Building The B2B Portfolio Architecture

During the discover stage of Forrester’s Product Marketing And Management Model, product managers must “fit” a new offering into a broader portfolio architecture. Creating a hierarchical mapping of products and solutions under the organization’s master brand is critical to this process step. Organizations may use one or more of four key architecture models: product/service, vertical solution, horizontal solution, and hybrid.

While product management frequently creates individual roadmaps for a specific product or solution, it is also responsible for the organization’s B2B portfolio architecture process, which rationalizes how all current and planned products and solutions not only fit together but connect to the overall brand and go-to-market strategy. In this report, we present the most common types of B2B portfolio architectural models and describe the components, characteristics, and considerations of each.