My Post MBA Lessons!

Product and Service Management

Stephen Speirs – E: sspeirs@cisco.com 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!