The Pulse of Productization

Fear accompanies business model transformation and product innovation because these activities introduce ambiguity into your normal business operations. But to productize successfully, organizations must learn to face fears associated with change. In this four-part series, we outline our LEAP method for overcoming the fear that gets in the way of successful productization. LEAP stands for:

• Listening to your intuition
• Expecting less than perfect
• Asking for help
• Practicing gratitude.

Informed by the neuroscience of mindfulness, the LEAP method has helped clients and our team find the courage they seek to innovate and transform. 

One of my favorite professional events is right around the corner.  The annual Women In Product Conference is May 10-11 and it will be held virtually to allow more people to attend.  I highly recommend it for all women currently in Product roles (the conference has different tracks for entry-level professionals all the way up to Executive roles) as well as for Product leaders who want to help more women succeed in Product roles.

When services firms choose to pursue a productization strategy, they can face many challenges. I’ve seen companies fail because they didn’t have the right skills, poor product-market fit, or they under-invested in go-to-market. Another significant challenge is changing the organization’s behavior and culture to be more product friendly.  Consider this:

Most professional services organizations deliver their expertise through one-to-one customized interactions. When these organizations decide to grow through productization, they need to learn how to deliver expertise at scale.

Services organizations who want to pursue a strategy of productization first need to make sure their leadership team understands and supports the strategy. This includes building a business case for productization, collaboratively defining the new business model, and modeling necessary behavior change.       

A management consulting firm recently partnered with Vecteris to develop a strategy for ‘productizing’ their services.  As part of this work we also helped them assess whether or not they had the capabilities to support a product innovation growth strategy.  We did this because good ideas are not enough.

I can’t believe that three years have passed since we launched Vecteris at the Women in Product Conference in San Francisco back in 2018! So much has happened and this seemed like a good moment to stop, reflect, and celebrate.