How did I shape the Vision and Strategy for this product?
Upon joining a major international food distribution company in August 2018, tasked with modernizing its operations, my focus gravitated towards fostering a seamless transition to a 21st-century solution, empowering customers through a SaaS platform.
My initial objective centered on replacing the outdated legacy system with an adaptable open-source alternative, followed by implementing a robust, future-proof tech stack aligned with the company’s overarching objectives.
Collaborating closely with technical leads, we opted for a heuristic-driven approach initially, a decision I’ll delve into further in an upcoming portfolio section.
In product development, addressing technical debt and mitigating technical bankruptcy are paramount considerations.
Upon evaluating the existing landscape and engaging with development leads and architects, the imperative emerged: overhaul the eCommerce search engine comprehensively to facilitate effortless product discovery, ordering, and delivery for our clientele in the food industry.
Once the Vision crystallized, the focus shifted to crafting a strategy.
For me, crafting an effective Product Strategy draws heavily from Marty Cagan’s insights, particularly from svpg.com and his book “Inspired,” supplemented by my Pragmatic Marketing – Focus certification.
Strategic formulation must encompass the following pillars:
- Prioritize essential actions.
- Establish mechanisms for insights generation.
- Utilize insights to drive roadmap decisions.
- Actively manage these components while fostering team autonomy.
Below encapsulates the culmination of these principles, aligning the organizational mission and company goals with the product’s Vision and Strategy.
Organizational Mission: Facilitate company goals through an intentional eCommerce search.
Company Goals:
- Enhance order revenue.
- Optimize sales opportunity duration.
- Expand market share.
- Elevate customer service standards.
- Foster customer retention.
Vision:
Forge a robust Product Discovery and Shopping experience within our eCommerce Application, empowering diverse customer segments with seamless product exploration, swift results retrieval, extensive sorting/filtering capabilities, and adherence to eCommerce search best practices, culminating in an unparalleled shopping journey.
Strategy:
- Replace legacy search functionality with a robust Elastic Search platform.
- Enhance facet functionality to match legacy system capabilities.
- Iteratively introduce features enhancing product catalog visibility.
- Streamline search and discovery navigation for enhanced usability.
- Leverage customer data analysis to refine search algorithms.
- Capitalize on cross-product promotional synergies.
- Reduce reliance on account management for order processing.