Strategy
Does the product strategy underlies the full vision and ambitions of a corporate. Does it enable a leadership position in the market?
Which products for which target markets and segments. Which new segments do I want to tackle to further fuel the company growth and what product fine-tuning is required. What are the use cases and the business model that will contribute to the bottom line.
At the same time, knowing well what competition is doing and offering (in details) is often underestimated. Although well spelled out in textbooks, in practice, not always applied… too busy with internal imperatives. As a product executive, empowering teams and freeing up time for strategic thinking is key.
Portfolio
Maintaining a product portfolio has its cost and re-assess it should be done on a regular basis. It is as (if not more) important as reviewing the cost structure associated with the individual products. Knowing the bottom-line contribution of individual products or product lines needs to be transparent and visible.
What are we not (well) selling or missing to achieve sales?
This is where re-assessing the product portfolio (and the associated projects) will free-up investments to fuel innovation and gain leadership in the market.
Execution
Execution is about rolling up the sleeves. Executives need to be strategic thinker and execution leaders as well as technology savvy.
Empowering teams, developing agile mindset and understanding pragmatic challenges are inherent to a successful CPO. “High level” understanding of payments is not enough.
Last but not least: the mindset should be : “yes there is a solution” and not “it is complicated to develop or implement”.
Mindset is everything and it starts at the top of the product organisation.