RALEIGH – Companies spend a lot of money building software but in the end, it’s estimated that around 80 percent of product features are “rarely or never used.”
That has many of them reconsidering the metrics for success, according to Pendo, the unicorn ($1 billion value) software services firm based in Raleigh.
“This year’s survey shows that product leaders are leaning into this challenge, with product adoption and usage now ranking the most important metrics of product success,” Pendo said Tueday.
“This is a marked change over the two prior surveys, in which product leaders were more likely to measure success by features shipped.”
The Raleigh-based cloud tech startup today released its third annual State of Product Leadership study, a report that shows the evolution of the discipline of product management in today’s digital economy.
The rise of the CPO
The continued rise of the chief product officer is among the other main takeaways.
“The greatest shift over the last three years has been in the percentage of product teams who report into a product function, presumably led by a CPO or equivalent,” the report noted. “Though gradual over the prior two surveys, the change is definitive this year, with 53 percent of respondents now reporting into product. Marketing, meanwhile, has gone from first to last in likely reporting lines for product managers over the same three-year period.”
This year’s report, produced in partnership with Product Collective, is based on a survey of 600 technology product management executives and managers from software and enterprise companies. The study is increasingly global in scope, with respondents representing companies in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France and Germany.
“State of Product Leadership has become an annual tradition for Pendo and Product Collective,” said Jake Sorofman, CMO of Pendo, in a statement. “This year’s study is bigger and better than ever before, with twice the sample size, a broader geographic reach, and some of the most directionally interesting findings we’ve seen on the outlook for a discipline that is undergoing both elevation in stature and importance and rapid change in responsibility and accountability.”
