Alex Irina Sandu

The most important things are the impact on business and product objectives, relevance to the market and the competitive position of the company and the cost to implement / change. Here's how to provide value: * When you write a presentation or document for the C-Suite, tie the points that you want to make to the high-level business objectives and impact on the product. If you don't know what they are, ask your manager for the strategy documents for your business unit. * Also think broader, beyond your company and identify what the implications are of what you are seeing and talking about to the sector that you're in and whether it has any impact on how the business is positioned and perceived by the marketplace. Explain how the implications will benefit the company. * Estimate the cost of the changes you are recommending and the impact on the organization of what it would take to implement a different way of doing things or different outcomes. Compare your proposed changes to the current costs and estimate whether it will also be more efficient from the financial perspective.

These are the main criteria for reevaluating your product strategy: * At regular intervals to keep up with developments in your market. The exact timing depends on how fast your industry goes through changes. For software products, have a discussion to check that your strategy is in line with the market every 3 months and do a deeper-dive into external developments and their alignment with your strategy every 6 months. * When there are significant events that are shifting the dynamics in your ecosystem. Examples for these are when a competitor launches a major new product, when a new technology comes out or when the regulatory environment changes and it affects your product. * When there are major changes in your company's business and organizational strategy. If the objectives and structure of your business changes, then so does the product strategy need to change.

Determining the success of a product strategy can be assessed through various metrics. Here are some common ways to evaluate your product strategy: 1. Business Goals: Measure the extent to which your product strategy aligns with and helps achieve your overall business objectives. Key performance indicators such as revenue growth, market share, profitability, and customer acquisition can reflect the success of your product strategy. 2. Customer Satisfaction: Evaluate customer feedback and satisfaction metrics, such as Net Promoter Score customer surveys, ratings, and reviews. Positive feedback, repeat purchases, and increased customer loyalty are indicators that your product strategy is resonating with your audience. 3. Market Share: A growing market share indicates that your product strategy is effective. 4. User Engagement and Adoption: Assess user engagement metrics like active users, time spent on the product, and user retention rates. High levels of user engagement and increasing adoption rates suggest that your product strategy is resonating with users. 5. Return on Investment (ROI): Analyze the financial performance by measuring the ROI. Evaluate the cost of developing, marketing, and maintaining the product against the revenue generated.

Ask the execs questions to find out what they know about the market and your product that makes them recommend a different direction than the one that you think it's right. Try to get on the same page as them on what is happening in your sector and what it means for your company and product. If you think that some of their knowledge is out-of-date or is not well aligned with the latest data, explain how you see the situation and why you think that your approach is the most beneficial.

To defend your position, work on: * Strengthen your existing competitive advantage. If you are not very clear on what are the sources of your current competitive advantage, identify them and develop metrics and a way to measure their effectiveness. Your objective is to maintain and grow the competitive advantage that you already have. * Explore additional sources of advantage. As the business grows and the market evolves there will be opportunities to build more kinds of moats in the product and the business. Research what are the other types of strength that you can build and explore adding them. * Track your competitors closely, identify their competitive advantages and make sure that you are not trying to compete symmetrically, by building the same ones. The more you differentiate your business and product from your competitors, the harder will be for them to challenge your position.