Growth Strategies Across the Product LifecycleSTRATEGIES TO MAXIMIZE THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR PRODUCT

DISCLAIMER : THIS PRESENTATION, THE VIEWS AND ASSERTIONS MADE ARE THOSE OF THE PRESENTERS AND IN NO WAY REPRESENT THOSE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYERS. CONFERENCE ATTENDEES ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR DETERMINING THE VALIDITY, ADEQUACY AND FITNESS OF ANY INFORMATION, MATERIALS, PRODUCTS OR ANYTHING ELSE PRESENTED FOR ANY AND ALL USES

IntroductionsTHE PRESENTERS & TOPIC

Paul Morgan@paulmorgan | linkedin.com/in/paulmorgan

o Director of Trade Analytics, Nielseno Past: Senior Product Manager,

Global IT Program Leader, Software Architecture, UX

o Industries: Banking, Finance, Automotive & Consumer Packaged Goods

Kamal Tahir@kamaltahir | linkedin.com/in/kamaltahir

o Senior Strategist o Past: Senior Product Manager,

Global Product Leader, Global Marketing Manager, IT Consultant

o Insurance, Finance, Automotive, Retail & Consumer Packaged Goods

Our actionable outcome for today :

Inspire & enable you to create realistic growth strategies

Agenda

Introduction to presenters and

the topic

The traditional Product Lifecycle

growth opportunities

Hacking the Product Lifecycle

Q&AWrap-up

What is Product Growth?

Market Share Revenue

Capacity Diversification

Capability Users / Subscription

Human Skill / Capability

Emotional Attachment

What is a Growth Strategy?Product Influence and Changes that lead to an increase in growth

Broad Spectrum Coverage Team Effort – Product, Marketing, Data,

Engineering, etc. are all required to engage growth strategies

Growth Rate is the Measure

Awareness of the Product

Acquisition of users / companies

Activation of Purchase

Retention of Customers

Revenue / Financial

Referral

Usability

Partnerships / Mergers

Types of Growth Strategy

Usability

The Traditional Product LifecycleGROWTH STRATEGIES

Traditional Product Lifecycle Stages

1. Product Development

2. Market Introduction

3. Growth

4. Maturity

5. Decline / Retirement

Strategies using a linear trajectory is a self-fulfilling prophesy; each of these stages can create new opportunities for revisiting prior stages.

Prod

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Intr

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Mat

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Dec

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Innovators Early Adopters

Early Majority

LateMajority

Laggards

Sale

s

Time

Why You Need A Product Roadmap

o Central focus for all stakeholderso Demonstrates longevity & valueo Invites innovation & ideationo Not a one-time deal

Enhances Emotional Attachment

It Really Happened!

Written for everyone – Sales, Marketing, Communications, IT, Support Stated and Answered “Why are we doing this?” Graphic rich with examples / contextual samples Future-proofing statement derived from the Product Roadmap

Marketing Requirements Document

Result: Clarity, Enthusiasm, Engagement, Collaboration, Emotional Attachment

1. Product Development

Innovation Process (Redfin), Product (Wii), Market Research

Growth Strategies (Ansoff’s Matrix) Market Penetration Market Development Product Development Market Diversification

Low Cost Product Development

Low Cost Product Development(1. Product Development)

Voice of the Customer Insights Outsourcing Development / Engineering to Suppliers No-frills, Low-cost Engineering – Flexible Development

Process Agile / XP / Lean Development w/ Open Architecture Global Marketing template with local market

customization Emerging Market R&D OfficeLo

w C

ost P

rodu

ct D

evel

opm

ent P

rinci

ples

Strategy

Process

People

It Really Happened!

Global need - Environmentally compliant product validation

Approach - disassemble each product down to base material and test and certify

Complexity - volume by region, speed to market, volume by season by industry, build labs, hire people

Solution – license labs, partner with BOM software, make it a data and analytics supported information - Product Best in Class

Lost Cost Product Development

Result: Winning solution for all parties; cost reduction was pervasive

2. Market introduction

Advertising – Message, Channel, Timing Price, Promotion

Freemium – use judiciously Value statements Early Adopter Programs – e.g. Google Glass “Trade” Buzz – trade articles, social, industry analysts

(e.g. Gartner, Forrester), viral

It Really Happened!

AMR rating generated interest from a major networking equipment manufacturer in US, largest wire and cable manufacturer in Asia

Magazine article generated a call from VP of one of the largest companies in US to do a pilot ASAP

Outbound sales numbers were sub 50% of revenue from the major clients coming from analyst endorsements

Industry Analyst Review

Result: Accelerated Organic growth of sales through pull demand

It Really Happened!

Global Vehicle Manufacturer (US based) introducing a new model Prior had used translated English Marketing Messages Switched to marketing messages contextually to the locale (e.g. Spanish)

Context Leads to Growth

Result: Marketing messages were “stickier” with target markets, creating growth in brand awareness

3. Growth PhaseInitially rapid sales leading to stabilization

Core Strategies: Price Promotion Place (Distribution) Product – value through differentiation People – the 5th “P”

Hacker Strategies Predictive Personalized Permissive Peer Reviewed Proactive / Prescriptive

4. Maturity

Price, Promotion efficiency Create occasion use velocity Integration – own brand or third party

services Look for unmet needs Efficiencies

Diversification Finer Segmentation Channels & Geographies Customers Usage (e.g. WD40, duct tape), Reselling programs – e.g. Amazon Cloud,

Credit Reports

“Redefine your market to one in which your current share is no more than 10%.” – Jack WelchNike (went from Sports to Leisure Clothes), Coke (Soft Drink to Beverage market), AT&T (Long distance calling to voice, image, text, data, cellular)

It Really Happened!

Competitor was aggressively pricing on contract renewals Their services were positioned as equal Professional relationships, Industry knowledge and Quality of Results

revealed that there was a non-monetary cost incurred to client

Value over Pricing

Result: Clients stayed or returned; value was in the quality of service and the results seen. New clients, previously from competitor, also moved.

5. Retirement

Typical causes : Sales decline over threshold, competition, unsupportable components, cost of ownership, market/channel shrinkage Resale e.g. IBM ThinkPad purchased by Levono Componentize

Create strategic pathways to your other products Use frameworks, e.g. “Porter’s Five Forces”, to help analyze your exit strategy

Threat of New Entrants

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Threat of Substitution

Bargaining Power of Buyers

Rivalry of Competitors

http://bit.ly/5_forces

Hacking the Product LifecycleGROWTH STRATEGIES

Brand Development

Youngme Moon : “Idea Brands” – Cirque du Soleil, Dove Soap, Harley Davidson, Dyson

“Idea brands are not perfect brands…they are polarizing brands… are lopsided… devoted to the skew …They may not make much sense on paper, but they make perfect sense to us.”*

Brand Differentiation Hierarchy – e.g. Ford >> Lincoln; VW >> Audi, Scion << Toyota >> Lexus

Strong Brand Message >> Brand Equity

*Source: Youngme Moon and Why Being Different Makes All the Difference

http://bit.ly/ideabrands

Obsess over data

Know Your Customer – measure everything Web Analytics, Helpdesk Usage, CRM, Contextual Product Access, Heat

Tracking, User profiling, Automated Telephone system Valuable currency to support change and growth, build context and

segmentation Create value-models

Maximize the Business Opportunity >> Create measurable ROI Create Value-centric Products >> Benefits Customer & Stakeholders Deep Relationships >> Retention / Loyalty

Data Drives Context – Which Drives Growth Strategies

http://bit.ly/marketingbrain

Data Driven Approach Strategy – Data improves Marketing

Performance Application – Data helps improve ROI Analysis – Enables understanding & fine tuning

Context Driven Approach Alignment – Content <> Persona

mapping creates better response to Marketing

Distribution – Using multiple channels of communication

Data + Context creates actionable strategies related to growth activities

User Experience

Goals Ease of Use Meets Expectations Aligns to Business Objectives

Creates Longevity of Value Key to Retention ROI

User Experience Should be Pervasive Throughout the Product Lifecycle

Every year US$1 Trillion+ Worldwide IT Project Spend

15% (~US$150BN) Projects failed Cost of IT re-work is 100 X cost vs. cost

before production Estimated 50% of developers time is spent

fixing issues

Source: IEEE - http://bit.ly/whysoftwarefails | also see http://bit.ly/ROIofUX

Top Reasons for Failure: Failed to meet requirements Poor communication end-to-end Stakeholder Politics

Voice of the customer

Focuses attention on real needs Great forum to socialize concepts Creates Emotional Attachment to the Product with your customers Important to get variety of input – different groups within your user

base (current or potential/future) Direct – through interviews, feedback mechanisms, online surveys Indirect – Sales team, Customer Services, Helpdesk, Training

It Really Happened!

Onboarding clients required a standard industry reports Conducted “VOC” sessions to understand business purpose / need Created a collaborative concept model with enhanced analytics Delivered high impact visualizations w/ ease of use; sold itself within the

clients

From How? To Wow!

Result: High impact capability driven through client collaboration created strong emotional attachment leading to “what else can you do?” conversations

White Label

Build out Product Capability Portfolio Increase Distribution Examples:

Firestone Walker produces Trader Joe’s Mission St. BeerMajor Brand Coffee is white labeled in Grocery Stores“Private Label” Grocery items made by mainstream

manufacturersSoftware companies create SDKs for others to re-label and sell

as their own solution

Prototyping

Think outside the box – blue sky Create “what if” scenarios Get Buy-In – both internally and externally (as part of

“Voice of the Customer”) Potential pre-sales, pre-launch tool to generate lead

growth Avoids making expensive mistakes

Beta / Pilot - “Start small build fast”

Don’t boil the ocean Iterate / Agile Sprints

Still an opportunity to correct mistakes Rapid deployment Listen to your supporters Have a roadmap to go beyond launch

“Google first showcased the product … 80-minute video on YouTube…watched more than 4m times... The buzz about the collaboration tool soon became deafening. Some have claimed that Google Wave is just an "email and instant messaging on steroids", but it could change the way web users collaborate.” – The Guardian Online http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2009/sep/30/google-wave-beta-testing

Viral Marketing

Requires Emotional Response Incentivize your market

Dropbox – every referral = 250mb additional free storage – went from 100k to 4M users in 15 months (35% from referrals)*

Uber – refer a friend = $20 credit to you

Not for every product – needs value to be obvious to new and/or existing clients/users

Caution – Consumers are more than willing to “out” a brand based off their personal & emotional experiences…

*Dropbox growth numbers: http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/dropbox-customer-referral-program-by-the-numbers/

Viral Marketing Can Go Wrong

Recapping Today’s Discussion

The traditional Product Lifecycle

growth opportunities

Hacking the Product Lifecycle

Q&AWrap-up

• Define Strategy Types

• Define Product Growth

• 5 Stages of the Product Lifecycle

• Brand Development• Obsess over Data• User Experience• Voice of the

Customer• White Label• Prototyping / Beta• Viral

Q&A / THANK YOU

Paul Morgan@paulmorgan | linkedin.com/in/paulmorgan

Kamal Tahir@kamaltahir | linkedin.com/in/kamaltahir