How Chief Product Officers
are Thinking Big
Top 4 Initiatives to Stimulate Growth for Software Companies
To adapt to the market's constant changes, chief product officers (CPOs) of software companies must
find ways to constantly innovate and compete. The following are four 'Think Big' ideas most CPOs are
evaluating to help drive their business forward.
For more information on how AWS is working with Software
Companies to help them compete and grow their business, please
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It is important for software companies to be able
to adapt to serve new customers to drive growth.
To do this successfully, business-to-business
CPOs must work hand-in-hand with sales
leaders to identify the best new prospects, while
business-to-consumer CPOs will need to work
closely with both marketing and sales to define
and communicate with new customer segments.
They must then ensure they have the technical
capabilities and roadmap to deliver the offerings
that will both appeal to these audiences and
meet their requirements.
One of the most difficult elements to master is
product localization. Software companies have
to understand what capabilities are necessary
or how the product must be changed or
configured to comply with local expectations
and regulations. Successfully navigating these
requirements (often by engaging specialists to
program manage the process) can spur smooth
entry into new markets and success with new
customer segments to fuel growth.
Software Companies Need to Navigate a
Labyrinth of Constantly Changing Rules and
Regulations
CPOs are preparing to manage expanding
portfolios. They are trying to find a balance
between organic growth and M&A activity to
ensure resulting capabilities can contribute in
meaningful ways to long-term success.
CPOs need to be ready for anything - companies
that have not considered M&A in the past are
most likely doing so now. PwC and Morgan
Stanley both expect deal making to be strong in
the near future, as companies try to add to their
core business and pursue larger target markets.
The success of any portfolio expansion will hinge
on objectives being clear. For example, is the goal
to attract different customers (e.g., larger, more
complex organizations) or to grow spend within
the existing customer base (e.g., via upsell or new,
adjacent opportunities)? Clear objectives enable
CPOs to set evaluation criteria that drive better
investment decisions. They can then establish
the right milestones, teams, and processes to
accelerate value derived from new capabilities.
CPOs have to help drive profitable growth
with low-cost customer acquisition, increased
retention, optimized cost of goods sold (COGS),
and enhanced R&D productivity. Bringing
down infrastructure costs can help improve the
economics of ongoing product development and
delivery, which is why many CPOs have prioritized
using a cloud platform that can provide the
simplicity, resiliency, and agility they need to
efficiently build and support their products.
Adopting product-led growth (PLG) and
analytics-led growth (ALG) strategies can also
help with these efforts. They give the business
real-time data and insights on offerings that
can be used to inform product development,
roadmaps, pricing, and packaging to reduce costs
and timelines and increase margins.
While recent tech layoffs have made headlines,
software CPOs remain focused on building the
teams that will take their business where it needs
to go. It is critical for leaders to get better in both
evaluating their team's performance and filling
the capabilities that will allow them to adapt
and capitalize on growth opportunities. (This is
the why talent, not just technology, can be an
impetus for M&A.)
Accessing and managing talent on a global
scale adds complications, but can be well worth
it; particularly if leaders can figure out how to
harness new skills and perspectives to deliver
offerings with expansive reach and impact.
Establishing a regular cadence for assessments
and a clear path for career progression can help
keep talent engaged and committed to meeting
aggressive business goals
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ONE MINUTE WHITEPAPER
1. New Customer Segments
2. Portfolio Expansion
3. Improved Margins
4. Future-proofed Teams
137 countries have
legislation in place to secure
the protection of data and privacy
Every country has
financial regulatory
authorities that govern how
transactions and financial data
needs to be handled
There are a host of industry-
specific (e.g., PCI, HIPAA, GLBA,
etc.), state and local regulations
(e.g., CCPA), and federally imposed
sanctions that could be applicable
to any offering
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are pessimistic about global economic
growth, 60% [of participants in PwC's
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software engineers has
doubled since 2020. When
surveyed on the most critical
elements of an ideal work
environment, software engineers
ranked "great managers," "flexibility
around work hours," and "coworkers
they get along with and can learn
from" as most important,
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