Friday, October 13, 2006

Customer focused product management

As with any new job, the first few days are exciting as well as 'brain crunching'. I'm suffering the usual thing that everyone probably experiences, where I'm trying to get my head around a dozen new products and modules, a hundred new faces and names, and thousands of TLAs (three letter acronyms).

Fortunately I'm able to cope with the product side of things better than the first time I did this 8 years ago when joining Tower Technology. Back then imaging and workflow was a mystery to me, and even now I look back on that and wonder why on earth it took me so long to understand what it was about. I think that then I was introduced to the concepts from a pure technology background, so the actual reasoning behind the whole imaging and workflow space made little sense. This time around I have the 8 years of Tower and Vignette to help me get my head around the products faster.

I'll be product managing Global 360's G360 EX and G360 Case Managemer product lines, working closely with the other product managers, product marketing managers, engineering teams and so on. My first impressions are that the product engineering is really well run right now by the engineering directors, hopefully giving me some time to look at the more strategic side of role, while juggling the numerous customer related requests that are going to come through the door. Certainly, the customer piece is going to be especially important at Global 360, since the company is organized to provide a very high level and personal customer service. Quickly understanding, distilling and communicating all of the requests, issues and questions will be a key part of my role. Bring it on, these are exciting times!

Hopefully I'll be able to blog a little about some BPM and case management issues that strike me as important over the next few days and weeks. With hundreds of financial services customers, New Account Opening will likely get covered, but you can also expect governement, healthcare and industrial discussions as well.

Technorati tags:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Phil,
Congratulations on the new job. I think you will make a difference there. Next time you swing by the Bay Area, please let me know.
--Bruce Silver

Phil Ayres said...

Bruce, thanks for the kind words. And yes, next time I'm in the Bay area I will drop you a line. Similarly, when you next make it over to the north east or NYC, let me know.
Cheers
Phil

Anonymous said...

Phil:

I had wondered where you went - of course I've been out of the loop for the past year and half having been mobilized and working at Fort Drum in upstate New York.

I trush Cheryl is doing well - please give her my regards.

Best of luck to you - now get back to work!

Joe Stewart