POWER School of Technology Inc.

Subject Code/Description: Product Management

Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
Course Packet # : NO. 1, Week 1-3

Module Name : Product Management

Period Covered : Prelims

Google Class Code : OPTIONAL

Course Description : OPTIONAL

Content of this Module:

A Brief descriptions and functions of a Product Manager.

At the end of the module students should be able to:

Have a comprehension and basic knowledge of the functions and importance of being a Product
Manager
How to be an Effective Product Manager?

Product management gives company a tool to be more customer friendly, as a product manager is
supposed to be the binoculars of the company.

1. Product managers should be more customer friendly: the product manager represent the
customers of the company; in fact, he is a spokesperson for the customers. Therefore, he should
work more in field.
2. Acts like owner: product managers should be not only be professional but should inculcate.
This feeling of “If I am the owner, will I behave the same way”, will help the product manager to
change his attitude.
3. Develops innovative approach: innovation is the essence of product management. The
product manager will be effective if he is more innovative. He has to be innovative in all his
activities whether it is advertising or sales promotion or packaging or any other marketing
vehicle.
4. Buildup brand through brand equity: Product manager builds up the brand. If his brand has
developed more shares, more can be brand equity. He will be recognized for building up the
brand equity.
5. Constantly update his own acumen and adopt it for developing and increasing the
growth of the brand: product manager should be open to new ideas. Today’s success does not
mean success for tomorrow. Hence a product manager should be in touch with current trend
especially on marketing techniques, the customer’s needs so that he can change himself
accordingly.
6. Profit orientation: A product manager should be profit oriented, since his major responsibility
is improving the profitability of the products, he is handling. Therefore, cost reduction should be
a continuous process, for any product manager.
7. Be more analytical: Creativity without doubt is the main asset of a product manager. However,
an analytical approach is needed for the right marketing decision. He should be familiar with
different models which can be used for sharpening his decisions.

1|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
8. Be proactive not reactive: product manager cannot afford to be reactive. He is supposed to
understand customers better. Therefore, he should be able to anticipate events and develop a
proactive approach.
9. Building relationship: one of the major activities for product manager is co-ordination. Hence,
a cordial relationship with different people will enable him to be more effective. He cannot afford
to dedicate but he has to get his work done through good relationships with colleagues.
10. Add values to product: Product managers should develop values. In fact, perceived value
should be more than what a customer is paying. a product manager will be more effective if he
can successfully add value to his product.

Changing job function of Product Managers

Product management system being an advanced marketing approach, the position of product manager
requires a generalist. He has to achieve empathy with other departments. An effective manager will
spend more time in dealing with the few factors that have a strong influence on profit

According to Philip Kotler, the responsibilities and job function of a product manager are defined as:

1. Development of long-range growth and competitive strategy for a product.

2. Prepare annual marketing plan and sales forecast.
3. Work with advertising and merchandising agencies to develop marketing campaign.
4. Stimulate interest and support among salesmen.
5. Gathering market intelligence on competitor’s product – their performance, attributes and
shortcomings, besides customer/ dealer’s attitude.
6. Initiate product improvement to need the changing market needs and exceed benchmarks.

According to Tom Cannon, the product manager will need to work through and colleagues in sales,
advertisement, R&D, production and distribution, etc.

2|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com

Richard Handscombe’s recommendations, on the way a product manager should utilize his time lays
stress on planning and coordination sessions, special urgent talks to concerned personnel regarding their
efforts to achieve objectives, crisis problem solving, product development review, product’s strategy and
strategic visit to costumers.

Product management system in India have undergone change and job functions to have changed to
meet the changing scenario. The need is all the greater, in view of constraints, coupled with rapid
environmental and technological changes.

It is better to differentiate the job function on the basis of key responsible areas.

The key responsibility areas may be same across all industries but job function can vary depending on:

 Type of industries- consumer / pharma/ engineering/ consumer durable

 Size of the company

In a small or medium scale company, even key responsibility may be different compared to large scale or
large-medium companies. In the same way to job functions can also vary depending upon the size of the
industry.

Examples of consumer, industrial, pharma segments are given in table 2(a)

Activity Consumer goods Industrial goods Pharma

company Company
Planning Key duty Key duty Key duty
Advertising Creates plan Limited role Limited role
Sales promotion activity Originates and Suggests technical Key activity

3|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
participation manages the same materials
Merchandising Recommends Limited role No role
Packaging, branding Makes recommendation Limited role Makes and
implement labeling recommends
Pricing participation Recommends Actively participates Actively participates
Production forecast Gives forecast Establishes mid and Gives forecast
planning current schedule
Market activity research Makes request for Limited research May do on this own –
studies limited. Extensive desk
research

In view of the changing environment and stiffer competition, the job functions to have undergone
change. Today’s job function may be different, from what he used to practice yesterday product
management, therefore, must adapt to changing needs in order to come up to the expectation of the
industry.

More involvement in understanding the market: today, product manager should participate and
understand customers better. This is possible only if he is the market. He has to work in the field not for
3-5 days in a month more to understand

 Competition better:
 Assess the problems faced by the field personnel; and
 Know the customers and market better.

Provide information on product to people

‘People’ would include not only customers but also internal customers like field personnel, purchase,
production, etc. In fact, a recent study on the management’s expectations from a product management
personnel revealed in table 2(c).

First line managers Second line managers

Imparting training on product 89% 67%
knowledge
Provides information related to 59%` 20%
product and competition
Table 2(c): expectation of sales expectation of field personnel managers

Thus, product knowledge is essential for product management personnel. In fact, this could be the
reason that in industrial companies or pharma companies, technical background is considered to be an
asset for the product management personnel.

Timely availability of effective promotion inputs: one of the major job functions of product
management personnel is making the promotional inputs available at the right times and be effective in
generating pull.

Therefore, product management people have to:

1. Brief the agency.

4|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
2. Write the copy matter – more appropriate in industrial and pharma marketing
3. Give directions to field force about how to face competition and sell the product better.
4. Deal with printers.
5. Devise a winning strategy.
6. Plan and take decision on sales promotion activities.

Effective planning and preparations of plans:

It is an important function of product management personnel. Product managers have to prepare.

 Annual brand plan

 New product plan
 Marketing plan

A study conducted among the product management people has revealed that 91% of the product
management personnel are involved in preparation of brand plan and new product is made by 79% in
India.

A good plan should:

 Give guidance and direction to marketing thrust.

 Predict the behavior of market.
 Be implementable in the field.
 Have a contingency plan waiting in the wings, in case the main plan fails.

A good marketing plan should contain:

 Overall review of the market.

 Competitor’s analysis
 Our own product review, USP, positioning statement.
 Objective – unit wise and value wise; if possible, it can be broken down quarter-wise. This will
make the review effective.
 Strategies should be overall, cycle-wise sub-strategies to achieve the objectives.
 Do plans contain ‘alternate strategies’ in case the present strategy does not succeed?
 Tactics come next; tactics give direction to achieve and implement strategies. Tactics should be
derived or fully understood by field personnel so that implementation becomes easier. It is better
to involve them in formulation of tactics.
 Budgeting should give operating profit after taking into account expenses. Budgeting should also
give collection objectives so that the plan becomes more relevant.

Co-ordination: This is a very important function of a product managers as he has to co-ordinate with:

 Purchase department: to ensure availability of raw materials/ packaging materials/

promotional materials.

5|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
 Production department: to ensure availability of product, give right forecast and participate in
production planning.
 Distribution department: to ensure timely dispatch of sales promotional inputs, and monitor
stock levels to ensure proper inventory of sales stock.
 Medical/ legal department: to ensure that tall claims on advertisement of product are not
made, reply to consumer bodies, etc.
 Sales department: for implementation of his plan, in order to know the impact of its
promotional thrust.
 Printer/ artists: for timely inputs.
 QC/ customer service cell: to ensure timely feedback to customers on their complaints.
 Finance department: to ensure accurate data on profits from his product range.

Training: he has to train people this can be in-house training or on-the-job training. The implementation
of a plan to a great extent will depend on his training. Therefore, technical competence can influence the
effectiveness of training.

Market research: he has to do a lot of market research, which can improve his efficiency. The most
common areas are:

 Understanding customer behavior.

 Competitor’s activities
 Testing of advertisement campaign.

However, he must also do:

 Concept testing of product.

 Pre- testing of strategies and impact scores of an advertisement.

Packaging: there is saying that packaging is a silent salesman. Therefore, to ensure that the packaging
remains as a silent salesman, he has to take active interest.

Pricing: his role is recommendatory in many organizations. He should study the pricing on a regular
basis and recommend plans for different sets of customers.

Things that Product Manager should not do.

Product management is an important function of marketing. Today, the product manager is more
challenging. Product manager’s role is also changing. If product manager has to excel and command
respect, he should not do the following:

 Love his products – it is quite logical and possible to start loving products. It is natural, too! A
mother, who has nurtured the baby to grow, loves her child. The emotional attachment, which he
develops later on, can be harmful, as his idea of looking at the product promotion is likely to
become not fresh in passage of time and nothing new comes out.
 Spends more time with printers/ advertising agency – it has been observed that many
product managers spend more time with printers and advertisement agency personnel rather
than on strategy or copy matter platform. This is too bad. In fact, the company should appoint a
separate person to co-ordinate such activities. This will give him more time to concentrate on
strategic thinking as he is King of strategy.

6|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
 Fault finding – one of the major job functions of product manager is coordination. He needs to
build relationships between the other important personnel. Man, management will be the key
issue. In the view of his lower rank, it become all the more challenging to get his work done. He
cannot afford to be arrogant. He can win them over by developing technical expertise.
 Applies yesterday’s rule today – product manager’s success in company employing certain
techniques may be not the right techniques for his next company.

 Job hops for monetary reasons only – turnover among the product managers is very high. In
fact, this is chronic problem in many companies. No doubt, product managers are high fliers,
nevertheless, they should not change jobs for a raise of a few hundreds, but should switch job
when they are ready to shoulder greater responsibility and challenge.
 Reject others’ ideas and concepts – a product manager represents the customer within the
company. In fact, he is the “binocular” through which the company views the customers.
However, the product manager, because of his positional responsibilities, may unfriendly to
others.
 Refrain from giving feedback to people in detail – a product manager should interact with
the field force, field manager, production personnel, and distribution personnel more often. More
the information he gives about the product, more he will be appreciated.
 Imitate competitors – the product manager is nearer to the customers than any other person
in the head office. Therefore, he should plan his work in advance and try to be more proactive
than reactive. He should be visionary proactive in approach. Anticipation in a chess game is very
important and the same holds true for any type of warfare, and marketing is a warfare!
 Develops more of “I than We” – success along with good qualifications gives him a tendency
to develop “I” rather than “WE” feeling. This temptation should be avoided, as it will alienate him
not only from his external customers but also from his internal colleagues.
 Becomes a ‘yes’ man – it has been observed that product managers sometimes behave like
yes men and only do what they are told to do. This could be because of his Boss’s overly
dominating personality. In fact, in companies like these, product managers are nothing but
“glorified clerk”. No doubt, it helps to have sailing but creativity is lost.
 Changing rules of successful formula just for the sake of changing – the product
manager should be cautious in making any change to a successful formula. He should do
research and study the same before getting implemented. In this way, he will earn the respect of
his colleagues.

Activities:
Week 1-3:

a. Explain briefly the 10 traits / characteristics of being an effective Product Managers.

b. Give your objective views/reactions of the following:
1. Philip Kotler, the six (6) responsibilities and job function of a product manager.
2. Tom Cannon, the product manager will need to work through and colleagues in sales,
advertisement, R&D, production and distribution, etc.
3. Richard Handscombe’s recommendations, on the way a product manager should utilize
his time lays stress on planning and coordination sessions, special urgent talks to concerned

7|Page
 POWER School of Technology Inc.
Subject Code/Description: Product Management
Year/Course: 3rd year MM
Teacher : MR. ANGELO A. DELA ROSA
Contact Details: 09511831676; gheldelarosa17@gmail.com
personnel regarding their efforts to achieve objectives, crisis problem solving, product
development review, product’s strategy and strategic visit to costumers.
c. Give your objective views/reactions of the 10 Things that Product Manager should not do.

8|Page