Introduction
We often come across the title Product Manager and wonder how this role differs from other PM roles. Product Management is a vital function of a business that has widespread desecrate business functions. The hand behind shaping these pieces of this jigsaw is the Product Manager.
What is Product Management?
Product management is a necessary function within a business that deals with all phases of the product life cycle (PLM) responsible for producing an innovative and profitable product or service. The PLM is responsible for integrating people, data, processes, and business systems.
The typical stages under product management include product scoping, development, positioning, business needs, demand analysis, planning, certifying, complying, pricing, product launch, marketing of a product and distribution, etc. It provides product information for companies and their extended supply chain enterprise.
Product Management Tasks
A product manager’s job description is not stated as distinct and consistent, unlike other subjective jobs, say like a software engineer. This is because product managers’ responsibilities vary significantly across the industry sector, businesses, and product line.
Irrespective of their specific responsibilities, all product managers live with a primary function: drive in introducing, developing, and marketing the products and be responsible for the success of those.
Product management in organizations is classified into three major categories:
- Strategic product management – It refers to working on strategies and tasks that make the product successful. It involves doing market analysis, research to tackle the needs through trends and demand management. It also includes competitive analysis (including SWOT analysis) to derive reliable project planning.
- Technical product management – It refers to the responsibilities in requirement settings and needs analysis gathering, followed by staging product development and feasibility planning.
- Product marketing – It is responsible for the Go-To-Market phase tasks, in coordination with sales objectives.
The first two categories catering to product planning and development lie in the “inbound” functions focused on organizational stakeholders. In contrast, the third lies in “outbound” catering distribution and communication in the outside world.
A product marketing manager usually liaisons with a product manager, the sales, and the marketing functions to develop marketing communications to help in the product launch.
Product Management Role
Why product management function is vital in the product life cycle is because it lives with the product. The Product Manager does carry out significant PLM tasks, the entire product life cycle –from conception to consumption, such as strategic planning, product roadmaps promoting, marketing, etc., which requires vigilance and directives.
For startup industries, the role is crucial, as the product manager has to devise the entire business workflow afresh. In larger-scale industries, they have narrowed responsibility. The authorized product management experts moderate business between clients, stakeholders, and product development organizations.
Based on the focused responsibility in a given channel, their roles are also specialized, such as sales manager, marketing manager, brand manager, business manager, etc.
Salary and Demand
You will wonder why product management is in high demand these days. This is because a Product Manager possesses unique abilities allowing them to work across teams, meet tight deadlines, finish product roadmaps, and more.
According to PayScale, the average salary of product managers in India is ₹1,701,689 per annum. It goes high, up to ₹3,200,000 for experienced candidates with technical domains like a software product. Apart from tech, the logistics and supply chain industry are the highest paying sectors for Product Managers.
Career paths for Product Manager (Unspecified Type). The thickness and colour of lines indicate the popularity of movement from one job to the next.
The graph illustrates why product management stands high. The Technical Product Manager role, with a “technical” base either in qualifications or in the line of experience, earns the highest average salary. Such candidates are required to keep themselves upgraded with technical skills and remain abreast with technological development around. Your field of study adds some credit to the domain and product line. The business skills in the role of project manager add credit.
The product management demand also varies with the type of sector. Currently, not only IT and ITES companies recruit product managers, but also in other service sectors, the project managers play vital roles. The Product Management jobs market in India shows a swift rise in global companies. For example, the LinkedIn job site flashes more than 34,000 jobs, including 12,000 openings at Amazon alone.
Eligibility to Become a Product Manager
If you have an outgoing personality, plus the ability to debate and lead various people in business, can understand the needs of the customers, manage a group of people, gather data from varied sources, and drive towards setting the tone for a product, can make the right decision for the product. Then you are serious about making a high move in the management stream; a career in Product Management results in a better choice.
The business and management cadre students are likely to make the Product Manager roles more fruitful. The eligibility to dive in this line demands the below criteria:
- Minimum graduates in a Business related discipline; master’s degree in management preferred.
- Desirable work experience of 2-3 years in product management, coordination.
- Skillset: mostly lie in management and business acumen.
- Qualities: Leadership, Analytical, Strategic Thinking, Quantitative, Negotiating, Time Management, Operational Management.
Product Management Certification at upGrad
You will find upGrad, the ed-tech company, a provider institution for many courses in technology and management lines. They also offer a six-month certification course in Product Management. This course prepares aspirants of management professionals’ expertise to build a product roadmap and various strategies.
The strategy models on need analysis and the principle of product management function in a product launch. The course also conducts the walk-through and prototyping for the scenario of the product launch in the market. Students also receive practically shared expertise in case studies and mentoring from industry leaders.
Conclusion
We see the hi-end developments in emerging technologies like AI, ML, IoT, Cloud, and Big data, all set to a revolution in our daily lives and balance with parity products and product-based services. The development is ever going and challenging. So it’s likely to raise the need in Product Management. This will undoubtedly lead to increased product management demand in the industry.
The product management program under upGrad is set to cope with the demand. They are necessary for the fulfilment of workforce needs through a constant learning mission. The short-term certification in a product management program can help professionals gain new opportunities.
