Product Portfolio: An Informative Guide (2021)

Introduction

The success of an organization largely depends on making well-informed strategic decisions about existing and new products. It is usually seen that many businesses take the risk of making big and consequential decisions only to fail in managing these decisions. It is important to understand that these decisions’ impact can have a long-term effect on their products if there is no tangible and real data to back the decision.

Thus, it is vital to make well-planned and thought about resource distribution and allotment of the budget after extensive analysis. It is here where the product portfolio comes into the picture. The management of a product portfolio, whether mature or growing, proves to be the best method for resource optimization and prioritization of product-specific projects. 

1. What is a Product Portfolio?
2. Models of Product Portfolio
3. Product Portfolio Strategy
4. Importance of Product Portfolio
5. Product Portfolio Examples

1. What is a Product Portfolio?

A product portfolio is the collection of services and products sold by a business. The analysis and management of the product portfolio are a common business practice helping the managers to assess the current levels of success of their products.

It also helps identify future, promising opportunities that result in resource allocation improvement, profit and growth opportunities, greater ROI, and potential risks. There can be several risks like unsuccessful products impacting the business bottom line negatively and more. The Product Portfolio meaning entails different financial stakes demanded by every product.

Moreover, every product further requires a unique strategy depending on the market trajectory.  The strategy must be that the treatment of a low-volume product in a diminishing market is treated differently compared to a product in a growing sector, enjoying increasing sales. 

2. Models of Product Portfolio

Let is understand Product portfolio models that further helps in understanding what is product portfolio. One model that has gained a lot of popularity and is predominantly used is the Bostom Matrix Model. This model helps the businesses in a thorough analysis of brands and business portfolio. As per this model, products are categorized based on market growth and market share. It seeks answers, like the number of prospective buyers in the market increasing or not, and whether the product being sold in the market has a high or low share. Answers to these questions help to create a grid that makes the following assumptions.

• Cash surplus is generated with market share gain
• Investment in marketing helps to gain market share
• Generation of cash surplus occurs when the product is in the maturity stage of the life cycle
• The growth phase is the best time to build a dominant market position

Boston Matrix Model is considered the best tool to make product portfolio related decisions. 

3. Product Portfolio Strategy

The product portfolio strategy plays a vital role in the success of a business. It is imperative to understand that a product is successful depending on how the target market perceives it. It also depends on the satisfaction provided by the product. Thus, product portfolio strategy is considered one of the vital components of plans firmed up by the management to improve business performance. 

4. Importance of Product Portfolio

The product portfolio planning and management help enjoy plenty of benefits to businesses who use it to create their strategy. The product portfolio management comes up with a centralized view of the range of products per the existing marketplace. Thus, instead of relying on individual product management, they take a broader perspective and eliminates product development agendas and competing initiatives. 

Proper and well-planned resource allocation decisions are taken that help in strengthening products in ever-evolving and growing markets. These decisions are balanced on offerings that can be eliminated or need improvement. Products are viewed from a dual prism by the practitioners regarding products’ performance in real marketplace conditions. The management of product portfolio uses data-driven techniques to streamline research and development by identifying markets and products for new development with the best opportunities. Here are a few benefits that speak volumes of the importance of a product portfolio. 

• It helps to improve the competitive positioning of the product, enhancing its chances to get sold. 
• It helps to maximize product investments.
• It prioritizes product focus. 
• It helps in the identification of weak and strong products assisting in clarifying allocation of resources.
• It also helps in ensuring the alignment of product investments with business objectives. 
• It brings a marked improvement in collaboration and communication. 
• The product portfolio helps businesses in spread brisking over multiple markets.
• Setting a product portfolio helps the business meet different market segment requirements.
•  As the product life cycle comes to an end, it can result in newer products replacing them.
• An extensive product range increases brand awareness as a whole.
• It becomes easier for the business to launch new or latest products with already existing large portfolios. 

5. Product Portfolio Examples

As discussed above, the product portfolio is the collection of services and products sold by a business. This product portfolio can be either simple and straightforward, consisting of only one product or diversified, multiple product lines. Here are a few product portfolio examples that shall help you understand it in depth. 

Example 1- Apple Inc. is a huge organization that organizes similar products into product families or product lines. For instance, its ManIntosh Series entails MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac Mini, MacBook Air, Mac Pro, and iMac. Thus, the complete Apple product range is very complex and has six product lines. Each line has several products. 

Example 2- Eastman Kodak is another well-known brand that was founded by George Kodak in 1888. The company enjoyed a dominant position in the field of film photography in the 20^th century. With digital photography coming into vogue, the primary business, analog photography of Kodak, was left behind. It is surprising to note that the company is still flourishing, and it is because of its unwavering focus on printing products. They also have diversified and started a pharmaceutical line to their extensive product portfolio. 

Conclusion

Thus, relying on the extensive product portfolio helps a business enjoy better visibility into the entire range of products offered by a company. It makes it easier for managers to manage and understand the relationships among products. 

Interested to learn all about Product Management from the best minds in the industry? Check out our Product Management Course. This 6-month-long program takes place online through live instructor-led sessions. It is the only program in India that offers the ‘Bring Your Own Product (BYOP)’ feature so that learners can build their product idea into a full-blown product, and go through an entire Product Development lifecycle. Not only this, but this is the only program in India with a curriculum that conforms to the 5i Framework. Post completion, learners receive a joint certification from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, and Jigsaw Academy.

ALSO, READ

• Release Management: An Overview