Product management is quite a complex field to be in. A product manager is one who not only manages the product but also works on the key aspects of the product to make it more suitable as per the requirements of the consumers.
In this blog, we will discuss what is Product Management all about! So keep reading the blog to avoid missing out on any relevant information.
Key Takeaways
- Learn about product management
- Importance of product management in 2022
- Different types of product management roles
- Career opportunities in product management
What is Product Management?
Product management is defined as the process of planning, research organizing, forecasting, pricing and advertising. Product managers work across the various departments to derive a successful strategy to make an appropriate product that sounds appealing to consumers.
Product management is not a simple task. The product manager works day and night on every aspect of the project, like managing UI/UX designs by collaborating with the design team after getting the UI/UX part ready, their job does not end there they have to work closely with the marketing team to understand what all strategies they can use to launch the product in the market in order to scale it.
Once they derive a strategy for the product, it becomes really important for the project manager to manage the content by analysing what type of content they are putting in the product, whether it’s relevant or not. After doing all this, the final part is to test the product, so for that, a PM has to sit with the team of engineers who are working on the technical part of the product and is also responsible for its deployment.
Once the deployment of the product is done, the only thing that project managers have to do is to redefine the pricing of the product to give it a final touch before launching it in the market.
Now I think you might have understood what a project manager does.
Importance of Product Management in 2022
- Understanding Customer’s Requirements
- Developing an Adequate Business Model
- Skilling Strategy
- A Competent Marketing Strategy
- Timely Support Service
1. Understanding Customer’s Requirements
The most important thing you need to know as a project manager is that you should be good at analysing your customer’s requirements to understand what type of product they want so you can design the product accordingly as per the needs of your customer.
Delivering the product keeping in mind your customers’ needs will increase its market value, and as a product manager, you would want your product to do better any day.
2. Developing an Adequate Business Model
Product Managers have to be very specific and precise about their products because the product must suit the company’s business model.
They also have to take appropriate steps at different levels of product development, and just building the right product is not sufficient, they also have to ensure that proper product marketing strategies are used to scale the growth of the product.
Once they develop an adequate business model, they will have to brief the sales and the marketing team about the product so that they can approach the customers and educate them about the product’s real value and how they will benefit from using its product.
Also Read: What Is Industry 4.0?
3. Skilling Strategy
Product managers help to derive the right training strategy for both sales and product teams to generate the demand for the product in public. As customers’ needs change dynamically, organizations fine-tune their sales strategy accordingly with the help of product managers.
At times product managers help to give critical inputs on future skill sets that will be in demand in the coming years, which helps the management to align their skilling and hiring plans.
4. A Competent Marketing Strategy
A product manager knows what exactly the strategies they need to adapt to get their product on the line. Generally, the project managers conduct in-depth research to gather ample data before building the products so that they can analyse all those data figures to derive a competent marketing strategy to get ahead of their competitors and convince the consumers to use their products over others.
5. Timely Support Service
Product managers watch their product closely and monitor how the product is performing in the market and take the feedback of their client and send it to the support and maintenance team to do the needful by analysing what aspects of the product require some changes to make it more affluent and appealing to the clients and consumers.
Types of Product Management Roles
Let’s look at different types of Product Management roles:
- Growth Product Manager
- Technical Product Manager
- Product Design Manager
- Data Product Manager
- Product Marketing Manager
1. Growth Product Manager
The role of the growth product manager is mainly concerned with scaling the product and its reach in the market among people.
They are also responsible for lead generation and conversion as growth managers, they have to keep on checking time after time how many consumers are consuming the product and what their insights are so that they can reach out to those specific people and convert them into potential consumers.
There are certain tools that growth product managers use, such as metrics and analytics, to understand the trends going on in the market and by analysing those trends, they can derive the strategies accordingly.
2. Technical Product Manager
With the name, you can get an understanding that a Product manager who works on the technical aspect of the product is termed a technical product manager.
Technical Product Managers often tend to collaborate with the product managers and product owners to understand the technical issues and give them the real-time solution for it so that it does not hamper the product’s market growth.
Technical product managers organize and implement internal and customer training programs on how to use the product. As this helps the consumer to use the product quite effectively, they are also entitled to answer the queries related to the product and work on algorithms and automated systems to manage the technical aspects.
3. Product Design Manager
A Product Design Manager looks after the product’s design to improve the user experience.
The biggest challenge of the product design manager is to design the product as per the current situation of the market, and a product manager helps the product design manager to get all the valuable insights trending in the market and give them a brief analysis of consumer behaviour so that they can design the product accordingly.
A product design manager has to be very handy in two fields, UI/UX design and visual design tools.
4. Data Product Manager
We all know how important the role of data is in today’s time, and it will not be wrong to say that we live in a data-driven world.
The person with a strong knowledge of managing data is the real boss, and that’s what all data product managers are known for.
Their job is to analyse the raw data and derive useful insights from them to help the product managers get ample relevant data that they can use to create a valuable product.
5. Product Marketing Manager
Product marketing managers are often considered to be the consumers’ voice. Product marketing managers work to increase market reach, product growth, and market planning, and it also helps in improving customer engagement with the business model.
Sometimes, it becomes important for the product marketing managers to possess some technical knowledge as well so that they can do some changes to see the requirements of their customers.
Also Read: What Is Marketing Management?
Product Management Careers
Look at some opportunities you can have after pursuing product management as a career:
- Associate Product Manager
- Chief Product Officer
- Senior Product Manager
- Director of Product
- Vice President of Products
1. Associate Product Manager
An associate product manager’s role is to gather product data, including web analytics and analysing of consumer trends.
2. Chief Product Officer
A Chief Product Officer is responsible for deriving valuable strategies for the product and its execution within the organisation.
3. Senior Product Manager
A Senior Product Manager helps guide the product manager in building the roadmap and pipelines for the product.
4. Director of Product
The Director of Product plays a critical role in developing a product. Their role is to lead the product managers’ team to mentor and guide them in the development process.
5. Vice President of Products
They are responsible for defining and driving the high-level initiatives that support business goals.
These were the list of some career opportunities in Product Management.
Conclusion
Product management is the process of organizing the product in a way that meets the needs of the consumer by making it user-friendly and to make the product more appealing the product managers take care of all the aspects, from managing the design to the deployment of the product which is generally the final stage before launching the product.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How do I start studying product management?
Join some courses on product management to learn more about it and get in-depth knowledge on product management.
2. What is a product manager in simple words?
A product manager connects business strategy, design knowledge, and customer needs to develop a relevant, feasible, and valuable product.
3. What are the 3 major areas of product management?
Here is the list of 3 major areas of product management that are:
1. Product discovery
2. Product planning
3. Product development
