Product management is an organizational function that deals with the planning forecasting and marketing of a product at all stages of the PLC. Product management, which is inbound focused and product marketing, which is outbound focused, are different yet complementary efforts which both have the objective of maximizing sales revenues, market share, and profit margins. For a further understanding of this distinction the Website Pragmatic Marketing (http://www.pragmatic marketing.com) is an excellent source. The role of product management spans many activities from strategic to tactical and varies based on the organizational structure of the company, within most businesses these activities are the province of a Product manager.
Product Managers can be a formal part of the marketing department, but in some technology based companies they maybe within the engineering departmentor may indeed beengineers with supplementary marketing training or vice versa. In some companies, the product management function is the hub of many other activities around the product. In others, it is one of manythings that need to happen to bring a product to market. As such product management often serves an inter-disciplinary role, bridging gaps within the company between teams of different expertise, most notably between engineering-oriented teams and business-oriented teams. Where product management sits within marketing it is one of the key avenues of interaction across organisational functions. For example product managers often translate business objectives set for a product by marketing or sales into engineering requirements, considering the input from marketing research undertaken to reveal customer needs.
The strategic role of product management is to be messenger of the market, delivering information to the departments that need market facts to make decisions and whilst involved with the entire PLC product managements main focus is on driving new product development. As such it is pivotal to the success and future of a business.
Product Management identifies a market opening quantifies the opportunity to make sure it's big enough to generate profit, and then articulates this to the rest of the organization. Product Management communicates the market opportunity to the executive team with a business rationale for pursuing the opportunity including financial forecasts and risk assessment. Product Management communicates the problem to product development in the form of market requirements. Product Management communicates to Marketing Communications using positioning documents, one for each type of buyer. Product Management empowers the sales effort by defining a sales process, supported by the requisite sales tools so the customer can choose the right products and options.If you look at that last paragraph you'll begin to see why product management has been included here; Product management is involved in developing an understanding of the market, leading to STP which leads to branding and from those to the marketing mix, in particular to product design and development. In essence Product management IS marketing in marketing organisations.