how the enhancement features fit with the existing overall application of the product. New product development warrants the requirements to be differentiated enough and to substantiate a new product.

CIOL: What is the main driver for product management, cost or quality?

RV:
Products require investment in development; deployment and marketing while the returns are spread over purchases and implementations. Returns depend on differentiation and the product demand. In a differentiated market with high product complexity (enterprise level software e.g. Stratify Legal Discovery ) it's the quality, the technology and the feature enrichment which is at play. Quality and cost are intertwined. Companies invest in quality; they buy quality products which increase the notional costs but quality reduces the total cost of ownership in form of increased service levels, better productivity and less lost opportunities.