Managing Products

Product Management Responsibilities

While this tutorial touches on basic concepts and strategies applicable to a large percentage of marketing situations, the reader should understand that no two marketing situations are the same.  Yet while some concepts and strategies important to one marketer may not hold the same weight with another, in general, the basic principles of marketing (e.g., satisfying target markets, support decisions using research, etc.) hold no matter the type of industry, type of company or type of product being sold.

What is often different between two marketing situations is the level of complication and challenge that arises as a marketer’s scope of responsibility increases.  For our purposes a marketer’s level of responsibility is measured in terms of:

• the number and variety of tasks that must be performed (i.e., what has to be done)
• the value these tasks represent to the organization (i.e., how important marketing is perceived within the company)
• the overall financial stake the marketing position holds (i.e., total sales volume and profit generation). 

As responsibilities change so to do the marketer’s tasks.  For instance, with regard to product decisions, as a marketer’s responsibilities become greater her or his day-to-day job shifts from being involved in specific product issues (e.g., finding a graphics design company to create a new label) to decisions concerning many products and focusing on setting the future marketing direction of the company (e.g., developing marketing plans for numerous products).  We can see this in greater detail by examining the responsibilities associated with four different marketing management levels: