The success of a technology product or service in its market depends on several factors. For example:
- the investment it receives
- Its technical performance compared to that of competing products
- Its quality
- Its positioning
- The relevance and clarity of its value proposition
- the effectiveness of the sales action
- the support provided by operational marketing
- The services associated with it
- etc.
Each of these factors will present itself in the form of several possible options and will require choices and trade-offs. These decisions will form the product strategy and will need to be reviewed, renewed or adapted over time.
The product strategy
The strategy for a product will consist of deciding on the market segments and customers for which it is intended, its positioning in relation to the competition, its value proposition, its “target price”, its technical specifications and future developments, its “go to market”, the necessary investments, the associated services, its revenue model, the improvement of its competitiveness, etc.
The quality of the product strategy is based on the quality of the analyses that precede the strategic product choices. These analyses involve various internal contributions operating in a network:
- Technical
- Strategy
- Marketing
- Finance
- Legal
- Services
- Industry
- Etc.
The quality of the product strategy (and subsequently the success of its execution) therefore also depends on the quality of the cooperation and coordination between these many players who all contribute to the definition of the product, its positioning on the market, its launch and its development. The coordinated preparation of all these decisions and their validation are therefore essential.
The product plan
The product plan is the main instrument for preparing, coordinating and validating these decisions in terms of both technical and customer market aspects.
Although its presentation can vary greatly from company to company, a technology product plan generally includes the following headings
- Exact scope of the product: its definition, its nature, the markets and customers it addresses
- Summary of the product’s current situation: markets, customers, competition and comparison with competitors, technical state of play, experience from the product’s past in its market(s)
- Strategy for the product: target segments, customers and target projects (must wins), positioning, value proposition, differentiation from the competition, technical roadmap, go to market
- Financial aspects
- Preparation for implementation: promotion, communication and sales support aspects, industrial and resource aspects
The product plan will then be coordinated over time with the stages of product life cycle management.
