ZIGZAG Marketing Launches Interactive Product Management Framework

Drives Stronger Market Focus and Eliminates Product Silos

ATLANTA : ZIGZAG Marketing, Inc., a product management training and consulting firm, announced version 2.0 of its product management framework. Designed to drive greater market focus and alignment across the entire organization, ZIGZAG’s framework eliminates individual product silos that can impede growth and consume an abundance of resources.

ZIGZAG Marketing’s new framework is a great fit for companies with multiple product lines that have evolved organically or through acquisition. The new framework places more emphasis on determining the most lucrative target markets for the organization as a whole, then determining the product mix for each segment to deliver higher value solutions in a repeatable fashion.

“Most companies today have multiple product lines, each with its own plans that often conflict with others as well as the overall sales and marketing strategy. As a result, companies burn resources unnecessarily and leave significant revenue on the table, something they can ill afford to do in today’s economic climate,” said John Mansour, Managing Partner of ZIGZAG Marketing. “ZIGZAG’s new framework will help these companies develop sustainable revenue streams by viewing markets collectively and developing a corporate strategy and product roadmap that aligns the entire organization around the most worthwhile markets,” added Mansour. Subsequent execution of product release cycles will be far less onerous for everyone.

“ZIGZAG’s framework has helped us align product plans and company goals to our target markets and justify our product investments,” said Brian Summers, Senior Vice President at CNC Software, a software provider to CAD/CAM manufacturing markets. “Having the why factor and buy-in across the board really helps move things forward in a smooth manner so that plans aren’t continually questioned or challenged along the way,” added Summers.

ZIGZAG Marketing’s framework answers the what, why, who, how and when questions and guides companies through five phases that result in higher value solutions over individual products.

1. Assess Markets – Viewing the market through the lens of a product is incomplete at best. Viewing markets at face value drives the product, marketing, sales and operational investment mix according to the most worthwhile markets in both the short and long term.

2. Create a Strategy – Align sales, marketing, product, operations and people around market priorities. Everyone aims for the same target and the organization achieves better results faster.

3. Plan Product Releases – Gain economies of scale with aggregate planning across multiple product lines. The result is higher impact solutions and better utilization of engineering, development and marketing resources.

4. Design & Develop Products – Product usability has a bigger impact on top line revenue than anyone realizes. Get it right the first time and turn your customers into your strongest sales and marketing tool.

5. Rollout & Launch Products – To be great at marketing, selling and delivering products you have, the product team must successfully transfer knowledge to sales, marketing, services, support and operations so they can focus on the next set of priorities with fewer disruptions.

ZIGZAG’s framework is the foundation for its training and consulting services and targets the following market segments:

* Business & Information Services
* Financial Services
* Healthcare
* High Technology
* Manufacturing
* Telecom