How To Use a Portfolio Vision to Lead Products
Here’s why a portfolio vision is so critical to the success of your products and how it elevates Product Management, Product Marketing, Sales and Customer Success teams to plan and execute more strategically.
Think of your portfolio vision as the ultimate “strategic goal/outcome” your target customers want from your portfolio of products.
Then think of the vision for each product as the ultimate “operational goal/outcome” customers get from that product. In other words, consider each product a lever that removes obstacles standing in the way of the customer’s strategic goals/outcomes.
Visualize an org chart with your portfolio vision at the top and each product vision reporting up to the portfolio vision.
Sample Portfolio Vision
For example, if you have a portfolio of financial solutions, your portfolio vision might be something that “gives customers the financial flexibility to consistently execute their strategy.”
- The supporting operational goal of your accounts receivable product could be something related to “stronger cash flow.”
- The supporting operational goal of your financial reporting product could be something related to “current and accurate financial insights into business performance.”
Put this structure in place and everyone in your organization that touches the products or the customer now has a common value target that allows everyone to do their part on the execution side.
- Product Management and Engineering will build products that eliminate the next biggest obstacles to the customer’s ultimate strategic goal.
- Product Marketing and Sales will position and sell the ultimate strategic customer goal with stories that demonstrate how each product eliminates their biggest obstacles.
- Customer On-boarding teams will implement solutions to ensure customers get the outcomes they expected when they made the decision to buy from you.
- Customer Success teams will manage those accounts to make sure the outcomes are realized and quantified and where the next opportunities are to eliminate more obstacles enroute more strategic customer value.
Your portfolio vision a 50,000-foot statement that reflects the ultimate customer goal in areas of the business you support, it’ll never be 100% accomplished and it can be measured. That’s why it’s referred to as your North Star. It never changes!
Netting Out Portfolio Vision
The bottom line is that your portfolio vision is the key to aligning your organization to common customer outcomes that have strategic value to them. It serves as the jumping point for all disciplines so they can execute their part in a way that returns strategic and financial value back to your own organization!
Click here if you want to experience the easiest way to learn product management, product marketing, pre-sales demos and customer success with our unique hands-on learning format. Be sure to check out our Product Management Framework that simplifies everything by making customer outcomes the starting point for building, marketing, selling and delivering strategic value.
Becoming More Strategic
- Portfolio Management 2 of 10 – Bridging the Gap on Customer Discovery
- Portfolio Management 1 of 10 – Forecasting Revenue
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