What does a Product Manager need to manage a product leap?

The Product Managers’ answer to how you manage a product leap and other interesting findings from this year’s Product Management survey.

In the annual Tolpagorni Product Management Survey we asked Product Managers in the high-tech B2B arena about their current situation. Where are the greatest challenges? Where do Product Managers spend their time? We also asked what a Product Manager would need to make a product leap.

Product Management has traditionally been working closely to Product Development in high-tech companies, and this is still clear in the survey that Product Development is the part of the organization where Product Managers say they spend the most time. Here are the top three answers:

1. Product Development
2. Sales & Marketing
3. Product Management

But even though Product Managers spend most of their time with development there is an increased interest in the market. Product Managers need to become more externally focused in order to excel. This is also evident in the survey. The area that Product Managers want to improve the most is how to gain market insights, and the top three are:

1. Gaining market insight
2. Creating and implementing product strategies
3. Driving business opportunities

When asking what the Product Manager’s greatest product challenge is we see a similar pattern, in which the three greatest challenges are deemed to be:

1. Truly understanding the market
2. Changing the business model of the existing product
3. Product introduction in new markets or segments

The theme of the Product Leadership Day 2016 is the Product Leap. With Product Leap, we mean a substantial increase in sales without major investment in R&D. Product Managers see collaboration with Sales as the key activity to manage such a leap. The top three things Product Managers say they need for a Product Leap are:

1. Better collaboration with Sales
2. Better collaboration with partners in the ecosystem
3. Repackage the product/offering

The Product Management profession is growing. Practitioners are realizing that there are common traits in Product Management which are relevant no matter the type of product. We also see the continuation of the trend where Product Managers need an external focus to succeed. Finally, we see that Product Managers think they can increase their revenue through better collaboration.

To get access to more insights on the current state of the Product Management profession feels free to download the complete report of the Product Management survey here.