The survival of corporate firms largely depends on the quality of products it manufactures. However, there is much more to making a product profitable than simply ensuring that the product itself is of good quality. The launching of a new product in the market, the announcement of the arrival of a good in the near future, the release of the item – all these actions have to be carefully monitored in order to make a product launch a success.

There are numerous literary works dealing with corporate strategies of releasing a product in the market. However, in addition to these theoretical guidelines a Product Manager needs to be pro-active in order to successfully announce the launch of a new item. Some of the major issues that Product Managers should always consider before releasing a product are:

• Date of Launch: Before announcing a particular release date, managers have to be doubly confident that the product can make its way in the market. Even when no particular date is announced, managers should ensure that his potential customers have a rough idea of the time around which the product arrives in the market.
• Developing Internal PR Rapport: Being a Product Manager on the verge of releasing a new product does not necessarily mean everyone backs the product. The manager should use company bulletins, the Intranet, meet people, call up and attend team meetings to provide updates on what his product is all about. It helps the CEO/CFO of the firm understand the product-nature clearly, apart from providing information to other colleagues.
• Product Briefing to Sales personnel: A Product Manager has to ensure that the sales people, who would be doing the actual interaction with the customers, fully understand the product’s nature and are aware of all its facilities. This would certainly help them in selling the product better.
• Selecting Product Experts: Product Managers hardly, if ever, personally enter into negotiations with the customers of a product; this is the job of the sales team. In such a scenario, it would really help if one leader is chosen from the sales team who would be specially chosen to be trained about the product’s features. A free trial can also be given to this “product expert”, so that he can provide more information about the product to the customers.
• Questions & Feedback: The Product Manager need to be available for communication with frontline sales people and other persons related to the product. He should ideally ask for product feedbacks from as many internal personnel as possible. This would help to know if there have been any glaring faults in the product or gaping holes in the information flow regarding the product.

 

Thus, we find that the task of a product manager is manifold, even before his product(s) hits the market. Indeed, careful designing of pre-product launch strategies is a specialized job, and the person who has to monitor the entire strategy-making process before the product releases is called the Release Manager.

 

In the field of software engineering and software releases, Release Management is the new and popular concept, gainining rapidly in importance.

 

Release Managers, typically, have to face some challenges that need to be overcome before he can release a product. Some such issues facing the Release Manager are:

1. Software defects
2. Software Change Requests
3. Risks and other issues related to product launch
4. New Development Tasks
5. Packaging responsibilities,
6. Addition of new features ( new development requests)
7. Deployment and Organizational Politics

 

Indeed, the role of a Release Manager is pretty complex, with a host of responsibilities that comes with the profile. A Release Manager has to act as a:

• Facilitator – in order to ensure smooth and timely delivery of products and updates and a point of contact among different business units.
• Gatekeeper – in order to know everything about product technologies and their implementation, and be responsible for their performance.
• Server Application Support Engineer – Although the release manager need not be proficient in coding programs, he should be able to troubleshoot relevant applications.
• Coordinator – in order to be able to bring different teams, experts, theories, solutions in a single project study.

 

 Release Managers are the one who are in full charge of the Software Development Cycle. Software systems management are, typically, a cycle of development, testing and release. These processes are complex, and adding to the intricacies are the complicated platforms on which these softwares are run. The task of helping all the components of software to blend seamlessly is the sole responsibility of the Release Manager.

 

The Release Manager needs to be aware of all components of a product launch process – something that a simple project manager might not be able to do. Every aspect of the Software Development Cycle should be in his knowledge, and he should be responsible for the “grand blue-print” of launching a product.