Description

The purpose of this role is to lead the team responsible for our portfolio of software products at my company. This person is responsible for sustainably growing our product-related revenues with a coherent product strategy, backed up by solid product lifecycle management. This is a senior leadership position with a team of product managers and solution architects reporting to the incumbent.

Role Requirements

1. Revenue

Objectives:
o Grow product revenue

Opportunities:
o Grow market share for existing products
o Identify opportunities to cross and up-sell products into existing customers
o Create new products to offer customers and partners
o Maximise product license revenue through improved pricing models

Responsibilities:
o Assists with the development of marketing strategies and sales plans to achieve sales targets
o Optimise product pricing (considering both on premises and SAAS models)
o Prepare budget proposals and assist in relevant tender responses

2. Product Strategy

Objectives:
o Sustainable portfolio of software products

Opportunities:
o Differentiate our value proposition to customers
o Extract maximum value from our product development activities by ensuring that we develop the right products at the right time for the right markets.
o Identify and manage great product ideas
o Prioritisation of product development activities to effectively balance short term targets with long term sustainability
o Avoid investment of effort into areas where we cannot maintain a sustainable competitive advantage

Responsibilities:
o Evangelise value of our products internally and externally
o Establish and maintain the product management framework
o Ensure that all products have an up to date roadmap
o Effectively channel internal resources to product development activities
o Construct business cases for investment in product development
o Ensure that products remain relevant and are supported on current technology platforms

3. Solution Crafting

Objectives:
o Sustainable Portfolio of Software Products

Opportunities:
o Innovative new solutions to meet customer requirements
o Optimise use of our senior technical people: solution architects, UX experts, technology specialists.
o Leverage technology partnerships with Oracle and Microsoft to deliver increased value to customers

Responsibilities:
o Leverage technical skills and domain knowledge of our people to create new software solutions for our customers.
o Maintain understanding of current technologies through continuing education, reading, or participation in professional conferences, workshops, or groups.
o Regular meetings with key technology partners.
o Assisting customers to develop business cases for technology investments.

4. Customer Engagement

Objectives:
o Align products to market demand
o Customer retention

Opportunities:
o Grow portfolio of products and services relevant to our customer requirements
o Active participation of our customers in guiding product roadmap

Responsibilities:
o Regularly visit key and prospective clients to understand their businesses and generate demand for solutions and related services.
o Keep up to date on developments, trends and competitive threats within the local and international target markets.
o Establish and maintain suitable customer engagement forums (user groups, online forums)
o Prepare and annual budget for the scope of product Sales activities expected.
o Manage the cost of sales for all sales opportunities

5. Governance and Administration

Objectives:
o Reduce business risk

Opportunities:
o Predicable revenue forecasts
o Develop standardised legal and commercial framework to manage legal liabilities and protect our intellectual property

Responsibilities:
o Establish and maintain process for predictable budgeting, forecasting and billing of license fees
o Ensure that all products implementations have valid end user license agreements
o Responsible for securing and renewing patents and trademarks
o Regular written and verbal reporting to the regional Executive


6. Management

Objectives:
o Responsible for product managers, architects, user experience and other technical specialists. Skills development and retention. Build institutional capacity

Opportunities:
o Build team with correct skills and capacity

Responsibilities:
o Structured management cadence (regular staff meetings and reviews)
o Ensure that all staff have appropriate personal development plans
o Coordinates and resolves conflicts between the various stakeholders involved in developing and deploying our products
o Establishes performance standards; communicates and translates vision into actionable results.
o Provides ongoing performance feedback, applies progressive discipline and obtains permission to terminate employees when required.
o Identifies talent and develops training plans and acquisition of resources for staff to ensure knowledge remains current and that staff grow their expertise.
o Close liaison with related departments (PMO; Development; Professional Services; Support; Sales, Marketing).

Education & Qualification
• Relevant Bachelor degree

Relevant Experience
• Commercialisation of software products
• Creating market demand for software products
• Preparing budget proposal and tender responses
• Product management
• Solution architecture
• Conceptualising new software solutions
• Working with business and technology experts to develop complex software solutions
• A demonstrated expertise and experience in positioning technology solutions to executive and technical personnel and business decision makers by reinforcing the value of the technology to the customer’s overall business and/or strategic opportunities
• Building relationships with senior customer decision makers
• Participation in marketing and sales events
• Business administration
• Governance and risk management frameworks
• Leading diverse teams to collaboratively achieve business goals.
• Demonstrates an intellectual and professional leadership style that earns respect and credibility of team and other stakeholders.

Attributes
• Deep technical knowledge
• Strong collaboration skills
• Communication and presentation skills
• Innovative
• Problem solving
• Resilient and maintains a positive outlook
• Organised planner
• Integrity and authenticity
• Approachable leader

Skills
• Sales presentations
• Interaction with diverse stakeholders
• Building business cases to demonstrate return on investment for customers
• Product lifecycle management
• Alert to new opportunities for turning point solutions into products
• Integrate product innovation with business model and service innovations
• Identify disruptive technologies
• Matching appropriate technology to meet requirements
• Leading requirements gathering workshops with customers
• Manage technology risks (vendor non-delivery, platform incompatibilities etc.)
• Ability to define and articulate architectural differences between solution methods and an understanding of the challenges and approaches to integrating solutions built on various platforms.
• Group presentations and public speaking
• Management of product-related customer complaints
• Ability to assimilate complex issues and use appropriate communication strategies to influence wide and diverse audiences.
• Ability to actively listen, seek information, and ask questions to ensure the understanding of underlying concerns of others.
• Ability to cascade the company vision to all levels and ensure alignment
• Budgeting and forecasting
• Report writing
• Able to work with the company Executive, providing professional, accurate, and strategic advice
• Ability to build effective interpersonal relationships inside and outside of the organization
• Strong leadership and management skills which build a cohesive, innovative and productive team.
• Effectively communicates (both written and verbal) with all stakeholders
• Setting objectives for staff and measuring results


Knowledge
• Competitor knowledge
• Software pricing models (including mobile applications and SAAS solutions)
• Familiar with the economics of new customer acquisition vs. customer retention
• Technology environment and high level roadmap for common software platforms
• Understanding of effective barriers to competitors
• Wide experience of technology platforms used for business applications
• Proficient in Agile software development methodologies
• Basic account management practices
• Understand management accounts
• Familiar with common legal agreements: end user license agreements, service contracts, non-disclosure and so on.
• Familiar with common project management practices (PMBOK or similar)
• Familiar with risk management disciplines
• Broad knowledge of the company products, services and strategic objectives
• Motivating and getting business results from technical experts