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This PSN publication features proven practices, lessons learned and ideas from your peers. Subscribe to Inside Product Strategy™ by e-mail for free. FeaturesFrom project to product How RedZone transitioned from a development company into a product maker Particularly for advanced technology businesses, it's easy to follow the lure of one-off projects and special development consultancies at the expense of commercializing standardized products for multiple customers. For RedZone - a maker of robots designed to operate in dangerous environments - the transition was traumatic. CEO Eric Close describes how the company grew, fell, regrouped, refocused, and re-entered the market on an entirely new footing. When do you determine your product’s positioning? The sooner, the better Positioning has historically been about creating comparative advantage - particularly in differentiating the perceptions that customers hold of competing products. But, according to GE Healthcare product line manager Erin Cosgrove, that kind of positioning comes much too late in the cycle of product commercialization. It needs to happen even before the product is conceived. Getting the most out of field interviews It may look like a casual conversation, but it's not Okay, so you've figured out who you need to interview to help develop ideas for product design. What now? Where do you go? What do you ask? And how do you get the most useful results? Tom Bonnell, Director of Industrial Design at Respironics, and Julie Gulick, Product Planner at MEDRAD, have been conducting field interviews for years. Contacted separately, the two offered insights which included strikingly similar recommendations. Team formation: overcoming new product resistance When to push back, when to step down
How IBM got agile Elephants have lots of RAM, but can they dance?
Buzz Marketing Quick tips from a practice master... What's all the buzz about? It's about spreading product information person-to-person. A marketing campaign to generate buzz can be much more effective than traditional promotion techniques since customers view conversations with their peers as being more credible. The advent of social networks has amplified the buzz about buzz marketing. But there have been comparatively few examples of successful buzz campaigns for products and services sold to business. So should you invest in a buzz marketing campaign if your company fits the B2B model? Saman Haqqi, Vice President of Marketing of Landslide Technologies offers tips for how to apply to B2B effectively.
Working through the pain When and how to split up product management
Keep it simple A clear and simple product vision can go a long way
Searching for Insight How search engine maker Vivisimo seeks product development wisdom Traditional product and market research can lead to better designs and help sidestep pitfalls. But when you are at the leading edge of mobile technology, some things don't lend themselves very well to standard research methods. In the case of Vivisimo, a maker of enterprise search software, the search for product development guidance sometimes turns outward to history and at other times, inward to experience. Chief Scientist Jerome Pesenti explains.
Getting the product right isn’t enough A good product management team has to get the market right, too Building a new, market-focused product management team inside an already successful mid-size company can be challenging – particularly when there are conflicting ideas about what that team is supposed to accomplish in the first place. Jay Odell, who faced those challenges most recently with software maker Blackbaud where he currently serves as Vice President of Product Management, shares some of the lessons that type of experience can teach.
At Plextronics, heads keep swiveling Keeping both eyes open for truly great opportunities is essential in emerging markets
Most companies struggle to find their niche. Maybe they're the lucky ones. Plextronics, whose innovative technology has more applications than anyone can keep track of, has had to find ways of turning good opportunities aside in order to identify really great ones. At a recent Product Strategy Network forum, Plextronics Products Vice President Troy Hammond and colleague Mary Boone, Director of Market Development, explained how the company tries to avoid temptation and stick to its roadmap.
What it takes to succeed as a SaaS provider And the winners are ...
Software as a Service has become the rising star of the commercial applications business. By now, the qualities that propel some SaaS providers into the winners circle – as well as those which hobble others – have grown clear. CMU professor Bob Monroe, a veteran of SaaS pioneer Ariba, has been tracking the evolution of online service delivery. In this, the concluding article in a series highlighting Monroe’s analysis, he explains who the winners are and why.
Automated Healthcare: The best laid plans A great business plan is good; a flexible one is better Experiencing the market at ground level is quite different than it appears from the lofty outlook most entrepreneurs premise their business plans on. Taking those differences into account and being able to change course quickly are fundamental to any startup’s success. Rich Lunak, whose career included the presidency of McKesson Automated Healthcare at an early age, learned a lot about keeping nimble. Today, as CEO of Innovation Works, he shares that insight with a new generation of entrepreneurs. Quick TipsFinding problems to solve with your core technology Benchmarking Building a strong product management organization Software as a Service (SaaS) Customer Insights Assessing Product Opportunities Enabling Sales Voice of Customer research Integrating Marketing with Sales Feature: Keeping B2B Sales and Marketing on the same page
Act Respectfully
Value Propositions
Secure organization-wide adoption Working the Network
Recent Feature articles The Solutions Strategy Evolution The Final Solution (Part IV): Identify the common pieces, then assemble, commercialize, and support them. Sizing up new technologies at Carnegie Mellon: There are lots of ways to get innovations out there. The price of success: Innovative software and services have their price. Working with visionaries for fun and prophet: The care and feeding of a certified industry genius. Growing Agile: Agile Development means staying limber. Converting your company's development process. Climbing the customer value chain at Sterling Commerce - How product management and product marketing can recharge an established, successful business. Imperfect Vision: Confronting the inexact science of creating breakthrough products overseas A small firm's guide to survival in a world of giants - Get picky about market segments, channel partners, and product differentiation...When it comes to product management, CEO Dave Nelsen talks the talk and walks the walk -Why you might consider bringing in a product manager from the outset... Setting priorities. How do you know which product enhancements to put first? Platform is not a pedestal. Creating a common platform won't save you money, but it may keep your customers coming back for more. How to start your company's product management function from scratch. Dare to be different, prepare to be exhausted. How Confluence made itself at home in Japan's QFD House of Quality. Advice to software firms. Adapt the floor plans to fit your lifestyle. Qualities that make for outstanding Product Managers Ariba! Ariba! How California's spend management giant manages to manage its product managers. Tying customers to solutions instead of to products is a key Learning the hard way... Don't hesitate to change directions if you find yourself going down the wrong road. MSA Vice President Bob Vishneski has been there, and shares what he learned. Accelerate new product development to warp speed - Stop multitasking; it justs slow you down
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Overcoming resistance to product innovation, both within an organization and outside it, is a constant challenge to product managers. But getting the key internal players all pointed in the same direction is fundamental to the product's success. Bill Gaussa, Director of Global Product Management for 
With 350,000 employees all around the globe, IBM has faced a unique challenge: to incorporate faster, more responsive, more nimble product development into its core processes while, at the same time, avoiding the unmanaged chaos that could easily result. 
Once a company realizes the value of product management, its practitioner's workload can mushroom rapidly. That's what happened at 
Especially for breakthrough products which are genuinely new to the marketplace, keeping their developers, as well as their end users focused on the products' essential benefits, not on their underlying technologies, is critical to moving through their development cycles quickly and efficiently. Seegrid Chairman and CEO Scott Friedman, who recently shepherded his company's novel material-handling warehouse robots to market, knows what it takes to help people adhere to the original vision.
