Mastering Product Management: A Key to Unleashing Business Potential

The role of the Product Manager (PM) is rapidly evolving and expanding across industries, becoming a crucial driver of innovation and business success. Initially prominent within technology companies, the demand for PMs is now spreading to many other sectors from Financial and Professional Services to Healthcare. Organisations like Accenture, JPMorgan, Liberty Mutual, and Merck have recognised this shift and have significantly expanded their product management functions in recent years.

This trend is driven by the recognition that the role is increasingly pivotal to business success. PMs ensure that products are not only developed in line with customer needs and launched effectively but also managed throughout their lifecycle in a way that continuously aligns with changes to business strategy and customer demands. PMs also act as the essential bridge between the diverse functions of organisations—from engineering and design to marketing and sales—ensuring that everyone moves in lockstep towards a common goal of delivering customer value.

To quantify the value of the PM role brings, consider this: Organisations which excel in their product strategy and build robust PM capabilities, have seen their business valuations multiply by 4 to 8 times[1]. This isn’t just a number; it’s a reflection of the value PMs bring- creating solutions which are innovative, customer-focused and which enable scalable, long-term revenue streams. 

However, despite wider recognition of the value of the PM role and heavy investments in building out PM capabilities, many organisations are still falling short of the full expected value. Why?

  • Hiring alone isn’t enough: You can’t simply recruit these skills “off the street.” Good PMs come prepared with a varied toolkit and deep market knowledge, but building strong relationships internally and understanding the specific business context takes time and effort.
  • Insufficient upskilling: Without proper training, PMs often default to familiar roles like project management rather than embracing true product leadership.
  • Leadership gaps: Many leaders lack a clear understanding of what excellence in product management looks like, leading to inconsistent expectations, lack of empowerment, and poor role definition.
  • Lack of end-to-end ownership: PMs are often not empowered to own the full product lifecycle, preventing them from driving improvements at the pace and efficiency the market demands.
  • Misaligned roles: Key roles, such as Scrum Masters and delivery leads, may be missing or improperly assigned, forcing PMs to stretch themselves thin, often focusing on more tactical activities of the day-to-day team management. 

To better understand these challenges, we conducted a study with over 300 Product Owners and Product Managers across various industries (see the graphic below). The results were telling; High-performing PMs—those whose contributions are highly valued by their peers—spend about 50% of their time on strategic, outward-facing activities such as “Customer and Market Empathy” and “Product Strategy.” Meanwhile, lower-performing PMs tend to get bogged down by internal, operational tasks like governance and team meetings. See the below the two graphs comparing indicative time splits of higher and lower performing PMs over a 1 month period. 

This stark contrast in how time is spent reveals a significant barrier to PM effectiveness. Many PMs are unable to focus on strategic initiatives because they are stretched thin across tactical responsibilities. Our research shows that this is quite a common challenge.

So, what’s the solution? How can organisations fully unlock the power and value of PMs?

  • Educate and Align: Help PMs, leaders, and key stakeholders understand what excellence in product management looks like.
  • Build up delivery capabilities simultaneously: Successful PMs are work seamlessly with strong deliver leads and scrum masters. These roles require targeted upskilling and empowerment also to ensure that PMs can focus on strategic, outward facing initiatives without being pulled into operational details.
  • Expose leadership and PMs to success stories: Arrange visits to other organizations or networking opportunities with those who have successfully navigated this journey.
  • Invest in training and coaching: Equip PMs and stakeholders with the tools and knowledge needed to embed best practices throughout the organisation.
  • Cultivate a PM community of practice: Foster a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging knowledge sharing and collaboration among PMs
  • Develop a clear product management framework: Create a structured approach that the entire organization can understand and follow, ensuring the fundamentals are consistently applied.
  • Build capability in-house: Given the scarcity of seasoned PMs especially outside the tech world focus on developing talent internally to drive long-term success.

By investing in the right capabilities and structures, organisations can not only enhance their product management function but also drive sustained business growth and innovation. 

[1] ‘How to Turn Professional Services Into Products’ MIT Sloan, Mohanbir Sawhney, 2024.