Biggest Challenges Faced By A Group Manager Product Marketing At Cisco
Stephanie's biggest challenge as a Group Manager of Product Marketing at Cisco is aligning the disparate goals of product engineering, marketing, and sales teams; the difficulty lies in bridging the gap between these teams, who have "very different goals that don't necessarily work together," to achieve a shared objective and avoid a fragmented approach to product launches.
Project Management, Teamwork, Communication, Leadership, Overcoming Challenges
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Stephanie Sosa
Group Manager, Product Marketing
Cisco
UCLA
N/A
Anthropology, Sociology
Technology
Communication and Marketing
Greek Life Member
Video Highlights
1. Balancing competing priorities across different teams (product, engineering, marketing, sales) to achieve a unified product launch.
2. Securing necessary resources and buy-in from shared marketing teams with their own goals and timelines.
3. The challenge of fostering collaboration and communication among multiple teams with diverse objectives to achieve a shared goal.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
My biggest challenge is working with so many different teams who have very different goals that don't necessarily work together. A lot of times, product and engineering teams, for better or worse, just care about their own product development timelines.
But as a PMM, when you think about launching that into the market, you need buy-in and resourcing from your marketing teams. This is necessary to do all the cool things like emails, webinars, or blog posts.
However, those marketing teams are a shared resource with their own priorities. They have their own goals, so it's sometimes really hard to bridge the gap and make sure everyone is marching to the same beat.
Similarly, sales teams have their own goals. They are on a quota, and sometimes they need a product immediately or want an email campaign out.
The hardest part of my job is ensuring everyone listens and understands each other, and we all have a shared goal. Instead of it feeling like we're ten separate teams running around with our heads cut off and not listening to each other.