Product Manager

A Product Manager is the individual within an organization responsible for the day-to-day management and promotion of a product or family of products at all stages of the product lifecycle, from helping

- To acquire lighthouse customers,

- To working with them to define a product concept,

- To defining requirements,

- To working across an organization to develop the product, through product launch and the ongoing management of the product post launch.

In some organizations, the product manager is a Product CEO, Product General Manager, or Brand Manager of the product and has overall responsibility for the success of a product as a business.

In some other organizations, the product manager role is similar to that of a business analyst who is responsible for doing market research and writing a product requirements specification document for the engineering team to develop a product based on it.

In a typical organisation structure role of a Product Manager starts from understanding customers needs, discovering latent needs, identifying need gap and defining the product specification. Role of an Product Manager also encompasses role of Project Manager, Brand Manager and Programme Manager.

Even within the high-tech industry where product management is well defined, the product manager's job description varies widely among companies.

The role may exist within an engineering department, in a marketing department, or even as its own department. While the product manager usually has ownership of the product profit and loss, in some companies that responsibility may fall upon a business manager.