Uncovering Customer Orientation in Product Development - A Qualitative Study based on the Software Industry

PURPOSE: The purpose of this research project is to further advance theory on management of product development by providing insights on customer orientations. The study contributes to the literature by bringing in Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a new perspective to theorize the process of translations between customer orientation and engineering orientation within product development. RELEVANCE: Due to a mismatch in thinking between customer and development teams it is observed that it can be complicated for a product manager to help the development teams to perceive the product in terms of the customer usage. The inability of software development teams to incorporate customer perception into product development leads to unwanted delays and increased costs. METHODOLOGY: A qualitative research method was employed with an interpretive approach, using an abductive approach of reasoning. Eight face-to-face and electronic semi-structured interviews were conducted, utilizing hermeneutic analysis. FINDINGS: Our findings indicate that tensions between product development and customer orientation could be best confronted by stressing the use of technological artifacts as a medium of communication, and cross-functional management for translating customer orientation. The role of the PM as a mediator, collaborator and influencer is emphasized and crucial for negotiating a balance between a dominant engineering approach with customer orientation in product development. Knowledge visualization tools support the transfer of tacit knowledge and enable knowledge creation. CONTRIBUTIONS: Our contribution is an in depth understanding of the underlying tension that exist when incorporating customer perception in product development. We have endeavored to make sense of product management challenges in this respect

A importância do Big Data e do CRM para o gestor de produto

Mestrado em Gestão e Estratégia IndustrialA recente evolução da tecnologia permitiu que uma enorme quantidade e variedade de dados ficassem disponíveis para as empresas a uma velocidade cada vez maior. Assim, as empresas passam a poder usufruir de mais informação para tomar decisões. Mas o Big Data, o Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) e os sistemas utilizados para trabalhar essas tecnologias, ainda são recentes e as empresas ainda procuram compreender de que forma é que os dados podem contribuir para reais ganhos de valor. Dada a variedade dos dados, foi escolhida a profissão de Gestor de Produto para ser estudada pois este interage com várias áreas da empresa, sendo considerado um mini-CEO. Assim, a questão de investigação é "De que forma é que o Big Data e o CRM influenciam a tomada de decisão do Gestor de Produto?", tendo este trabalho como objetivo compreender a importância que dois sistemas de dados, o Big Data e o CRM, têm para o Gestor de Produto e de que forma é que esses sistemas contribuem para as funções do mesmo. Para o efeito, foram realizadas entrevistas a peritos visando a compreensão do contexto da pesquisa e dos processos que estão a ser desenvolvidos. Por fim, os principais resultados indicam a importância da utilização de sistemas de CRM e da utilização do Big Data pelas empresas. Os resultados evidenciam que os dados contribuem para uma tomada de decisão mais informada, permitindo assim o Gestor de Produto tomar melhores decisões.The recent evolution in technology has allowed an enormous amount and variety of data to be available for companies at a growing pace. Within this context, companies are capable of enjoying more information to allow them to reach decisions. However, Big Data and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and the systems that can be used to work this data are still fairly recent and therefore companies are still trying to understand in which way these figures can contribute can add real value. Considering the variety of data, the profession of Product Manager was chosen to be analysed as it mingles with different areas across the firm as well as being considered a mini CEO. Consequently, the question under focus here is "In what way does Big Data and CRM influence the decision-making process for the Product Manager?" This study aims to comprehend how important two data systems, Big Data and CRM, are to a product manager and how they impact its actions. Hence, an investigation has been conducted to comprehend the background of studies and methods being developed. This was achieved through qualitative research based on primary data obtained from semi structured interviews with experienced professionals within the industry. Finally, the main results indicate the importance of using CRM systems and the use of Big Data by the companies. The results show that data contribute to more informed decision making, thus allowing the Product Manager to make better decisions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Utilising Industrial Internet in Product Management

There has been a lot of interest in Industrial Internet of Things lately. Its applications and their benefits have generally been widely researched, but the internal applications that product management use have not been sufficiently studied. In this thesis I study how product management can use and benefit from Industrial Internet of Things. I explore the different needs of product management, as well as different Industrial Internet applications and their benefits, to find how the needs could be fulfilled with the applications. I also use lean wastes and value to measure their benefits. All of product management’s objectives require information to aid in decision making. Some of the most important available information include customer information and product usage information. Industrial Internet can be used to build monitoring level applications that produce that information. Some of the most important applications include usage based customer segmentation, product faults analysis and sales support applications. These applications have been used as case studies in this work. Lean waste categories are good way of quantifying and evaluating the benefits of Industrial Internet applications. When the traditional manufacturing type waste categories are combined with information management waste categories, the different efficiency gains are easy to categorize. By estimating the value of the wastes and additional value created by the applications, as well as the costs of building the application, it is possible to evaluate their profitability. In both literature and empirical part, it was found that some of the information needs of product management can be fulfilled more efficiently than before, leading to the application being beneficial. They also tend to use the same technology stack as Industrial Internet applications in general, making them interesting