Product Strategy: Develop and Manage Successful Products

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Course Date

STARTS ON

October 17, 2024

Course Duration

DURATION

2 months, online
4-6 hours per week

Course Fee
Course Fee

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Discover a Growth-Oriented Approach to Product Strategy

Sustainable business growth is built on forward-looking, consumer-based strategies that encompass the entire product life cycle. However, developing effective product strategies requires a broad knowledge of relevant principles and frameworks — and the experience to put them into practice. Product management professionals must be able to identify and assess new opportunities, choose the right business models, manage partnerships, and change course at a moment’s notice.

Led by Professor Mohanbir Sawhney, a global thought leader in modern marketing, business innovation, and enterprise analytics, the Product Strategy program from Kellogg Executive Education gives you the opportunity to be a part of a structured learning experience that offers essential knowledge of the field and a definitive framework for developing, implementing, and communicating product strategies that drive value and growth for today’s organizations. Firsthand experience with proven approaches and peer learning and knowledge sharing opportunities will prepare you to create impactful product strategies that help differentiate your organization and your career.

Key Takeaways

  • Analyze new product opportunities to arrive at ‘go’ or ‘no-go’ conclusions efficiently
  • Assess the pros and cons of various business models including SaaS and pivot to another business model when your current one isn’t delivering growth
  • Develop a go-to-market strategy using the 7-Elements Framework
  • Create buyer personas, positioning, and messaging based on proprietary tools from the Kellogg School of Management
  • Learn from real-world custom case studies and examples based on the faculty’s own consulting experience with top tech firms such as Microsoft, AT&T, Salesforce.com, and Meta
  • Create agile requirements grounded in the ‘jobs-to-be-done’ framework, user stories, and epics
  • Manage partner ecosystems and learn how to create win-win partnerships

Who Is This Program For?

  • Business managers who are involved at any point in a product’s life cycle
  • Leaders directly responsible for product or portfolio strategy
  • Cross-functional teams and collaborators in indirect roles, including sales, marketing, operations, finance, or R&D
  • Professionals who want to make technology a competitive differentiator for their companies, even if the vertical market is not tech
  • New product managers and professionals taking on a more formal product management role

Participants come from a wide range of industries that include:

  • Pure-play technology companies, including software, hardware, electronics, networking, and e-commerce
  • Industrial products companies, including consumer durables, medical equipment and devices, automotive, construction, and agricultural
  • Tech-intensive services firms, including banking/fintech, law firms, IT services, and consultancies

Program Modules

Over the course of eight weeks, you will discover leading product marketing techniques and strategy best practices that you can leverage for successful product development and product management through the entire life cycle and optimize growth for your organization in today’s digital landscape.

Module 1:

Understanding Product Strategy

Discover why it is critical to have an effective product strategy, its benefits and how strategy may vary across different types of organizations. Then, identify the building blocks of product strategy and learn to develop one using the V2MOM framework.

Module 2:

Analyzing Product Opportunities

Learn proven approaches for identifying and evaluating new product opportunities, including Jobs-to-Be-Done and Real-Win-Worth, and discover how value gaps can reveal high-value opportunities.

Module 3:

Discovery and Requirements Definition

Develop an in-depth understanding of design best practices you can follow to solve customer problems, including discovery hypotheses and Minimum Viable Product.

Module 4:

Designing the Business Model

Find out why business models matter, identify important considerations, and learn how to select the right model for your organization. Then, understand when it is time to adjust your approach.

Module 5:

Agile Product Development

Learn the essentials of agile development and understand its advantages and drawbacks. Then, take a closer look at the Scrum framework and other agile methods and understand their applications.

Module 6:

Taking Products to Market

Learn how to identify and understand your key audiences and choose the most appropriate route(s) to market using buyer personas, go-to-market plans, and product launch best practices.

Module 7:

Managing the Partner Ecosystem

Understand the essentials of the whole offer and learn how to provide end-to-end product value for your customers. Discover how having the right partnerships can contribute to your product’s success.

Module 8:

Managing Product Evolution and Growth

Learn how to build on the strengths of your existing strategies to drive new growth through ongoing product management, growth hacking, product road maps, and product line decision-making.

Module 1:

Understanding Product Strategy

Discover why it is critical to have an effective product strategy, its benefits and how strategy may vary across different types of organizations. Then, identify the building blocks of product strategy and learn to develop one using the V2MOM framework.

Module 5:

Agile Product Development

Learn the essentials of agile development and understand its advantages and drawbacks. Then, take a closer look at the Scrum framework and other agile methods and understand their applications.

Module 2:

Analyzing Product Opportunities

Learn proven approaches for identifying and evaluating new product opportunities, including Jobs-to-Be-Done and Real-Win-Worth, and discover how value gaps can reveal high-value opportunities.

Module 6:

Taking Products to Market

Learn how to identify and understand your key audiences and choose the most appropriate route(s) to market using buyer personas, go-to-market plans, and product launch best practices.

Module 3:

Discovery and Requirements Definition

Develop an in-depth understanding of design best practices you can follow to solve customer problems, including discovery hypotheses and Minimum Viable Product.

Module 7:

Managing the Partner Ecosystem

Understand the essentials of the whole offer and learn how to provide end-to-end product value for your customers. Discover how having the right partnerships can contribute to your product’s success.

Module 4:

Designing the Business Model

Find out why business models matter, identify important considerations, and learn how to select the right model for your organization. Then, understand when it is time to adjust your approach.

Module 8:

Managing Product Evolution and Growth

Learn how to build on the strengths of your existing strategies to drive new growth through ongoing product management, growth hacking, product road maps, and product line decision-making.

Applied Learning Opportunity

Gain hands-on experience in the concepts and frameworks you have learned through a series of application exercises that are designed to help you make an immediate impact on your organization’s product strategy.

Industry Examples

Through real-world case studies and industry examples, you will discover how leading companies put theory into practice.

Apple

How Apple uses the Razor-Razorblade business model to capitalize on the revenue from applications and services associated with its core product, the iPhone.

Microsoft

How Microsoft’s Surface Pro set a new standard in the two-in-one laptop market.

Uber

How applying Uber's on-demand marketplace model to other industries, such as dermatology, might translate to success.

Cisco

How tapping into the voice of the customer led to an entirely new business segment for Cisco ―- voice-over-IP solutions.

Xbox Series S

Explore how the Xbox Series S involves trade-offs between different business models and practice basic financial calculations to evaluate these models. Participants will learn how to analyze an existing pricing strategy and distinguish between various business models.

Keurig

Stepping into the shoes of Keurig’s home coffee makers’ product management directors , participants will create plans to fill the gaps in the whole offer relative to Nespresso and create the most viable offer for home coffee machines.

Note: All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

Participant Testimonials

Tulasi Vijaya Kumar Thulluru wearing a blue shirt

Completed my Product Strategy course from Kellogg. The last few months have been action-packed and inquisitive with insightful learning sessions, assignments, boundaryless and timezone agnostic interactions with Professor Sawhney, Program Leaders, and peers at Kellogg!

— Tulasi Vijaya Thulluru, Director of Product Management at Eightfold AI

Sovdeep Das smiling wearing a green t-shirt

Thank you Kellogg Management School for the amazing program and delivery. Enjoyed the classes by Prof. Mohanbir Sawhney and all the assignments and webinars. Feel a bit accomplished and happy to share the completion certificate.

— Sovdeep Das, Sr. Director, Product, Fiserv

Francesc Gonzalez smiling

Very satisfied to have received high-quality training from Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management and Prof. Mohanbir Sawhney. My gratitude also to all the Program Leaders Team. Enriching experience with highly practical and valuable content focused on the product as a whole and its entire life cycle.

— Francesc Gonzalez, Supplier Analyst Manager, Izasa Medical

Portrait image of Navneet Sachdeva

Based on recommendations, I enrolled and finished Product Strategy Certificate from Kellogg. It was quite an undertaking. Learned not only new terminology such as wire framing and MVP development, but also learned to use new tools (Balsamiq, Trello, etc.). I couldn't have asked for a better final assignment than to develop a strategic and product roadmap for Medication Adherence enhancing medical device ALWINE. I had the chance to use the pharmacist and the strategist in me for the assignment. These skills and tools will definitely be put to use for enhancing and developing Clinical Services Products in my current role. Highly recommend Mohanbir Sawhney. He is extremely talented in explaining complex concepts in an effective way using real-life examples.

— Navneet Sachdeva, Pharmacy Director, Central California Alliance for Health

A few months ago, I realized it's time to expand my education around strategic decision making. Luckily, I received a wonderful recommendation on this excellent product strategy course by Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management. This has been such an enriching and educational experience, and I gained a whole spectrum of new skills that would certainly follow me throughout my career. Now, it's my turn to pass the recommendation. If you're interested in professional education around product strategy - this is a great resource.

— Shir Zalzburg, Sr. UX Manager, Salesforce

Portrait image of Lim Yi against a white background

On top of the pre-recorded lectures, there were "live" webinars with Prof Sawhney, office hours with very experienced Course Leaders, Tami Reiss, Ray Choi, Juan Tenaillon, Shobhit Chugh , participation in discussion board and recommended readings. I highly recommend this course to anyone who is keen to gain a comprehensive, all-round knowledge of product strategy. I am looking forward to putting what I have learned to use for Foundations.

— Lim Yi, Partner

Program Faculty

Mohanbir Sawhney

Associate Dean for Digital Innovation; McCormick Foundation Chair of Technology; Clinical Professor of Marketing; Director of the Center for Research in Technology and Innovation

Professor Sawhney is a globally-recognized scholar, teacher, consultant, and speaker in business innovation, modern marketing, and enterprise analytics. He has written seven management books, as well as dozens of influential articles in leading academic journals and managerial publications. His most recent book, The Sentient Enterprise: The Evolution of Business Decision Making, was published in October 2017... More info

Participant Profile

Participants by Industry

  • Consulting: 3%
  • Industrial Goods: 4%
  • IT services: 7%
  • Healthcare: 11%
  • Banking & Financial Services: 16%
  • Others: 30%
  • IT products: 18%

Participants by Work Experience

  • <5 years - 14%
  • 5-9 years - 20%
  • 10-14 years - 23%
  • 20+ years - 25%
  • 15-19 years - 18%

Representative Companies

  • Adobe
  • Capgemini
  • Ernst & Young
  • Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
  • General Electric Company
  • Nielsen Holdings Plc
  • Oracle Corporation
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers
  • Salesforce.com
  • Siemens
  • Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
  • Walmart eCommerce

Participant Titles include

  • CEOs & Managing Directors
  • Chief Marketing Officer
  • Senior Director, Strategic Product Partners
  • Director of Product Marketing
  • Vice President - Product Management
  • EVP Global Sales & Marketing
  • AVP Product Strategy and Development
  • Head of Product
  • Global Product Manager
  • Brand Manager
  • Product Manager
  • Digital Strategist

Certificate

Certificate

Upon successful completion of the program, Kellogg Executive Education grants a verified digital certificate of completion to participants. This program is graded as a pass or fail; participants must receive 80% to pass and obtain the certificate of completion.

Download Brochure

After successful completion of the program, your verified digital certificate will be emailed to you in the name you used when registering for the program. All certificate images are for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to change at the discretion of Kellogg Executive Education.

Note: This online certificate program does not grant academic credit or a degree from Kellogg School of Management.

FAQs

  • How do I know if this program is right for me?

    After reviewing the information on the program landing page, we recommend you submit the short form above to gain access to the program brochure, which includes more in-depth information. If you still have questions on whether this program is a good fit for you, please email learner.success@emeritus.org, and a dedicated program advisor will follow-up with you very shortly.


    Are there any prerequisites for this program?

    Some programs do have prerequisites, particularly the more technical ones. This information will be noted on the program landing page, as well as in the program brochure. If you are uncertain about program prerequisites and your capabilities, please email us at the ID mentioned above.


    Note that, unless otherwise stated on the program web page, all programs are taught in English and proficiency in English is required.


    What is the typical class profile?

    More than 50 percent of our participants are from outside the United States. Class profiles vary from one cohort to the next, but, generally, our online certificates draw a highly diverse audience in terms of professional experience, industry, and geography — leading to a very rich peer learning and networking experience.


    What other dates will this program be offered in the future?

    Check back to this program web page or email us to inquire if future program dates or the timeline for future offerings have been confirmed yet.

  • How much time is required each week?

    Each program includes an estimated learner effort per week. This is referenced at the top of the program landing page under the Duration section, as well as in the program brochure, which you can obtain by submitting the short form at the top of this web page.


    How will my time be spent?

    We have designed this program to fit into your current working life as efficiently as possible. Time will be spent among a variety of activities including:



    • Engaging with recorded video lectures from faculty
    • Attending webinars and office hours, as per the specific program schedule
    • Reading or engaging with examples of core topics
    • Completing knowledge checks/quizzes and required activities
    • Engaging in moderated discussion groups with your peers
    • Completing your final project, if required

    The program is designed to be highly interactive while also allowing time for self-reflection and to demonstrate an understanding of the core topics through various active learning exercises. Please email us if you need further clarification on program activities.


    What is it like to learn online with the learning collaborator, Emeritus?

    More than 300,000 learners across 200 countries have chosen to advance their skills with Emeritus and its educational learning partners. In fact, 90 percent of the respondents of a recent survey across all our programs said that their learning outcomes were met or exceeded.

    All the contents of the course would be made available to students at the commencement of the course. However, to ensure the program delivers the desired learning outcomes the students may appoint Emeritus to manage the delivery of the program in a cohort-based manner the cost of which is already included in the overall course fee of the course.

    A dedicated program support team is available 24/5 (Monday to Friday) to answer questions about the learning platform, technical issues, or anything else that may affect your learning experience.


    How do I interact with other program participants?

    Peer learning adds substantially to the overall learning experience and is an important part of the program. You can connect and communicate with other participants through our learning platform.

  • What are the requirements to earn the certificate?

    Each program includes an estimated learner effort per week, so you can gauge what will be required before you enroll. This is referenced at the top of the program landing page under the Duration section, as well as in the program brochure, which you can obtain by submitting the short form at the top of this web page. All programs are designed to fit into your working life.

    This program is scored as a pass or no-pass; participants must complete the required activities to pass and obtain the certificate of completion. Some programs include a final project submission or other assignments to obtain passing status. This information will be noted in the program brochure. Please email us if you need further clarification on any specific program requirements.


    What type of certificate will I receive?

    Upon successful completion of the program, you will receive a smart digital certificate. The smart digital certificate can be shared with friends, family, schools, or potential employers. You can use it on your cover letter, resume, and/or display it on your LinkedIn profile.
    The digital certificate will be sent approximately two weeks after the program, once grading is complete.


    Can I get the hard copy of the certificate?

    No, only verified digital certificates will be issued upon successful completion. This allows you to share your credentials on social platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.


    Do I receive alumni status after completing this program?

    No, there is no alumni status granted for this program. In some cases, there are credits that count toward a higher level of certification. This information will be clearly noted in the program brochure.


    How long will I have access to the learning materials?

    You will have access to the online learning platform and all the videos and program materials for 12 months following the program start date. Access to the learning platform is restricted to registered participants per the terms of agreement.

  • What equipment or technical requirements are there for this program?

    Participants will need the latest version of their preferred browser to access the learning platform. In addition, Microsoft Office and a PDF viewer are required to access documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF files, and transcripts.


    Do I need to be online to access the program content?

    Yes, the learning platform is accessed via the internet, and video content is not available for download. However, you can download files of video transcripts, assignment templates, readings, etc. For maximum flexibility, you can access program content from a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.

    Video lectures must be streamed via the internet, and any livestream webinars and office hours will require an internet connection. However, these sessions are always recorded, so you may view them later.

  • Can I still register if the registration deadline has passed?

    Yes, you can register up until seven days past the published start date of the program without missing any of the core program material or learnings.

    What is the program fee, and what forms of payment do you accept?

    The program fee is noted at the top of this program web page and usually referenced in the program brochure as well.

    • Flexible payment options are available (see details below as well as at the top of this program web page next to FEE).
    • Tuition assistance is available for participants who qualify. Please email learner.success@emeritus.org.

    What if I don’t have a credit card? Is there another method of payment accepted?

    Yes, you can do the bank remittance in the program currency via wire transfer or debit card. Please contact your program advisor, or email us for details.


    I was not able to use the discount code provided. Can you help?

    Yes! Please email us with the details of the program you are interested in, and we will assist you.


    How can I obtain an invoice for payment?

    Please email us your invoicing requirements and the specific program you’re interested in enrolling in.


    Is there an option to make flexible payments for this program?

    Yes, the flexible payment option allows a participant to pay the program fee in installments. This option is made available on the payment page and should be selected before submitting the payment.


    How can I obtain a W9 form?

    Please connect with us via email for assistance.


    Who will be collecting the payment for the program?

    Emeritus collects all program payments, provides learner enrollment and program support, and manages learning platform services.


    Are there any restrictions on the types of funding that can be used to pay for the program?

    Program fees for Emeritus programs with Kellogg Executive Education may not be paid for with (a) funds from the GI Bill, the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance Act of 2008, or similar types of military education funding benefits or (b) Title IV financial aid funds.

  • What is the program refund and deferral policy?

    For the program refund and deferral policy, please click the link here.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Write to us at learner.success@emeritus.org or Schedule a call with one of our Program Advisors or call us at +1 315 502 3308 (US) / +44 128 291 1923 (UK) / +65 3129 4131 (SG)

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