How can AI be leveraged for customer insights? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Kaboo Founder Neha Shah, Appfire CPO Andy Boyd speaks on scaling product teams and leveraging AI to gain deeper customer insights. He discusses the role of the CPO in defining a winning product strategy across a portfolio, building high-performing teams, and putting systems in place to drive organizational effectiveness. Andy also highlights how AI can complement product management by helping teams better understand the voice of the customer through data analysis and synthesis. He provides practical advice for product managers looking to break into the field, emphasizing the importance of cultivating curiosity, connecting with product leaders, and taking advantage of training resources.
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Show Notes
- The role of the Chief Product Officer (CPO) is to define and execute a winning product strategy across a larger portfolio and time horizon.
- A key focus of the CPO is building and leading a high-performing product team. Likewise,they should implement the right systems and processes to drive organizational effectiveness.
- Andy Boyd’s non-linear path to product management started in digital marketing and engineering. He became interested in improving products based on customer feedback and data.
- AI can complement product management by helping teams better understand the voice of the customer through data analysis and synthesis.
- Moreover, leveraging AI for customer insights can enhance product analytics by instrumenting products at scale. Additionally, they can provide correlated data points to predict customer behavior and churn.
- Understanding the customer at three levels – market, customer, and user – is crucial for building the right products and communicating effectively.
- However, spending time to deeply understand the market, customers, and users is often sacrificed for operational tasks.
- Product leaders must set goals for customer interviews and allocate time for their teams to understand customers qualitatively and quantitatively.
- Cultivating curiosity, asking questions, and a desire to improve products are key traits for breaking into product management.
- In addition, connecting with product leaders in your organization and offering to help on product-related projects can be a path to gaining experience.
- Taking advantage of product management training resources, such as blogs, podcasts, and certification programs, can help build the necessary skills.
- AI is making data analysis more accessible, enabling non-experts to uncover insights without extensive training.
- The CPO role requires managing and leading senior product leaders who are driving their own strategies and teams.
- Appfire’s mission is to connect and equip teams to plan and deliver their best work through customizable apps and integrations.
- Additionally, Appfire serves knowledge workers, primarily product, development, and IT teams, across ecosystems like Atlassian, Salesforce, and Microsoft.
- As CPO, Andy Boyd is responsible for defining and executing a winning product strategy across Appfire’s portfolio of solutions.
- Successful product teams spend the right time understanding the market, customers, and users. This allows them to build the right products and communicate effectively.
- Likewise, product leaders must set goals and allocate time for their teams to deeply understand customers through qualitative and quantitative methods.
- Curiosity, a desire to improve products, and leveraging training resources are key for breaking into product management.
- Finally, connecting with product leaders in your organization and offering to help on product-related projects can be a valuable path to gaining experience.
About the speaker
Andy Boyd is Chief Product Officer of Appfire, a leading global provider of next-generation software that enhances, augments, extends, and connects the world’s leading platforms such as Atlassian, Microsoft, monday.com and Salesforce. Andy brings deep expertise in product-led growth (PLG), Cloud and AI, and leads the product organization for Appfire. Since taking on the role of CPO, Andy has scaled the product team from three product managers to a full product organization including Product Management, Growth, Design, Customer Research, and Product Ops. Prior to Appfire, Andy was part of the founding team that brought the IBM Watson (AI) platform to market, serving as the product leader for the natural language processing portfolio. He then expanded into broader leadership roles at IBM, establishing the first Growth team for IBM Watson. Based on his successes, he launched and led growth teams internationally and across multiple business areas, including within the Cloud and Quantum Computing divisions. Andy authored the Enterprise Growth Playbook, which focuses on how to build a high-performing growth team within a large enterprise.
About the host
My experience covers the trifecta of B2B Product Management, Sales, and Marketing. I also co-founded a B2C startup focused on family and education technology. I believe technology can be a creative and powerful driving force for change, and am passionate about building products that improve every day experiences.