Product manager: position and requirements

A product manager or also known as a product manager is responsible for identifying consumer needs and satisfying them through product development and delivery. Including pre-development research, strategies and marketing plan for proper market reception.

The job position for this professional is within the business, technology and user experience area, so he/she works as a bridge and intermediary between the different teams of these departments.

Currently many define the product manager as the CEO of the product, because this is who sets the objectives and creates coordination projects with teams to achieve the goals of launch and especially the constant improvement.

What is a product manager?

It is the person responsible for developing the business model of a product from its creation until it reaches the hands of the end consumer. This means that it is a key position within an organization, being currently one of the most demanded.

Its function is to lead and make strategic decisions regarding a product, combining product design with business strategy.

The product manager must work with product design and manufacturing engineers, with advertisers to create appropriate and attractive campaigns, with logistics to ensure product supply, with sales for market penetration and with finance to ensure economic profitability. This means that you must have knowledge in each of these areas to perform well.

Types of product managers

• Collaborator: This is the one who creates communities and establishes relationships between work teams. Taking care of understanding users from the perspective of social relationships, seeking alliances that add value
• Technical: He is a technology expert, so he moves perfectly with the development teams, with high knowledge in the construction of the product, often ends up being the CFO of the company.
• Data guru: this profile is analytical, finding patterns in the data that users use when getting to know the product, they are experts in handling artificial intelligence machine learning and big data as part of their fundamental tools to offer reports to the company that can be used for decision making.
• Business savvy: They are good communicators and understand the overall vision of the company very well, providing simple solutions to problems as they arise during product development, although they are not very good at technology issues, that is left to the data gurus.
• Designer: This profile focuses on aesthetics and design, because they know the proper way a product should look and feel to attract users

Functions

The demand for product managers has increased thanks to the arrival of technology companies and the forced digitization of those that already existed. So the functions of this professional are summarized in:

• Identify the problems and needs of consumers in order to know which product to create
• To ensure the correct creation and delivery of the product, taking into consideration the value proposition
• Analyze user response to the products and get feedback for improvement.
• Optimize the product and the product’s performance.
• Optimize the product’s performance
• Optimize the aforementioned processes and identify how to improve each of the processes for product realization.

In addition, they must also:

• Define the product vision
• Periodically analyze user needs using quantitative methodologies
• Coordinate and monitor brand perception across different segments

Studies required

Regarding education, to be considered and hired they must have at least a degree in business administration or related careers. And also a complementary postgraduate training as a master in product manager that helps to have many more opportunities and job offers.

After having experience in the sector, product managers usually complement their training with an online MBA that allows them to broaden their vision and specialize in leadership, finance, operations and strategy.

Competencies required

• The main competency is to be responsible and have good communication, as integration with other departments and people who are involved in the product, either directly or indirectly, is needed
• Must have strategic and creative thinking
• Be able to bring plans to actual development, prioritizing which functionalities should be worked on first.
• Another competency is to be able to develop a product in a way
• Another competency is skill, because many times things will not go as expected and this can become a stressful job, so you need to be able to control your emotions and convey a positive image