As marketing budgets have dwindled, companies have cut back on Product Management as a functioning part of their organizations. Many companies have started to view product management as a luxury, yet best in class companies understand the vital roll that a product manager plays in helping a company efficiently plan, develop and launch new products and to optimize the sale of those new products through their sales channels.
Product Management plays a very critical role as a liaison between sales, who delivers the value of the product to the customers, and engineering / manufacturing who build the products that the market wants. Product Managers have typically a very strong technical background and are capable of working with engineering and operations to design, develop, specify and lead the overall development efforts for new products. Product Managers typically acts as a liaison for launching those new products, training the sales force, as well as working with Marketing Communications to develop sales presentations, data sheets, brochures, websites, and other forms of promotional materials that generate leads and demand for those products. Product Management duties are often undervalued in many of today's companies.
Yet, the Product Manager provides a very important value-added set of functions to a company, insuring that it can optimize the development and sale of its new products, up its margins & market share and position itself effectively against competitors.
If your company has been forced to reduce its Product Management function, you may want to consider outsourcing. A sales and marketing staffing and recruiting firm typically has a strong bench full of technical product managers who are capable of working either during peak periods on new product launches, as well as on a fractional or part time basis to help you manage the effective sale on your products.