Sam Somashekar

Principal Analyst

Forrester Bio

Author Insights

Blog

Product Managers: Get Ready To Harness Generative AI And Drive Offering Success

Sam Somashekar September 15, 2023
There is much hype around generative AI as it continues being applied across the entire enterprise, from marketing and design to sales. How can product management get in on the action, and what can it even do to help offerings grow?
Blog

The Case For The Innovative Product Manager

Sam Somashekar May 31, 2023
More than ever, organizations are relying on digital initiatives as a key driver of growth. These include digital offerings that are used by customers as well as those leveraged by an organization’s employees. The results of Forrester’s Digital Business Strategy Survey, 2022, show that 68% of digital strategy professionals believe digital strategies have a major […]
Blog

Not All Alignment Is Equal: Achieve Alignment That Drives Growth

Dave Frankland May 31, 2023
Successful alignment is less about process and more about calibrating buyer value. Learn about the five dimensions that top organizations align on — and learn more at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America.
Blog

Congrats, You’ve Launched Your Product … Now What?

Sam Somashekar May 9, 2023
Product managers must keep an eye on the long-term prize for their offerings. Learn how — and dive deeper at Forrester's B2B Summit North America.
Blog

Supercharge Customer-Needs Discovery To Drive Customer-Obsessed Growth

Sam Somashekar April 28, 2023
Now more than ever, product managers must deeply understand their customers. With digital transformation efforts rampant, competitors coming online faster, and customer experience expectations rising, the standard practice of customer-needs discovery can’t keep up with this fast pace of change. In addition, customer demands are evolving rapidly — if you blink, you may miss them […]
Blog

Digital Product Management Drives Growth And Customer-Centricity Of Digital Offerings

Sam Somashekar April 26, 2022
Digital offerings are accelerating, and companies expect them to drive organizational growth and customer centricity. The role of digital product management and its responsibilities ensure continued long-term success of digital offerings.
Blog

The Importance Of Aligning Product Portfolio Strategy With Business Strategy

Sam Somashekar April 20, 2022
Product strategy, along with marketing and sales strategy, must be a part of the overall business strategy. That alignment is critical to ensuring product-led growth; without it, aspirations on market share or how the organization will win can be short-sighted and product teams may wonder what their role is in reaching business goals.
Blog

Four Tips For Better Product Portfolio Management

Sam Somashekar November 19, 2020
Product portfolio management is a major responsibility for product management leaders, but it’s often approached in a disjointed, ad hoc manner that can cause confusion for teams, customers, and buyers.
Blog

Three Tips for Using Design Thinking in Product Management Activities

Sam Somashekar September 11, 2020
Product managers must integrate design thinking into their product commercialization and lifecycle process to foster a customer-focused approach for offerings. Otherwise they risk being too internally focused and out of touch with the market segments they serve. Sam Somashekar shares the top three tips to help integrate design thinking principles into product management activities to ensure commercial success of your products.
Blog

Four Tips for Succeeding With Productizing Your Services

Sam Somashekar April 9, 2020
  • Many companies provide services as part of their portfolio of offerings, but few manage them with the same rigor as products
  • Companies often miss out on commercial opportunities when they offer ad hoc services and one-off implementations that could be delivered more consistently and profitably if productized
  • Organizations have the opportunity to improve the quality and profitability of their services by following the SiriusDecisions Service-as-a-Product Framework
Blog

Calling All Waterfall Product Managers — You Can Still Be Agile!

Sam Somashekar January 30, 2020
  • The premise of agile is to integrate continuous improvement of usable chunks of a project through an iterative approach
  • Opportunities to apply agile practices exist in product management even when product development operates within waterfall methodologies
  • Operationalizing agile practices will turn product management leaders into agile change agents and promote further adoption within product development