{"id":600,"date":"2021-07-26T21:15:24","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T21:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=600"},"modified":"2021-07-30T19:01:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T19:01:20","slug":"product-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=600","title":{"rendered":"Product Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Depending on the exercise\/usecase, there are many strategy frameworks that can be used to brainstorm approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>a simple Pros and Cons analysis<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SWOT_analysis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SWOT analysis<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Porter&#8217;s 5 forces<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Situation_analysis#5C_Analysis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">5Cs analysis<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=583\" title=\"Market factors impacting the product \u2013 PESTLE analysis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PESTLE analysis<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=576\" title=\"Growth Strategy \u2013 Ansoff Matrix\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ansoff Matrix<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following is a short summary of questions to think through while solving for a strategy exercise\/formulating a product strategy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eg: What should X do next? Should we build or buy a product like Y? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before brainstorming, make sure you are clear on the goal of the exercise and for a more closed ended question, the KPI that would indicate success. (Refer to <a href=\"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=514\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"Understanding the problem\">Understanding the problem<\/a> for some clarifying questions if the problem is very vague and narrow down the scope, if required)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The Company<ul><li>What does the company do? If the company builds multiple products, what does the product do?<\/li><li>What is the company mission? i.e, why do they do what they do?<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>If a specific strategic choice must be assessed (Eg: Should opentable expand into meeting room reservations?), does it align with the company mission?<\/li><li>Core company\/product strengths <\/li><li>Company\/product weaknesses<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li> The Customer<ul><li>Who is the company\/product&#8217;s core user segment?<\/li><li>Why do they use this product? (core purpose)<\/li><li>Does the exercise cater to company&#8217;s existing userbase or are we going after a brand new user segment?<\/li><li>For B2B &#8211; what are the other products used by the user persona as a part of their day to day? (think a day in the life of this core user)<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>The Competitors, Adjacents and Alternates<ul><li>Brainstorm top 2-3 companies that are in this space and assess their:<ul><li>core strengths<\/li><li>weaknesses<\/li><li>market share captured currently<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>For a very open ended strategy exercise (Eg: what should we do next), it helps to brainstorm adjacent markets and alternates more deeply<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>The Climate<ul><li>For a detailed analysis, <a href=\"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=583\" title=\"Market factors impacting the product \u2013 PESTLE analysis\">Market factors impacting the product \u2013 PESTLE analysis<\/a><\/li><li>Otherwise, a quick gauge on growth trajectory on this industry, social trends and tech innovations that impact this space will do<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>On a need be basis, Collaborators<ul><li>external partners or contributors needed to successfully execute on the strategy (Eg: distributors for a physical product launch, API marketplace partners etc)<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>On a need be basis, the costs involved. This could be: <ul><li>Implementation cost<\/li><li>GTM &#8211; acquisition costs<\/li><li>Establishing partner relations\/ecosystem<\/li><li>Opportunity cost &#8211; are there other more strategic paths forward as compared to what the exercise proposes?<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>After brainstorming a few or all of the areas highlighted above, summarize the list of strategic choices available that also make for a differentiating product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prioritize\/Recommend the top strategic choice that i) leverages company\/product strengths ii) takes advantage of company strength and also the competitors&#8217; weaknesses iii) is critical for future ecosystem foothold <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, but very important &#8211; how will we reach these customers? (<a href=\"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/?p=520\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"Product Positioning\/ Go To Market\">Go to Market<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>As closing notes, a few themes that come up in the strategic choices for a company\/product:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Build services on top of the existing product\/platform (Eg: Stripe&#8217;s evolution is a excellent example for this. And perhaps for all of the points listed here!)<\/li><li>Cater to a core user need in other parts of their day to day user journey (Eg: Kindle physical reader for Amazon, the online book store originally)<\/li><li>Product gets better the more people use it (Eg: Duolingo, Google Translate, Recaptcha)<\/li><li>Competitor controls the entry point of your core business (Eg: Launching Google Pixel Phone)<\/li><li>Disrupt an alternate business where users go currently (Eg: Amazon&#8217;s long term plan for launching physical Amazon stores &#8211; many products like clothing and makeup are hard to shop online without trying out first, having a physical footprint helps in these retail segments)<\/li><li>A new target user segment that is critical for the company to scale any further or to have a stronger ecosystem foothold (Eg: Wealth management startups that are targeting teenagers with new fintech products)<\/li><li>Eliminate or reduce the highest cost area of the business (Eg: many automation and AI products)<\/li><li>Competitor manages a big piece of the consumer journey (Eg: industry wide efforts across competitors to reduce reliance on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bloomberg_Terminal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bloomberg terminal<\/a> that is an absolute must have for traders)<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Depending on the exercise\/usecase, there are many strategy frameworks that can be used to brainstorm approaches. a simple Pros and Cons analysis SWOT analysis Porter&#8217;s 5 forces 5Cs analysis PESTLE analysis Ansoff Matrix The following is a short summary of questions to think through while solving for a strategy exercise\/formulating a product strategy: Eg: What [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepika-gprakash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}