Can someone help me cite this properly? I need 2 scholarly sources including the textbook at the very end under references. It's due this morning and I need to add citations.

Setting Product Strategy

Explain Concept of Product Strategy

Setting Product Strategy is the most crucial step. A wrong product strategy will mean absolute failure or a product that has no relevance and demand. A product strategy is an elevated plan that describes what a business hopes to accomplish with its product, and the steps they would take to realize their vision. This strategy should answer critical questions such as personas, benefits, and product goals throughout its lifecycle.

Why Is Product Strategy Crucial for a Firm?

1. It provides clarity for the firm

The firm will be better positioned to deliver its best product when the product strategy is clear and well-thought-out. The developers will understand how their respective contribution adds to the larger corporate strategic goals. Developers can sometimes get confused and lose sight of the overarching purpose. A good product strategy can provide the necessary clarity to them. The marketing and sales teams will be able to better articulate the product's benefits and unique value. On the other hand, the customer will better appreciate the product's use cases and handle any issues during usage.

2. It helps in prioritizing the product roadmap.

After getting stakeholder agreement for the proposed idea, it is essential to translate that strategy into a high-level action plan. This requires a useful product roadmap. Unfortunately, many product teams do not attach due importance to the strategy-development process and start working on the roadmap's themes and epics. A good product strategy guides these decisions to focus on the right items and use their limited time and resources more effectively.

3. It improves the team's tactical decisions.

No organization can deliver a product by following the initial roadmap. Situations change continuously, and product managers need to be ready to deal with those changes. When the team has a clear product strategy to refer to, the firm can make smarter strategic decisions about adjustments to the current plans in case of unforeseen issues such as COVID-19.

Examine at least 1 practical application/example for your topic.

If a firm plans to launch a new mobile device, the following are the steps they would follow to develop a robust product strategy:

1. Discuss with prospective customers before defining the product strategy.

It is imprudent to develop product strategy in isolation. A successful product team would set up a process to evaluate upcoming market possibilities and reduce new product potential. To make excellent product choices, they would combine entrepreneurial intuition they have collected. Before going too far into creating a product strategy based on assumptions, they would engage prospective customers in conversations and listen.

2. Develop a high-level product vision before developing a product strategy.

This is a mission-critical step to translating the strategy into success. There are actually three essential benefits of starting with a high-level product vision:

1. The team would come up with a compelling vision for the product to get executive approval to move forward
2. A compelling product vision will ensure more collaboration and contribution from all stakeholders
3. A high-level product vision will help the team in considering decisions more strategically.

3. Define the product's goals.

After the team has established a big-picture vision for the product, the next step would be to use that vision to determine a series of objectives. The firm may decide on mobile device innovation as the most crucial factor. They may also identify some key success metrics for the product. Once these goals are defined and prioritized, the firm can start developing specific plans for features, functionality, and other aspects.

4. Use the high-level product goals to guide the roadmap.

Now that the firm has determined its most important strategic product goals (Say Innovation), it should be ready to translate those objectives into product details. One way to do this would be to use a weighted-scoring model for the initiatives being considered part of the product roadmap. The firm can use the product goals like Customer Delight and Entry into a New Target Market for scoring each proposed new theme, epic, and feature.

5. Continually review the product's vision to ensure the plan is on track.

Once the team has developed a compelling product vision and a set of well-defined goals for the product, it needs to be ready to review the vision continuously and adapt to any changes.

Formulate a question about your topic that your classmates will respond to.

Walmarts product strategy uses a low-cost business blueprint and it has been successful for them over the years. Do you think that if many other organizations to include retail as well as fast food chains and more were to follow their model they could be as successful?

References

Kotler, P., & Keller, L. K. (2016). Marketing management (15E ed.). Pearson Education.