Modern Digital Product Management: Unlocking the Engine of Efficiency

Product management is a complex discipline in today’s accelerated digital environment, with far-reaching impacts on organizational performance.

Why it matters: When it is well-orchestrated, digital product management can enhance customer satisfaction, unlock business value, foster innovation, and bolster operational efficiency.

The bottom line: Unlocking the efficiencies of modern digital product management, however, requires disciplined planning, execution, and leadership sponsorship. Companies on a digital transformation journey should keep key attributes, like customer-centricity and innovation, top of mind.

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Product management in today’s accelerated digital environment is a complex discipline with far-reaching impacts on organizational performance. In a previous blog post, we highlighted 12 key elements that differentiate modern digital product management from the traditional approach. We also shared various techniques businesses can adopt to enhance customer-centricity, agility and competitiveness.

This post dives deeper into the key attributes (or business value) of a well-orchestrated digital product management strategy and includes a case study showing how a company used this approach to achieve significant success on several fronts.

Here are the attributes that should be top of mind for companies on a digital product transformation journey:

• Architect of customer happiness: Customer expectations are constantly evolving, and businesses can stay ahead of this curve by ensuring that products are continually aligned with their needs and preferences. Successful product managers embrace this customer-centric approach to increase satisfaction and loyalty. Of course, a delighted customer not only will keep coming back; they’re also more likely to recommend the company’s product to others, amplifying customer-acquisition efforts.
• Underlying business performance driver: Success with digital product management also depends on managers leveraging their market knowledge and user insights to identify opportunities for product expansion or innovation. The product managers strategically shape and guide the product portfolio, directing investment toward higher-performing products and identifying when to sunset underperforming ones. This intense focus on building compelling and empowering products and services drives increased user engagement and profit performance.
• Catalyst for innovation: Innovation is essential in the modern digital product management environment. Today’s digital product managers must have the know-how to leverage technology and market insights to infuse innovation into product offerings, creating new avenues for business growth. They should be able to identify market gaps, foresee emerging trends and guide the development of products that not only meet current customer needs but also anticipate future ones. The ability to innovate helps businesses gain a competitive edge, keeping them on the front foot and ahead in the market.
• Champion of risk and efficiency: Through methodologies such as agile and lean, product management streamlines development processes, improving operational efficiency while ensuring alignment across functional teams. The product function ensures that resources are optimally utilized, teams collaborate harmoniously, and product outcomes are aligned with business goals. This operational efficiency translates into cost savings and improved time to market, directly impacting the business’ bottom line. Product managers are a critical first line of defense in the risk mitigation process. Through persistent market analysis, user feedback and performance tracking, they identify potential issues early on and take timely action, minimizing negative impacts on the business.

Boosting efficiency with tech upgrades

Protiviti’s work with a national health insurance carrier following a major acquisition and a period of significant rapid growth provides a great case study. This carrier was confronting multiple challenges with its digital platforms that are critical to policyholder and provider engagement.

One of the biggest challenges the company faced was its existing provider portal, which is generally used to validate eligibility and view ID cards and claims information. The legacy portal, however, offered very basic eligibility-verification features and lacked functionalities the provider base expects in today’s market. And because the company’s online portal lacked policyholder details for eligibility verification and claims management, those processes relied heavily on phone calls, straining support teams.

The process of revolving these issues began with a careful review of business requirements, market research and interviews. The technology team assessed current technologies and reviewed data and existing business processes to define the architecture and development approach. Ultimately, an updated portal was created with significant upgrades and user functionalities, demonstrating how robust digital tools can drive efficiency and scalability in a high-growth environment:

• Comprehensive portal: The new portal provided access to ID cards, detailed eligibility statuses and claims, reducing reliance on phone support.
• High adoption: The portal now serves over 65,000 unique users and 100,000 sessions monthly, far surpassing the initial projection of 1,500–2,000 users per week.
• Scalability: With 10,000-plus claims and ID cards accessed monthly, the system significantly reduced incoming customer service inquiries.
• Reliability: Customer-reported technical issues remain near zero, with most concerns relating to data quality or training rather than system failures.

Driving engagement with mobile-first messaging

The same insurance provider also sought to develop a secure messaging platform as an upgrade to its legacy system, which was hard to log in to and navigate. The platform also lacked clear branding, causing policyholder confusion and eroded trust. To resolve these challenges, the team assessed the existing secure-messaging products available and researched other solutions relevant to the health insurance industry. It was clear, however, that the market lacked options that allowed for the level of integration, automation and enhanced customer experience the company was seeking.

As the project progressed, the team’s UX designer reimagined the ideal workflow for users accessing and sending messages securely and confidently. With the prototype in hand, our clients were able to touch and feel the elevated, future experience.

The new system had an immediate impact, highlighted in the list below. More broadly, the transformed experience underscores the importance of anchoring digital solutions in user objectives and their context while staying empathetic to trust drivers, especially in mobile environments. In this case, value was clearly delivered across three attributes:

• Launch and engagement: Within the first 60 days, over 60,000 messages were sent, and the platform now averages 30,000–40,000 unique users and 50,000 sessions monthly.
• Mobile-first approach: Eighty percent of users accessed the platform via mobile devices, a significant driver for its development.
• Stability: Remarkably, the system has reported no critical customer issues since launch. Initially intended as an 18-month interim solution, it remains in place four and half years later due to its success.

The final word

Modern digital product management is more than just another function — it’s a strategic asset and an engine of efficiency. Orchestrated well, it enhances customer satisfaction, unlocks business value, fosters innovation and bolsters operational efficiency. Of course, success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes disciplined planning and execution, and persistence in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible to create products, services and experiences that are truly magical. It also requires sponsorship from business leaders recognizing the true value (or what defines success) and investing in building strong, empowered product management teams that have the tools and capabilities to fully harness its impact.