Overcoming Challenges in Promoting and Delivering Customized Products

How should we handle it when product managers/project managers encounter obstacles in promoting or pushing forward externally, particularly when there is insufficient cooperation from clients or partners? The blockage in external progress can be attributed to various factors such as the value of the product, distribution of benefits, association challenges, and priority scheduling. It's important to note that the prioritization of scheduling depends on multiple considerations.

To effectively manage these obstacles, it is crucial to differentiate between different reasons for each partner. This differentiation primarily revolves around the goals and values of both the hosting department and the co-sponsoring department.

1. Mismatch between product value and benefits

During the transition from preliminary research, project planning, and bidding to the implementation phase, a leader change may occur in the host department. The new leader may not recognize the expected results of the existing product cooperation model, resulting in a lack of attention towards the subsequent promotion process.

Furthermore, the organizing department and the co-organizing department may have overlapping application scenarios and target users after the product launch. Despite the organizing department's promotion efforts, the co-organizing department may be unwilling to cooperate.

In some cases, previous research findings may deviate from the actual delivery results due to market changes or the customer's realization that the product does not fully align with their business objectives. Consequently, significant program transformations are required for implementation. However, challenges in responding promptly may arise due to delivery costs and project timelines, resulting in deviations from the intended targets during the collaboration.

These three examples represent common problems encountered in practice, often caused by multifaceted factors. It is crucial to avoid solely attributing these issues to specific executives or individuals in charge, as this can lead to repeated obstacles during the promotion process.

2. Delivery Challenges

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The delivery process of standardized products often requires adjustments to accommodate the specific circumstances of the customer. This includes adapting business functions and associated systems. Adapting business functions can lead to significant transformations that impact the core scenarios. To address this, product managers and project managers need to conduct comprehensive transformation analyses.

Similarly, adapting associated systems is limited by the dynamic and distinctive current state, which may render the existing system inadequate for the intended scenario. Modifying the system and increasing cooperation efforts from co-sponsoring departments become necessary, posing integration challenges for the internal system.

In certain key projects, policy adjustments or market-related factors may demand expanding the business scope and adaptability of standardized products. These factors contribute to the complexities of product implementation, resulting in coordination obstacles and delayed prioritization within the client, ultimately impacting the progress of our projects.

3. Role Differentiation

Regardless of the reasons behind the occurrence of problems, they can be broadly categorized into four combinations involving the host department, co-host department, business leaders, and senior leadership:

1. Obstacles faced by business leaders in the host department in advancing.
2. Obstacles faced by business leaders in co-sponsoring departments in advancing.
3. Obstacles faced by senior leaders in the host department in advancing.
4. Obstacles faced by senior leaders in co-sponsoring departments in advancing.

Furthermore, when risks transform into problems, the causes tend to be complex, and their manifestations are limited. Therefore, resolving external difficulties is often more challenging than resolving internal ones, which tests our mindset and capabilities.

4. Insufficient Standardization of Products

In recent years, the significance of standardized products has grown, even in customized delivery projects. The combination of "product + customization" has become the cornerstone of significant customer purchases.

However, standardization does not imply rigidity; rather, it encompasses a comprehensive range of products with strong adaptability, extensive coverage of various scenarios, and robust expansion capabilities. Unfortunately, such products are relatively rare in the market, except in industries with stringent regulatory policies.

As a result, many standardized products focus on upgrading aspects such as PaaS, low code, and configurability. Interestingly, performing architectural upgrades for products that evolve gradually proves more challenging than refactoring them.

Numerous customized scenarios encounter difficulties due to a lack of product scalability (both business scalability and technical scalability) and insufficient product delivery manuals (such as business manuals and development manuals). Consequently, they struggle with an incomplete understanding of actual customer scenarios at the delivery site, reminiscent of the story of "the blind men and the elephant."

Regrettably, addressing these issues comprehensively poses significant challenges.

5. Pre-sales Phase and Alignment Issues

In many cases, either the project manager or the product manager takes over, only to find themselves engaged in ad hoc program discussions regarding the project's current state. However, for customized project collaborations, multiple rounds of communication and negotiations are inevitable, starting from the sales stage, progressing through the pre-sales stage, and ultimately culminating in a cooperation agreement. Do the executives truly comprehend the potential issues in these pre-processes and the foreseen problems?

During my initial two years working in pre-sales, I collaborated with the pre-sales team to compile a handover list from pre-sales to delivery. It became apparent that most teams lacked a deep understanding of the customer, the background, the personnel of the partner organization, and even the scope of the project and the features verbally promised before the official implementation commenced.

The absence of such crucial information poses a significant hidden risk for potential issues and problems in the future.

6. Insufficient attention to risk

Even when risks are repeatedly emphasized by superiors or highlighted from a top-down perspective, many peers and executives tend to undervalue them. However, even if not all of these risks materialize into problems, a few of them can still place their work in a challenging predicament.

Tasks can be classified into four dimensions according to the theory of time management: important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and not urgent and not important.

Unfortunately, more and more teams tend to prioritize tasks that are "important and urgent" while neglecting matters that are "important but not urgent." It is only when these non-urgent issues become urgent that they are included in the schedule, leading to a vicious cycle.

In terms of time management, it is crucial to allocate more time to tasks that are important but not urgent, thereby creating a virtuous cycle. However, this approach is not only challenging but also often underappreciated by everyone.

When it comes to work, risk events fall into the category of "important but not urgent" because we often lack sufficient understanding and fail to pay enough attention to proactively address them. As a result, these risks grow and evolve into challenging problems at later stages, causing fatigue and frustration as we deal with them.

7. The Team Itself Expands in this Mode

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For many entrepreneurial teams, the product itself lacks sufficient standardization, and they face immense pressure to survive, leading them to endure one arduous battle after another. While it is often said that hard work pays off, if the team continues to rely on the traditional expansion model, more and more problems will inevitably surface. Furthermore, numerous teams have not achieved success.

Customization and standardization present an ongoing paradox, and the outcome can vary from team to team. Factors such as the industry, customers, team composition, and the market play a role in determining success or failure. However, if customization is pushed to its limits, it necessitates a new round of reforms from both a process and strategic standpoint.

Introducing reform also comes with the risk of new crises arising.

The emergence of any dilemma is not the result of overnight or individual efforts, and the author acknowledges their limited ability to fully comprehend and address these issues. Therefore, it is hoped that readers can appreciate the spirit of this discussion and engage in collaborative exploration.