In the March/April 2024 issue of Car & Driver magazine, Jamie Kitman points out the gains and pains within the current four-wheel EV landscape. Kitman’s Upfront article, Alternating Current provides the painful reality of “piss poor planning” (my words, not his) within the hallowed walls of auto OEs, again. As history seems to always repeat itself, once again the lack of reality has bit auto manufacturers in the ass. When global governments started mandating zero-emissions by 2035, the OEs’ jealousy of Tesla gained unprecedented momentum.
The great thing about traveling so much, is I get to spend a ton of time reading. And lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in India and books are much cheaper than in the US or UK, so I’ve been stocking up on a lot of great, new reads. My latest find isThou Shalt Innovate: How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World by Avi Jorisch. This great book introduces a variety of Israeli innovators who have changed the world.
A great way to gather new insights for creative ideas is to travel. In my current role I travel a lot. The past week I got back from a whirlwind tour that took me through five countries in six days. Yes, a few of those were only airports, but it still counts when you are gathering bits-and-pieces to help you develop new ideas. All new experiences are critical to expand your perspectives and help you become more open-minded. This trip was fast and chaotic, but I experienced many new things.
Too often firms lack a structured product introduction process. Lack of process results in poor communication and lack of a unified message to the market. Worst-case, the wrong consumers are targeted resulting in wasted resources and failure to meet goals.
Typically the lack of a formal launch process also uncovers lack of metrics and a formalized post-launch review process. Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Sure, this is a cliché, but it is extremely important. You must have clear key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with overall goals and objectives for the new product.
Leadership is a critical skill that Product Managers must learn and develop throughout their careers. These skills can be cultivated through a hunger for knowledge, ongoing learning and the exponential effect of increasing business experience. Product Managers are able to transform ideas, facilitate debate, and process market signals into actionable vision for a product or segment. The following is a high-level overview of things all Product Managers need to focus on to gain trust and commitment from team members.
Ok, who hates meetings? How often do you hear employees complaining about no time to do any work as they sit in unproductive meetings all day? Well, it’s time to not blame the concept of the meeting anymore, and understand the true root cause of horrible meetings – piss-poor-planning and facilitation. When there is no agenda, no focus, rambling discussions, and lack of leadership, meetings are doomed to be wasteful.
The 5S process describes how to organize a work space for efficiency and effectiveness. This is accomplished by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the area and items, and sustaining the new order. The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work.
W. Edwards Deming, the father of quality management outlined 14 points he felt were essential to implementing and succeeding with Total Quality Management (TQM) practices. These 14 points first appeared in 1982 when Deming published Out of Crisis and are the foundation for the mindset and action an organization needs to achieve TQM success.
And companies like Toyota and Honda which followed these “best practices”, were decades ahead of their slow moving, reluctant-to-change competitors. Though Deming published these over35 years ago, every organization can gain great benefits from adopting a TQM mindset and purpose.
As Product Managers and marketing professionals, we must get comfortable with data. Data is critical to help us make sense of endless market information and drive decision making. No, we do not have to be full quants, high-level data analysts, or data scientists. However, we do need to be able to inform our data experts what we hope to understand from specific data requests and what decisions those insights will drive. The ability to be fluent with the proper analytical terminology and methods is critical to working with quantitative information.
Creating a structured and disciplined competitive intelligence (CI) system within your organization is critical to leveraging market instights and keeping your competitors off-balance. Understanding what a competitive intelligence system is, why you need to develop a CI system, and the benefits will ensure you are not caught off-guard by unexpected competitive actions.
