Every time I have been involved in starting a successful company, I have realized that a product manager has a tremendous impact. Their ability to turn customer feedback into a product that solves their problem has always led the company to success. In this article, you will learn about the position of a PM and its tasks.

A challenging and valuable role

Professionals who want to have extensive organizational representation and managerial experience are increasingly looking for the challenging role of product manager. The product manager’s responsibilities cover the entire organization and typically extend to the entire market by focusing on one or more industries and groups of customers.
The job of the PM is to understand the needs and challenges of the target customer and to turn the acquired insights into ideas for investing and developing a new product or improving an existing product. They create business plans and business plans for investment, and when management approves these plans, they will work closely with the engineering and R&D teams to identify needs and assist in the process of turning the idea into a new product.
Then, as the product goes through development phases, the product manager’s job is to help prepare the organization for marketing, sales, and product support.

Over the life of the product, monitoring the performance and advising on price changes or advertising to counteract the reaction of competitors, and communicate with customers in order to identify potential improvements are among the duties of the product manager. Finally, the PM not only manages to stop the production of the old product but also seeks to replace the new product.
The product manager in the relevant market and technology become a subject-matter expert and is often invited to meet with clients and give lectures at relevant industry events and to write books and articles in that field.
Product managers do all of this through guiding, interacting, and leading people and actions throughout their organization; Often, though, their only formal power is their ability to persuade others to support their ideas.
This is a challenging job that is in high demand, especially for young people who have just graduated from college or are MBA graduates who are increasingly looking for such a job. Serving as a product manager provides an opportunity to achieve the ability to be seen well in the organization, as well as to develop the skills and credentials necessary to be promoted to the position of General Manager in the future.

Product manager, a role in the transformation path

The traditional role of the product manager comes from consumer product companies such as Procter & Gamble or Unilever. In these companies, this product or product category champions acted as product executives. From market research to product development and packaging and advertising and sales, these people managed products for greater growth and profitability.
Over time, virtually every segment of the industry formed a kind of product manager. Even companies that focused on service delivery relied on a kind of product manager to turn customer needs and insights they received from the market into new services.
In some markets, this role is divided into two parts, one is the product manager and the other is the product marketing manager. The product marketing manager focuses more on outbound marketing and coordination; While the product manager focuses most of his efforts on internal coordination and collaborates with the company’s R&D or engineering teams. In a situation where the task is divided, both parties work closely together to ensure compatibility and coordination across all stakeholders.

The product manager is not the project manager

Although there is a lot of group coordination in the task of product management, we should not confuse this job with the job of the project manager. The project manager is responsible for coordinating and guiding teams to work on unique and temporary designs, while the product manager starts his products from a business plan or management vision.
The project manager uses well-defined industry standards and certification procedures, while the role of a product manager is significantly less formalized on an industrial basis. There are several institutes whose job it is to train product managers, but as of this writing, we do not have a standard body of knowledge or certification, such as that in project management, in product management. It is normal for both the product manager and the project manager to work together on new product development or product improvement plan.

Essential skills for success as a product manager

Given the wide range of product management, there are many skills needed to succeed. These skills include:

• Ability to gain a deep understanding of a particular segment of the market or customer groups
• Familiarity with the specific application of products in the customer position
• Curiosity in discovering and identifying customer challenges and turning those challenges into ideas for a new product or service
• Ability to develop a business plan and investment plan to develop a new product or improve an existing product. Having a degree in business, especially an MBA, can be very rewarding.
• Critical thinking skills needed to assess customer needs, competing for products, and key trends, as well as translating this knowledge into investment plans
• Ability to guide and inform others informally, without submitting formal reports to higher authorities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an emphasis on persuading others
• Depending on the nature of the product, a deep level of technical expertise is required. Many product managers have technical backgrounds, including engineering credentials.

Career paths towards product management

Product managers enter the field with a variety of backgrounds, including:

• Engineering, research, and development
• The quality or operational management
• technical support
• Marketing Communications
• Customer support
• Sales support

In addition, some companies hire people directly from companies operating in the target market. In fact, there are many paths to this interesting and important role.

Career path for product managers

Although product managers can be promoted to their own position or department, it is common for experienced product managers to be promoted to the general manager or department manager. I have personally promoted product managers to sales and marketing management and other managerial positions. Their broad knowledge base of industry and product and performance makes them a top priority for many positions in an organization.

The final word

The product management profession is full of challenges and opportunities to learn and contribute to the success of the organization. Part of this position is entrepreneurship and the other part is general management. People who prefer to work with a high degree of responsibility and independence of action will enjoy working in this position. There are few positions in today’s job market that can match the product manager’s opportunity to shape an organization’s future success.

About KSRA

The Kavian Scientific Research Association (KSRA) is a non-profit research organization to provide research / educational services in December 2013. The members of the community had formed a virtual group on the Viber social network. The core of the Kavian Scientific Association was formed with these members as founders. These individuals, led by Professor Siavosh Kaviani, decided to launch a scientific / research association with an emphasis on education.

KSRA research association, as a non-profit research firm, is committed to providing research services in the field of knowledge. The main beneficiaries of this association are public or private knowledge-based companies, students, researchers, researchers, professors, universities, and industrial and semi-industrial centers around the world.

Our main services Based on Education for all Spectrum people in the world. We want to make an integration between researches and educations. We believe education is the main right of Human beings. So our services should be concentrated on inclusive education.

The KSRA team partners with local under-served communities around the world to improve the access to and quality of knowledge based on education, amplify and augment learning programs where they exist, and create new opportunities for e-learning where traditional education systems are lacking or non-existent.