Insights

Ensuring Your Product Strategy is Fit-for-Growth

Miguel Garcia, Chief Technical Officer, UST Product Engineering

In our previous blog, we discussed how to avoid the “build-to-build” trap that drags down corporate reputation and profits. It’s important to make sure everything you build is fit for growth or built in a way that will produce value down the road.

More companies are holistically designed to be “fit for growth” throughout their operations, but implementation can vary depending on the business unit. For product engineers, “fit for growth” means getting to what is right for products and platform(s), identifying gaps, and charting a path to making the right architecture design and technology choices.

Historically, companies would spend a lot of time building specific products, then release them to the market and get to work on another product. That is a recipe for disaster in today’s landscape, where consumers are always looking for another solution and easily swayed to try new products. The right product engineering strategy today requires nimbleness and an all-consuming desire to understand how customers’ needs are changing.

Engineering transformation requires a fit-for-growth strategy and a deep focus on digital product innovation. Here are five ways to begin:

1. Prioritize a Minimum Viable Product methodology. MVPs are new products with the bare minimum of features to work. By pursuing an MVP product strategy, companies can market faster and iterate while the product is in the market. Many mobile applications
2. Always start with the problem. Solutions to non-existent problems will always fail. Too often, product departments fall in love with a solution without aligning it to a problem. And if you start with the solution, you can fall victim to searching for a problem needle in a haystack.
3. Always have the customers/users in mind when developing products. It seems obvious, but too many companies either fail to surface consumer insights or do not incorporate the ones they have generated when making product decisions.
4. Explore what customers will want in the future, not just today. Companies that understand where consumer habits are going will be able to build solutions not only for today but to remain beneficial in the future. It also informs a smarter product engineering roadmap strategy.
5. Embrace agility to make smarter decisions if user habits or the marketplace change. No product engineering strategy happens in a vacuum and remains fixed in time. The same guidance that encourages companies to build MVPs holds true for products released in the market. By embracing agility, your organization is better prepared to change with customers as their habits change or external events (say, a pandemic) force them to want or need different things.

A fit-for-growth strategy is the best way to ensure your organization produces valuable products today and in the future. It requires discipline, a strong framework, and the incorporation of smart insights. To learn more about how UST Product Engineering helps its clients create a fit-for-growth product engineering strategy,https://www.ust.com/blueconch

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