When growth stagnates: How product managers can jump out of the involution dilemma and find the second growth curve

Recently, it was unexpectedly discovered that the number of B-end product managers in the enterprise has continued to shrink in the past two years, and some experienced elderly people have been difficult to see……

The word “transform” is not new, from the perspective of enterprises and other groups, it is called turning the bow of the ship and switching tracks, and from the perspective of individuals, it is to update work skills and get out of the comfort zone.

So why transform? Most of the time, it is done passively. Enterprises cannot be in a state of rapid development for a long time, there will be a slowdown and decline if there is rapid growth, there will be a partial focus if there is a differentiated attack, and the individuals attached to it will also limit their own choices with the change of enterprise efficiency.

At this time, the internal projects are basically all the way to the green, people give people, guns to guns, and the scale of enterprise employment has also risen, and various infrastructure facilities have sprung up like mushrooms after rain…… Just like the city has money to build subways and underground cities, high-cost, long-term recycling projects must rush when growing, “spend today’s money to realize tomorrow’s dreams”, but once the economic cycle stalls, enterprises will cut back on food and clothing, reserve enough ammunition for the winter, then they will be very cautious about operating infrastructure systems or entering new tracks, so we see:

1. Enterprises continue to reduce costs:

a. The scale of enterprise employment is decreasing year by year, and it is constantly being replaced and cleared

b. The scale of traditional ERP and SaaS service-oriented enterprises such as Yonyou and Weimob is shrinking day by day

2. Intensified involution at the individual level:

The outside desperately wanted to squeeze into the siege, and the people in the siege could not get out, so that they formed islands…… It creates a very illiquid labor market

To achieve these three challenges, product managers will only continue to appreciate
Good product managers are very scarce, and product managers who understand users, business, and data are still in demand when they go out of the Internet. On the contrary, if you only do simple communication, inefficient execution, and shallow thinking, I am afraid that you will not be able to go through the torrent of the next 3-5 years.

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However, genes determine that when people face danger, it is impossible to turn a blind eye, and they must do something to forget the pessimism, and most people’s choice is to work overtime, which has caused a vicious circle of intensified involution and enterprises seeing that labor costs can be further compressed. So are there any other countermeasures besides the overtime option? I think the path is:

1) Make adjustments in mentality;

2) Undertake the pressure of transformation in advance

I would like to express my understanding from the perspective of the financial product group:

The former has entered the game with the wave of enterprise financial information infrastructure, strong in having complete experience in traditional supply chain projects, but lacks a deep understanding of the Internet business/product model and 0-1, while the latter has experienced the era of high concurrency and speed play, and is more familiar with traffic play. However, the problems encountered by these two groups are the same, but the difficulty and motivation of transformation brought about by their respective mindsets are different (the former is more inclined to heavy and deep logic, more biased to the perspective of technology implementation, and weaker business perception), the specific problems are as follows:

1. Not directly linked to the business: mainly horizontal support, after the maturity of the enterprise model and the completion of informatization, financial products will rarely become the card point for the promotion of new projects, but because of the absence of business execution of the product chain, and with strong professionalism and capital loss risk, it is difficult to be paid attention to by the business, can only rely on a single single group, user value cannot be scaled, and then limit the planning space of the product, of course, the benefits are also more obvious, the cost of the middle office is in the group, and it is difficult to be paid attention to at the first time when the cost is optimized;
2. Not deeply involved in the selection of business product solutions: Because of the weak connection with the business, the requirements are often submitted to the horizontal support team after the plan is selected, and the time reserved for them is short, which can easily evolve into mechanical resource scheduling.
3. Product play is fragmented: when enterprises formulate annual budgets, they must clearly explain their model value (growth, profitability, at least one of them), otherwise it is difficult to get resources, and the cost of production and technology is naturally an important part of the business budget, so in this case, the positioning of the production and technology function becomes very clear: the service business, and the business is prosperous, so the fast response and the provision of a complete landing plan are the core demands of the business to the production and technology team, and the traditional slow heavy path play of the middle office is obviously not adaptable” The fundamental reason is the pain caused by the mismatch between the transformation of the front desk business style and the transformation of functional lines (time has passed, and the large infrastructure of the middle office is an opportunity given to individuals by the times and enterprises, which is hard to find);

So how can individuals solve these problems?

1. First of all, objectively look at the downward cycle, everyone’s situation in the cycle is different, some people happen to stand outside the house when the “house collapses”, and the accident will naturally delay the window;
2. Second, accept transformation or take the initiative to change. The transformation of the vast majority of people comes from external drives, especially in large enterprises, there is no division of the upper organizational structure, and the transformation of individuals means changing BU, changing work fields, which is equivalent to changing jobs for the second time;

The more stable “moderate transformation” that I personally think of is as follows:

1. Bring “qualifications” into the group: empower the business with professional field knowledge (empower old vocabulary, but can’t find a better vocabulary), and the measurement criteria of empowerment: first, do not become a card point for project promotion; the second is to prepare the plan in advance, predict his prediction, reflect professionalism, and the essence is pre-support (it is difficult for individuals to promote, but the industry and technology must work together, and the organization must also support it);
2. Cross-domain collaboration ability: From zero point to the beginning, cross the boundary of the field, actively learn, and slowly cultivate the ability to collaborate and implement. I believe that people who have worked for more than 5 years have their own set of methodologies, just like throwing you into the primeval forest, each person has a different way of escape, each shows their magical powers, but in the final analysis, people have to hone in the matter, in the project to experience the feeling of being difficult, challenged, and questioned, so that you can go from a state of confusion to ignorance, from understanding to mastery to mastery in tension…… In short, don’t say that it is meaningless to do things that have not been done, growth is never linear from point to point, you must experience the process.
3. Continue to consolidate professional capabilities and make up for shortcomings. The author has indeed seen products with sufficient financial professional knowledge and strong awareness of domain modeling, whether they are transformed or not, how to transform are hard currency, and there is a tendency to become a basic ability, and the standard is to have their own understanding and be able to fully express it to others.

Financial domain products, for practitioners, have a certain threshold, coupled with heavy logic, high risk and product post-positioning, which has created a stable demand for enterprise labor and a scarcity of the group (the first choice for the new generation of personnel, who will do B-end products), but this is not a reason to lie flat, nor is it an inducement for ineffective involution, strengthening oneself, continuous learning, and finding the reason for one’s excitement is the real direction of advancement.

To put it another way, what kind of person you want to be, many times it is not you who decides, but the environment determines, the environment stimulates you, if you are so strong, do not admit defeat, can eventually transmit to your own behavior change, then you can become the person you don’t want to be. I hope everyone can look at anxiety calmly and get out of the downward cycle!