Case Study

Our goal at MIDIOR is not to come up with the next hit product. Instead, we focus on helping our clients build organizations that have the knowledge and people to deliver successful products and services to the marketplace, over and over again. We support product teams to accelerate key initiatives, reduce cycle time and improve bottom line performance.

Without question, behind every successful product you will find a great product manager. Product managers, by MIDIOR’s definition, are CEO’s of their product businesses and we believe that you cannot separate the products from the people. The functions of product management may depend on the coordinated efforts of a team but the success of the product is dependent on the instrumentality of the product manager.

We know from experience that accelerating new product success means more than accelerating the development cycle. In order to accelerate, you need to have “all of your wood behind one arrow”. In order to be accurate, you need to understand the business of your product as thoroughly as you understand the development specs. From taking responsibility for where and how the product or service touches the customer, to the myriad of business and technical dimensions of the product as it crosses functional lines within the organization, the buck stops at the product manager.

At MIDIOR, we believe that product management is a discipline, not a departmentalized function or process. There may be processes within the discipline that can help to facilitate success and capture best practices, but there are no generic solutions. In fact, where product management manifests itself in organizations may differ by company or industry and individuals performing the function may not even be called product managers. But seek out the entrepreneurs within an organization and you will find the true product managers.

Structured Process
MIDIOR has developed a framework called P4 to support the ongoing management of products. It works as a template to align people and process with management objectives. This approach works particularly well for products and services that are either abstract or that are technology-based, have pieces that can be delivered and used in multiple ways, and where financial and functional performance is difficult to track.

The MIDIOR framework identifies four dimensions that can positively impact the leverage of a product or service within an organization, each with its own criteria for management and accountability. In product management engagements, MIDIOR works with clients to better understand, manage and support the deployment of resources against:

• Products - the things that customers buy
• Platforms - the underlying platforms and processes that are used to build or deliver products and services
• Projects – the R & D initiatives to reduce the cost of products or platforms
• Points of delivery - the way that the product or service gets to a customer

MIDIOR helps organizations understand their business from the product point of view - their P4 blueprint so to speak - uncovering where key “product functions” take place. Our consultants take the pieces apart, synthesizing internal information, customer feedback and domain expertise in a specific industry - and then they put them back together again. The result is a high-performing organization with a discipline that delivers a robust pipeline of successful products and services to market. MIDIOR clients have best-in-class product management teams that consistently make a significant, measurable contribution to the bottom line.

Case Study