My Post MBA Lessons!
Product and Service Management
Stephen Speirs – E: [email protected] T: @StephenSatCisco
Cisco Systems - Advanced Services Product Management – Senior Manager
18th August 2016
• Who is this guy anyway?
• Product (or Service) Management: My Definition
• Value Proposition: “We’ll use our product when …”
• Identifying Your Target Audience - The Day After September 11th
• Changing a $K Price Tag to $M+
• Telling Stories
Agenda
Who is this guy anyway?
• Senior Manager, Product Management, Cisco Systems–
Advanced Services, Cloud & Data Center
• Previously Senior Manager, Product Management, in Cisco
Network Management Technology Group
• Focused on unique “Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert” product
• Conceived, developed and marketed worldwide from Scotland
• Joined Cisco in 2001: Atlantech Acquisition (Scottish Start-up)
• Joined in Atlantech in 1996 – product management in 1997
• Previously worked with Objective Software Technology, Sun
Microsystems, JVC and Honeywell (as software engineer)
• BSc (Hons) Applied Physics, MSc Digital Systems Engineering,
MBA
Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert
Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert
What is Product (Service) Management?
Source: Wikipedia
Product management is an organizational function within a company dealing with the planning or marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle. Product Management is also a collective term used to describe the broad sum of diverse activities performed in the interest of delivering a particular product to market. From a practical perspective, product management is an occupational domain which holds two professional disciplines: product planning and product marketing. This is because the product's functionality is created for the user via product planning efforts, and product value is presented to the buyer via product marketing. “
What is Product Management
For me …. Product Management is:
•The repeatable process,
•More precisely, the discipline,
•Of creating, justifying and communicating value
•To a defined target customer base
• In a profitable manner
• Project Management
• Marketing Communications (Marcoms), Advertising etc
• Sales
• Performed by Sales people
• Performed by Development Engineering
What Product Management is Not
My Definition !
My 10 P’s of Product (or Service) Management
1. Product
2. Place
3. Promotion
4. Price
5. Performance (Financials)
6. Positioning
7. Prioritization
8. Process
9. People & relationships
10. Personalisation and Social
More than the 4
they teach you in
MBA school!
Product Lifecycle Management
(Waterfall) Solution/Product Definition/Development Process
• Business Councils & P-Teams
• Product Requirements Document (PRD)
• What the product/solution should do
• Concept Commit –
• Business case checkpoint
• Go to market strategy/pricing review
• Functional Specification(s)
• What the product really will do (and won’t!)
• Execution Commit
• Product Testing
• FCS Readiness Review – for development and go to market checklist; GA & Launch
• Traceability, documentation in all phases
• ISO 9000/TL 9000 processes
• Post FCS – Customer Satisfaction Surveys; On-going customer engagements; Sustaining
NOTE: Now completely replaced by Agile
The Importance of Value Proposition
• Value proposition – why people/businesses will buy your product and benefit from it – perception and reality; differentiation
• Often lost in technology or domain details
• Often confused with “cool” or technology details
• Not just product – associated services too – “Whole Product”
• Needs investment before, during and after product development
• Search for proof points & reference customers
• “Eat your own dog food”
The Importance of Value Proposition “We’ll use our product when we get faster PCs”
Key Learning: If you can’t quantify/measure/ demonstrate/justify the value
proposition …. You probably don’t have one. Ask ... “So What”
Value Proposition Example
Source: Bell Labs, 2004
IP VPN Design, Provisioning &
Testing Costs
Rela
tive
Cost
Day to day troubleshooting
Operational cost reduction
Empowering lower skilled operators
Graph Source: Miercom Report on MDE
Assurance Provisioning
Scale up/speed up end service delivery
Increase Time to market – Get the network up & running faster
Reduce manual costs & skill-sets required
Customize VPN service options
Product Requirements & Target Audiences The “Tyre Swing” Analogy
The Tyre Swing Analogy
The Day After September 11th
What the ‘customer’ RFP specified
How the Cisco expert responded & agreed
What happened when the product was deployed
The “Buying Circle” - Customer ‘user’ versus ‘specifier’
The customer (user) problem
The light-bulb for me!
• Customer problems can often give more insight than customer perceived (stated) requirements
• Look for customer pain vs what the customer thinks they want
Key Learning:
Service Provider
OSS Planning/ IT/R&D
Service Assurance
Surveillance Network
Operations
Customer Helpdesk aka
Level 1 Support Level 2 Support Level 3 Support
Service Provisioning
Engineering & Network Planning
Or to the relevant
business
functions?
Positioning: Identifying Your Target Audience/Buying Circle
Kotler – “Marketing Management”
#1 of 7 steps in the Marketing
Communications process
Do we sell to the
“Telecommunications
Service Provider” ?
Changing a $K Price Tag to $M+
Changing $20K Price Tag to $M+ Searching for Strategic Value: Opportunity Cost Benefit Example
Competitive Advantage / Economic Value Add
• Fire-fighting Design Engineers can deliver next year’s services – Opportunity Cost
• Customer Satisfaction UP/Customer Churn DOWN
• Customer issue resolution time DOWN from ~ X hours to ….
• Protecting the network – strategic asset
• Profitability increase – less $$ payout for SLA breaches
OPEX reduction
• Reduce Mean Time To Repair–staff productivity
• Empowering lower skilled staff
• Application innovations e.g. provisioning testing also
Key Learning: Look for the “below the line” strategic
value for your target customer
Telling Stories
Making Ideas “Stick”: Telling Effective Stories
Principles of “Sticky” Ideas
• Simplicity
• Unexpectedness
• Concreteness
• Credibility
• Emotions
• Stories
(Ref: “Made to Stick”, Chip & Dan Heath, 2007)
Should Customers “Pilot” Next Generation Software Defined Networking aka SDN?
“I don’t want to be that snow-boarder!”
Summary: My Soapboxes
• Not just another marketing “buzz word”. Define it. Increase it! Value Proposition
• Make your product & service definition process a repeatable machine Be a Machine
• It’s more than whiz/bang features: services and business model are key Innovation & Differentiation
• Build the right product/service: Focus on customer problems The Tyre Swing
• Identify who your target audiences really are – your “Buying Circle” Positioning
• Don’t be scared to price by strategic value– remember the iceberg The Iceberg
• Make your voice heard & remembered: Don’t be that snowboarder! Stories & “Sticky” Ideas
Summary – Key Learnings/Mistakes
Questions
Thank You!