Spectro Cloud completed a $75 million Series C funding round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives with participation from existing Spectro Cloud investors.
Only 55% of all product launches take place on schedule, according to the 2019 product manager survey from Gartner.
Product managers who typically launch on time are more likely to meet their internal targets within a year of launch. For the 45% of product launches that are delayed, 20%, on average, fail to meet their internal targets.
“A product launch that meets all internal targets is seldom achieved. The survey showed that only 11% of organizations reported that all of their products met 100% of defined internal launch targets,” said Adrian Lee, Senior Research Director at Gartner. “Product managers who run late with product launches need to be keenly aware that this situation will directly increase the risk of increasing the failure rates.”
A product may not launch in the scheduled time frame due to several factors, including:
■ lack of formal launch processes
■ delays in product development (bugs, errors, feature creep)
■ failure to meet customer requirements
■ product quality or even supply problems
Successful product managers can sometimes mitigate these issues ensuring an on-time launch. Product managers can evaluate the effectiveness of their product management strategy and organization using the Gartner Product Score for Product Management, a strategic planning tool for product management leaders. This tool allows product managers to determine where improvements will add value and top establish a plan to advance the organization.
Product managers largely see themselves as responsible for managing the launch of and creating the strategy around products. 46% of product managers said they are responsible for managing the planning, development and introduction phases of a product, while 39% of survey respondents said creating a product strategy and planning and building product roadmaps were key responsibilities.
However, the survey found that 78% of product managers who viewed improving collaboration internally as one of their top three roles, experienced low product failure rates. Technology and service provider (TSP) organizations that don’t make collaboration a priority for their product managers may be jeopardizing product success.
“The product manager role is one of the most cross-functional in the organization. This is especially true at the product introduction phase when other functions such as marketing, sales, sales enablement and finance come into play,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, Senior Research Director at Gartner. “However, the survey showed that fewer than 20% of organizations see their product managers as driving innovation or improving collaboration within the company.”
Product managers seeking to collaborate to drive business should ensure they communicate their product vision and roadmap across all the other stakeholders in the company. This should happen early on and repeatedly in the product life cycle to allow for possible revisions based on feedback gathered from stakeholders.
Industry News
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, has announced significant momentum around cloud native training and certifications with the addition of three new project-centric certifications and a series of new Platform Engineering-specific certifications:
Red Hat announced the latest version of Red Hat OpenShift AI, its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) platform built on Red Hat OpenShift that enables enterprises to create and deliver AI-enabled applications at scale across the hybrid cloud.
Salesforce announced agentic lifecycle management tools to automate Agentforce testing, prototype agents in secure Sandbox environments, and transparently manage usage at scale.
OpenText™ unveiled Cloud Editions (CE) 24.4, presenting a suite of transformative advancements in Business Cloud, AI, and Technology to empower the future of AI-driven knowledge work.
Red Hat announced new capabilities and enhancements for Red Hat Developer Hub, Red Hat’s enterprise-grade developer portal based on the Backstage project.
Pegasystems announced the availability of new AI-driven legacy discovery capabilities in Pega GenAI Blueprint™ to accelerate the daunting task of modernizing legacy systems that hold organizations back.
Tricentis launched enhanced cloud capabilities for its flagship solution, Tricentis Tosca, bringing enterprise-ready end-to-end test automation to the cloud.
Rafay Systems announced new platform advancements that help enterprises and GPU cloud providers deliver developer-friendly consumption workflows for GPU infrastructure.
Apiiro introduced Code-to-Runtime, a new capability using Apiiro’s deep code analysis (DCA) technology to map software architecture and trace all types of software components including APIs, open source software (OSS), and containers to code owners while enriching it with business impact.
Zesty announced the launch of Kompass, its automated Kubernetes optimization platform.
MacStadium announced the launch of Orka Engine, the latest addition to its Orka product line.
Elastic announced its AI ecosystem to help enterprise developers accelerate building and deploying their Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) applications.
Red Hat introduced new capabilities and enhancements for Red Hat OpenShift, a hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, as well as the technology preview of Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed.
Traefik Labs announced API Sandbox as a Service to streamline and accelerate mock API development, and Traefik Proxy v3.2.