ISA's Product Management Workshop

Barb Finer of QuiVivity Marketing Partners, presented a shortened version of her three-day, well over a thousand dollar, class on product management.


Agenda:

--Playing ball as a team
--voice of the customer
--on time launch

What is a product?

An offering that one entity delivers to another that is of value…It can be defined and has repeatable characteristics. A product may be tangible or intangible.

A lot of people who enter product marketing in technology companies come out of engineering with no product marketing training whatsoever.

Components of a Product

The 4Ps…Product, Price, Promotion and Place

Product (P1) features, benefits, packaging, documentation, warranties
Price (P2) SELL-IN,sell thru, markup margin, discounts, refunds, rebates, channels
Promotion (P3) HOW DOES THE TARGET LEARN OF THE PRODUCT?
Place (P4) distribution—where can the target buy/order the product?

---and some more modern thinking---

The 4 Cs--

Thinking about the same things, but from the customers' perspective…

Customer Value
Cost
Communication
Convenience

Components of Total Cost of Ownership include: Product Failure, Product Hard to Use—even a brilliant product that is hard to use, or breaks often, can wind up costing you the business.