Insights on How to Productize Services and Solution Offerings

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.

One of the unexpected gifts of the pandemic has been our launch of (virtual) peer groups of Product Leaders. At least once a week, we get the chance to convene small groups of product leaders to discuss their challenges and share experiences. We cover a variety of topics such as how to better catalog and use customer feedback or how to reduce custom development. A very frequent topic is talent. Especially, how to attract and retain good product talent when you are not a tech company.

Fall is my favorite time of year. The kids go back to school (thank goodness), leaves change colors, pumpkin spice returns AND, for many organizations, budgeting season kicks off! As a Type-A planner, I love budgeting season because it's where we translate our vision and strategy into tangible spending commitments for the upcoming year.

“I don't want this new product to eat away at my existing business.”

We hear this a lot. 

So many executives get caught up in the fear that new products will detract, or worse destroy, their existing business. Total or partial cannibalization can occur when a new product moves customers away from current service offerings or product lines. It is a legitimate concern, but the right framework and strategy can help companies stay competitive and turn potential threats into opportunities.

For the past three years both of my kids have been involved in FIRST – For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology – a global organization with robotics programs for kids ages 4-15, aimed at introducing children to STEM careers through fun, hands-on learning coupled with real-world problem-solving.

“People often believe that to do better work, they should do fewer things. Yet the evidence flies in the face of that assumption: Being prolific actually increases originality, because sheer volume increases your chances of finding novel solutions.”

I don’t think I am alone in this, but 2019 feels like a lifetime ago. It was August of that year that we first introduced our Product Innovation Quotient, a tool to help organizations assess their product innovation capabilities. Since then, our thinking has evolved—and so has the assessment.

Productize: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Professional Services into Scalable Products

When the world shut down a year ago, business began to slow for many professional services firms. For many, the slowdown created an opportunity – or urgent need – to try to productize their services as a strategy to grow scalably, improve valuations, and fend off new digital-first competitors.