Product Management, key to Business Strategy! Properly managed, a product will contribute to a company’s profitability over a long time span. Over its life cycle the complex, operational and strategic decisions made have a direct financial impact. There are many advantages in bringing in external expertise to this strategic discipline. Below are some challenging situations when this could or should be put into consideration: o Increasing complexity of products and related offers o Safeguarding large investments in R&D o Expanding existing business into new business areas o Outsourcing of product design / production o Introducing innovative pricing strategies to maximize revenue o Desire to introduce software licenses (value based offers) o Aligning price structures with product packaging Operational experience comprises: • Product Management & life cycle strategy • Product data management • Product packaging, licencing and pricing • Trade compliance & customs classification • Release management & strategy • Project management • Obsolescence & compatibility strategy Bringing external experience to an internal innovative process gives the opportunity to benefit from a relational interaction with different expertise across boundaries in the organisation. Below are some critical situations when this could or should be considered: o Increased experienced competition in the market (e.g. cost) o Changes in regulatory environment o Unawareness of available academic research and findings o Products are outdated or reaching end of life (renewal needs) o Customer needs uncertainties - Difficulties finding representative references (mass market) - Isolation from customer due to secrecy or intermediators o Radical uncertainties due to situation complexity - Difficulties identifying the appropriate market segments - Uncertainty of the concepts appropriate to solve - Uncertainty of how to break down into discrete problems