Product manager: how to play the role

In the author's view, the product manager's work has the following aspects: First, to guide the department's academic specialists/product specialists to collect information on industry dynamics, collate basic information on the product, and produce unique promotional materials; second is the overall management of the product's marketing strategy development, promotional activities, planning and organization of activities; third is to understand the company's marketing senior management of the requirements of the brand management, design and design a clear product positioning and brand image. Clear product positioning and brand image, improve the product training knowledge manual, training the company's department heads and the department's academic specialists/product specialists to ensure that they can accurately convey the requirements of brand building to the market; Fourth, with the marketing management department under the jurisdiction of the various related functions in close cooperation with the product's sales targets, market share and profit indicators of the simultaneous growth.

It can be said that the product manager is the center of the company's product management system. In marketing practice, if the enterprise can fully play the functional role of the team led by the product manager, will greatly improve the brand image of the product in difficult business situations, or rapidly improve the visibility of the product in the same industry. But the reality is that many pharmaceutical companies do not give full play to the role of the product manager, to the enterprise's product management has brought some impact. So, at present, China's pharmaceutical industry in the role of the product manager in the role of what needs to be resolved, as a product manager how to play a better role? This issue invited three industry insiders to discuss this issue.

Late start should improve the quality of

China's product managers started late. Because of the product management system in China to implement a relatively short period of time, the domestic pharmaceutical enterprises of the decision-making level of the role it can play a lack of understanding. Because of this reason, business leaders in the product manager's functional positioning, the coordination of the relationship between the relevant functional departments, the talent selection mechanism and other aspects of the obvious lack of experience, poor understanding, product managers can not better play the effectiveness of marketing planning and brand management. In this regard, domestic pharmaceutical companies should learn from the experience of foreign-funded or joint venture enterprises. In these enterprises, the product manager has become the center of corporate marketing, most of them have received a systematic business management knowledge learning MBA, they not only have a certain amount of work experience, but also mastered a wealth of knowledge of business management, with market research, marketing planning, cost accounting, profit and loss forecasting and analysis, input and output index control, internal and external communication and other comprehensive work ability, easy to obtain full authorization, but also It is easy to obtain full authorization and achieve outstanding performance, so that the company's products become a leading brand in the industry. On the contrary, most of the product managers of pharmaceutical companies have not been formally trained, not to mention formal MBA education, many of them do not know what role product managers can play in corporate marketing, some even do not know what they want to do, where to start. Among them, there are many people who favor sales, too much focus on local and short-term sales data, and the traditional marketing and sales departments are not very different, reflecting their own uniqueness; some focus on academia, focusing on medical expertise but the lack of market research and advanced market concepts, the development of the sales strategy on the market sales guidance is not very useful. More sadly, some product managers passive service, just follow the sales staff, simply exercise sales support functions, lack of guidance function, can not attract the attention of senior management. In addition, in the pharmaceutical market information network construction, is not quite standardized, the circulation of some non-authoritative one-sided information, affecting the product manager's accurate judgment of the market, making it difficult for the product manager to do something. Because of the lack of action, so in the enterprise, they also have no status.

In response to the above, I believe that, as a product manager, first of all, they can not be presumptuous, to improve the quality of more effort. To seize every opportunity to learn relevant business knowledge, one is to participate in various training organized by the enterprise. For a product manager who is looking forward to continuous improvement, the opportunity for professional training should be regarded as the best welfare benefits given by the enterprise to its employees, and strive to participate. Secondly, when there is no such training opportunities, we should utilize our spare time, more self-learning, including learning business management knowledge, comprehensive development of their own quality. Only when their own quality is improved, it is possible to play a greater role in corporate marketing activities. (Fang Xuewen)

Market chaos play a team role

The author has a different view, in our country, due to the general environment, it is difficult to play a role in the product manager, which is different from Western countries. Product managers play a bad role, the reason is not only in the product managers themselves, to a large extent, is caused by the environment. In China, the pharmaceutical market macro-control capacity is weak, the development and implementation of relevant regulations lagged behind, resulting in some unregulated commercial competition and disruption of the market economic order of corruption, such as the most abhorrent "gold sales", this extremely unstandardized competitive behavior, which seriously affects the role of the product manager Normal play. Because of this, some business leaders look at the problem one-sidedly, focusing only on sales performance, ignoring the long-term development of the enterprise, they are in the development of market management policies, there is an obvious short-sighted phenomenon, can not give the product manager due status, and can not be well taken into account their views. In this case, it is impossible for product managers to play a good role. In addition, China's market economy is still in the process of continuous improvement, the introduction of a number of policies is often a process of continuous groping, such as the well-known pharmaceutical separation, centralized bidding, social security directory adjustment. We recognize that the introduction of these policies is necessary, but to be honest, its impact on the market is also very large, which also makes some product managers difficult to grasp, at a loss.

In such a situation, I believe that, as a product manager, must play the collective wisdom, to give full play to the potential of the team staff, the work will be effective, so that the leadership and the general staff to see their own and the role of the team, in order to cause them to pay attention to, so that they get their rightful place in the enterprise. To communicate more with team members, and according to market changes constantly adjust the product positioning and marketing strategy. To organize regular staff training to improve the quality of staff, do not let themselves become a complementary and subordinate to the sales department of the enterprise. Of course, as a product manager must have professionalism, in the case of poor performance, they are not valued in the enterprise, but also to have a positive work mentality, there can be no resistance, in the position of a day, must make every effort for the development of the enterprise to do a good job of what they should do. As long as this is done, I believe that everyone's eyes are bright, will certainly give you a due position. (Wu Xingbing)

Avoid "rule of man" when communicating with the top

In the author's view, the impact of the general environment is only one aspect. Under the same blue sky, we can see that some companies play the role of product managers better, while some companies do not play the role of product managers. What does this mean? The influence of the general environment is only one aspect. Some product managers do not play out the role of the reason in large part is the company's own problems. For example, some of the company's leaders will be particularly important sales performance, it is true, but as the top management of the enterprise, should also see the long-term development of the enterprise, to see the strategic issues of the enterprise. From these aspects, corporate executives should at least give the product manager and the sales department of the same status and policy support, not to favor one over the other, affecting the work of the product manager. If the decision makers do not pay attention to the work of product managers, even if they develop the right product strategy and plan, but also can not be effectively implemented and executed. In addition, the traditional Chinese culture has also y branded the enterprise: the rule of man. Many business owners have a sense of pride in their bones, especially some private enterprise owners, that they started from scratch, the development of the present is not easy, always think they are better than others, so that the product manager can not communicate with them normally and effectively, can not get enough authorization or be entrusted with important tasks. These factors also affect the role of the product manager.

So, I think, as a product manager, first of all, there should be a quality, that is, the ability to collusion, collusion ability is not strong, is not good product manager. To timely and effective communication with the top management of the enterprise, their own as a good propagandist for themselves, so that the top recognize the great role of product managers, to create a good working environment for themselves. In addition, within the enterprise, the product manager from the organization to give them the status they deserve, they can not be placed in the marketing department, it is best to directly to the corporate vice president of marketing or marketing director is responsible for and report on the work. With the same status as other departments, it is possible to make them work equally in the enterprise. And once there should be the status, as a product manager, must work boldly to establish their own prestige, the implementation and supervision of the company's departments to implement product strategy and plan; urge the relevant functional departments to strengthen the sales of macro-guidance and the management of sales staff, according to the company's unified strategy and planning to promote and publicize the product to avoid irregular short-term sales behavior. Here, the product manager must find his own position and fulfill his own responsibilities, so that he can really play his role well. (Wang Shanxing) (This issue planning Long Fan)